India International Knit Fair will be held in Tirupur, February 17 to 19, 2020. The aim is to promote business development in the Indian knitwear industry. The trade show will feature a wide array of men’s women’s, and children’s readymade knitwear and aims to create a platform from which to discuss upcoming knitwear trends, link businesses together, and promote the Indian knitwear industry. The business-to-business trade show caters to manufacturers, buyers from both India and abroad, wholesalers, and designers, among others. This is a platform for building contacts, developing business prospects, working on major tie-ups and partnerships.

Tirupur is the knitwear capital of India. The share of Tirupur knitwear exports in India’s total garment exports is 20 per cent. More than 80 per cent of the industries in this sector are medium and small scale. This is the right time for the knitwear sector to capture the market that’s leaving China, due to an increase in cost of manufacturing. The best of the brand leaders, stores, wholesalers, importers identify Tirupur as one of the major sources for the consumer’s requirements. IIKF has emerged as one among the most reputed knitwear trade fairs in the world. It aims to showcase end-to-end products pertaining to the knitwear segment.

Ralph Lauren, the American fashion brand, has successfully piloted a new fast track model that takes only 16 days to execute a sweatshirt from design to development. The company is continuously making efforts to shorten its lead time from design to shelf. Moreover, it aims to have more than 50 per cent of its product on lead time of 6 months or less.

The model was an experiment to see the output. Leveraging its investment in digital product development, the brand designed, produced and delivered exclusive fleece sweaters to a key wholesale customer in just 16 days. The product was manufactured in Mainland China.

Moreover, the company is working to move almost 80 per cent of sports shirts on to 6 months or less. Since last two years, the fashion firm is also diversifying its supply chain to make it less dependent on any one market.

Exports of Turkish textile and raw materials in 2019 decreased 5.5 per cent compared to the previous year. The share of textile and raw material exports in total exports decreased from 5.9 per cent to 5.5 per cent.

In 2019, the main export market for Turkish textile and raw material was 28 EU countries. Despite 8.2 per cent decrease, the share of textile exports to these markets was 49.9 per cent. Exports to the former Eastern Bloc increased 5.9 per cent. African countries ranked third among the biggest export markets. Exports to these countries decreased by 1.7 per cent.

Woven fabrics were the most important product group of textile and raw materials exports in 2019. Exports of woven fabrics, which account for 23.5 per cent of textile and raw material exports, decreased by 6.6 per cent compared to the previous year. Yarn exports decreased by 6.1 per cent. Home textiles constitute 15.9 per cent of the textile sector’s exports. This group’s exports increased 1.8 per cent. The share of fiber in total textile exports decreased from 13.7 to 6.4 per cent. Denim fabric exports decreased 11.5 per cent.

For the third quarter Welspun’s net profit went up 50 per cent. Welspun’s emerging businesses collectively continue to grow by around 30 per cent. The company continues to build on a differentiation strategy based on branding, innovation and sustainability. The flooring business reached 50 distributors and 450 dealers, pan-India. Welspun believes its flooring business will be a game-changer in India. The business will offer stone polymer composite luxury performance tiles, carpet tiles, wall-to-wall carpets and artificial grass. This will provide convenience and customisation to customers and stakeholders such as contractors and distributors. The company’s flooring plant in Hyderabad is spread over 27 million sq. mt. The new vertical is expected to generate sales of around Rs 100 crores in the current financial year. The tile market in India is worth Rs 35,000 crores. Flooring business is expected to help Welspun grow in double digits.

Welspun is the world’s largest maker of terry towels. Welspun is going into advanced textiles.The big bet on advanced textiles includes making disposable towels out of non-woven textiles and filters for the auto and power sector. Advanced textiles will broadbase Welspun’s clientele by adding sectors such as auto, healthcare and FMCG. The company is known for bed sheets and towels and has introduced reversible bed sheets and quick-dry towels.

Australian brand Outland Denim has been shortlisted for the Stop Slavery Award in the small and medium business category. The brand, founded in 2011, is committed to fighting human trafficking and modern slavery. The founder of the brand was inspired by the film Taken, in which an ex-CIA agent races to rescue his daughter from a human trafficking operation. He was so moved by the plot that he set out to combat the practice with his own business. Outland has an emphasis on hiring workers who have been affected by slavery and human trafficking—each paid a living wage.

Since its founding in 2015, the Stop Slavery Awards have expanded, with six new categories announced for 2020 that awards journalists, grassroots organizations and NGOs for their work in the field of human trafficking and slavery prevention. Previous award winners include companies like Apple, Intel, Adidas and Unilever. The award identifies industry leaders in corporate reporting, performance management, business partner engagement, risk assessment, investigation and remediation. The ultimate winner for each category of the Stop Slavery Award will be determined by a panel of judges including human rights activists, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, criminal lawyers and industry experts. These winners will be announced on February 20.

Project Women’s was held in the US from February 5 to 7, 2020. Denim brands demonstrated how women are expanding their denim wardrobes. There’s more to the jean’s wear market than skinny, and brands backed this with collections that offer looser fits, sartorial details and fashion colors. Collections reflected how women are warming up to new fits. Known for its bestselling flare jeans, Rolla’s, based in Australia, introduced its iconic straight leg and duster bootcut fits in blue, black and faded red. Moving away from basic skinny jeans, Blank offered fashion-forward styles like bootcut and straight fits with waist detailing. Paper-bag waists, pleating and yoking were especially popular with the looser silhouettes. Kut from the Kloth, a denim brand known for its core skinny fits—branched out into more creative styles. The brand provided an array of looser styles, from straight legs to kick flares and wide legs in fall colorways. Warm browns like whiskey and cognac dominated the range while subtle prints like faded leopard and cheetah prints elevated otherwise basic high-rise skinny jeans. The brand also experimented with intricate hem details such as crystal fringe, deconstruction, and step and tulip hems.

Hems were a focal point for Yoga Jeans, too, which featured different styles of jeans with a raw-edge hem.

Brands in France want to improve their textile traceability. Transparency has gained traction, becoming a primary concern for brands that had previously emphasized sustainable or recycled materials and the disuse of harmful fur and leather. Accountability has come into apparel sourcing, which includes concerns for textile supply. Brands have identified social and environmental priorities. Beyond textiles, brands have struggled with the human aspect, casting child labor, forced labor and workplace safety.

Brands are primarily interested in the use of chemical products, harmful to human beings and the environment alike. This criterion has a strong lead, with much more sway compared to water consumption, transportation optimization for goods or the question of greenhouse gas emissions. Chemical use is of main interest, since it could protect consumers from the direct effects of carcinogenic products, for example.

Retailers now want to do away with the bulimic nature of supply, which nevertheless prevails on orders. Brands no longer want to take risks and now only order what they are near-certain to sell. They are more cautious, measured and less committed at the start of the season. For 2020, about 35 per cent of brands want to reinforce their short-term sourcing, compared to the 65 per cent who wish to maintain their share of orders.

The Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia plans to suspend operations in some factories due to the outbreak of Coronavirus. Reports suggest around 42,000 Coronavirus cases have been confirmed globally, including 40,235 in China. Of these, 1,000 people have died since the outbreak was first detected in Wuhan city in China’s Hubei province in December.

Wuhan is in lockdown and other parts of China have been affected by the virus as Chinese authorities continue in their efforts to prevent the virus from spreading. Many suppliers have temporarily halted production in the country as Over 60 percent of raw materials used in garment and textile factories in the Kingdom are imported from China. These suppliers will not be able to provide raw materials to factories in Cambodia till the end of February or March.

The European Commission is currently reviewing the Kingdom’s EBA preferential trade status due to perceived setbacks to human rights and democracy following the dissolution of the CNRP and the arrest of its former leader Kem Sokha over a treason charge in 2017. The European Parliament, the Commission has to decide by February 2020 whether or not to suspend Cambodia’s EBA privileges fully or in part. Whatever the outcome, suspension would finally come into effect six months later, by August 2020.

A new show for digital textile printing applications will debut at Drupa, Germany, from June 16 to 26, 2020. This is a new special show for digital textile printing applications. The textile industry is opening up cross-sectional technologies for numerous sectors — Touchpoint textile will bring these companies together, offering space for cross-sector cooperation, new projects as well as product and manufacturing ideas that will be vividly realized in a micro factory on site. The micro factory will demonstrate how digital textile printing, cutting and color management can be integrated in a fully connected production environment. A variety of products, such as flags, T-shirts and bags, will be fabricated hot off the press each day. The special show also represents the increasing establishment of Drupa in new markets, which, in addition to textile printing, includes packaging, large format printing, industrial and functional printing.

Drupa is the world’s leading trade fair for printing technologies. Digital textile printing will also be an important part of the exhibitors' range of products and services beyond the Touchpoint textile special show. Drupa visitors are thus guaranteed a 360-degree view of current developments and trends in textile printing.

Digital textile printing has emerged as a driving force of innovation and growth for new business areas within the print industry.

Union Street, based in Ireland, will open a yarn spinning factory in India. The target is to spin half of its yarn requirements by April 2020, thereby reducing the company’s exposure to Chinese yarn manufacturers, who increased prices substantially in the early part of 2018. The group's production capacity at its spinning factory will be increased in order to produce all of its yarn requirements by the end of the financial year April 2021. Union Street, which sells more than 90 per cent of its wares outside either the UK or Europe to major worldwide conglomerates, saw its profit after tax almost halve. But over the year its staff numbers increased from 653 to 683, most of them operating at factories in India.

The company, founded in the halcyon days of the linen trade in the north, is primarily now involved in weaving, dyeing and finishing of linen and linen cotton fabrics, for sale to the clothing sector. Sales rose by 19 per cent in the year to last April.

Union Street is privately company owned and has demonstrated sustained year-on-year organic growth, profit and financial stability. The company has a policy of continual product development, investing an average of 35 per cent of revenues back into R&D to ensure that the product portfolio is always at the leading edge of technological innovation.