The denim industry has a long way to go before it becomes fully traceable despite tremendous progress achieved in this area. The industry provides information only on the operations of garment manufacturers, fabric weavers, yarn spinners and cotton farmers, says a Sourcing Journal report. Another report titled #WhoMadeMyCotton by denim consultant Anne Oudard, Founder, Simply Suzette and Abu Wells, Sustainable Denim Specialist and Marzia Lantranchi, Founder, Cotton Diaries surveyed 10 global mills and spinners to understand the reasons for difficulties in obtaining this data. The reason the report gives is the unwillingness of brands and suppliers to ask for this data. This report highlights the traceability initiatives of companies like Artistic Milliners, Bossa, Soorty Enterprises, Interloop, Pure Denim, Global Denim, Orta Anadolu, AGI Denim, Candiani Denim and Cone Denim.

Finding traceability solutions

Different countries have achieved different levels of traceability. The US and Brazil are helping denim mills trace the fiber back to the gin or farm through Permanent Bale Identification (PBI) numbers. Other regions like West Africa and Tanzania offer little to no traceability information. Denim made with different fiber types are more difficult to trace. Often, mills withhold information from brands on fiber origins as this may lead to consumers questioning the quality of the garment.

Middlemen such as cotton brokers, agents and merchants make the supply chain more opaque by working with various mills at a time to secure the best rates. To improve traceability, mills are taking proactive steps to find solutions to this issue. Some of these initiatives being introduced include:

Promoting visibility across supply chain

Artistic Milliners has launched the Milliner Organic Project to promote visibility and workers’ rights across the entire cotton supply chain. The direct-to-farm sourcing model adopted by the company makes tracing supply chain easier and creates safe markets for farmers. Working with over 2,000 farmers across 9,300 acre, the project supports the transition of farmers to organic cotton.

Farmers involved in the project have already benefitted with their crop being awarded the third-party certificates, higher yield and reliable support. The crop will be first used by Bestseller’s apparel brand Jack & Jones in its new denim collection scheduled to be launched in December.

Introducing organic farming practices

Meanwhile Soorty has launched the Soorty Organic Cotton Initiative (SOCI developed in partnership with WWF-Pakistan, the Department of Agriculture Extension, Balochistan, and Laudes Foundation. The initiative enables Soorty to introduce organic farming practices to farmers in Balochistan and enhance their standard of living. Others denim mills such as Bossa Denim, Candiani Denim and Interloop, have also launched projects to ensure the well-being of farmers and enhance transparency across the supply chain.

Identifying natural elements in cotton

In 2020, Cone Denim partnered a product and supply-chain traceability specialist Oritain to identify ‘origin footprints’ through forensic science and statistics. The company detected naturally occurring elements in cotton by merging forensic science with statistics. It achieved an inherent footprint specific to each through soil composition and other environmental factors.

Candiani has developed a patented hybrid seed known as the Blue Seed, to produce an extra-long tailor-made fiber produced with less water. The brand aims to develop more such seeds in future.

Bangladesh plans to lift the requirement of double fumigation for importing cotton from the United States (US) on case-to-case basis - after getting the field-level inspection report from agri officials, sources said.

The cotton fumigation procedure will be monitored by a team of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) officials. The withdrawal of double-fumigation of cotton had been requested by the United States long back.

The US hadalso requested for the consideration certificates of accredited labs stating that the cotton is free of Boll Weevil, an insect whose larva can remain alive in cotton for nearly 11 months even after fumigation.

The US has been arguing that double fumigation of cotton has financial involvement, and it is also a time-consuming process, which discourages Bangladeshi millers to import cotton from America.

China plans to increase duty benefits to Bangladesh, allowing free access to one percentage point more Bangladeshi products to its market in order to reduce the trade imbalance between the two countries.

As per a Daily Star report, around 97 per cent of goods produced in Bangladesh were granted duty-free access in July 2020. The package covers nearly 9,000 Bangladeshi goods.

The proposed 98 per cent will cover more than 9,000 locally produced goods. However, the duty benefit will cease to exist once Bangladesh makes the status graduation from a least developed country to a developing one in 2026. However, it could be retained through a trade deal.

The tariff free quota will be expanded by 1 percentage point as soon as possible, said Li Jiming, Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh.

Worth $115.9 billion in 2020, the sportswear market in Europe is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 6 per cent from 2020-25, as per a report by the Europe Sportswear Market Research Report offered by GlobalData Plc.

As per the report, the sportswear market in Europe was dominated by offline sales in 2020. Clothing, footwear and accessories specialists were the leading distribution channels in the market during the year, followed by online specialists and other online retailers. Nike, Adidas, and Decathlon were the top brands in Europe’s sportswear.

GlobalDatais involved in collecting and analyzing data to create comprehensive, authoritative, and granular intelligence on a global scale. The company leverages the collective expertise of its in-house research analysts, consultants, and data scientists, as well as thousands of external industry thought-leaders.

Hosted in the Royal Opera House, Copenhagen, on June 07-08, 2022 the Copenhagen Fashion Summit convened over 900 leaders from brands, retailers, NGOs, policy, manufacturers, and innovators to drive urgent action. The Summit was presented by Global Fashion Agenda (GFA), the non-profit organization that is accelerating the transition to a net positive fashion industry, under the patronage of HRH The Crown Princess of Denmark.

The Summit was centred around the theme ‘Alliances for a New Era’. Under the theme, the event brought together leaders to foster pre-competitive collaboration within the fashion industry and examined atypical cross-industry alliances, in a bid to accelerate the transition to a net positive industry.

The content was designed to be the boldest yet and focused on challenging topics and honest discussions with more diverse voices. The programme covered topics from ‘What even is a sustainable brand?’ to ‘subverting fashion’s historical exclusion’, to ‘supercharged storytelling’ to the ‘metaverse impact and decentralized futures’.

One of the region’s top employers, Asian garment makers are h facing mounting losses for some time with some small units even suspending operations, rendering thousands of workers jobless. Yet to recover from the sharp rise in freight and fuel prices, garment makers in Asia have been further hit by a spike in cotton prices with their global customers refusing to absorb the price rise.

A few garment manufacturers are replacing cotton with cheaper synthetic fabrics to sustain operations. They factories are running at full capacity but without profits, says Siddiqur Rahman, Managing Director, Sterling Group, a Dhaka-based supplier to H&M and Gap.

Global cotton prices surge

Garment makers woes have aggravated due to the uncertain demand outlook from Europe amid the Russia-Ukraine war, says a International Business Times report. Struggling to fulfill orders from the last three months, small apparel makers in India have stopped taking new orders, explains Ashok Juneja, President, Textile Association of India. They are struggling to fulfill orders from the last three months as cotton prices have more than doubled in a year after rains hit harvest.

Reaching their highest levels since 2011, global cotton prices rose 70 per cent in May with further increases predicted amid damaged crop due to a draught in the US, and higher demand from China with the easing of COVID curbs. With buyers refusing to raise prices, garment makers face uncertain summer demand, especially in Europe, adds Ravi Sam, Managing Director, Adwaith Textiles, an Indian exporter. Spinning mills in Southern India have stopped producing yarn and procuring raw cotton, says the South India Spinners Association.

Synthetic fibers over raw cotton

Asian garment makers are currently facing stifled demand amid China’s COVID-curbs and higher fuel prices. A four-fold increase in shipping costs from pre-pandemic levels and the refusal of global brands to absorb these costs is adding to their woes, notes Rahman.

To cut costs, a few mills are opting for synthetic fibres over raw cotton. They are increasing the ratio of polyester in their spinning mills, adds Rogers Varner, President, Varner Brokerage. However, manufacturers are bound by contractual commitments to use certain types of fabrics and cannot swap so easily, says Louis Barbera, Partner and Analyst, VLM Commodities.

Analysts predict, cotton cost may not ease soon as they continued to rise even amid strict lockdowns in China, and are expected to rise as the country resumes purchases. The industry uses about 400,000 tons of Xinjiang cotton every month, half of year-ago levels, the trader added. However, the lockdowns in China are triggering demand to spike. The hot weather in Texas is also helping cotton producers boost prices, adds Barbera. A time may come when people may stop buying cotton, warns Keith Brown, Principal, Keith Brown and Co.

As per IMARC Group’s latest research report, titled “Baby Apparel Market:Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity, and Forecast 2022-2027, the global baby apparel market is expected to grow t a CAGR of 5.56 per cent during 2022-2027.

The global market is majorly driven by increasing birth rates. In line with this, rising social media influence and changing fashion trends are significantly contributing to the market growth. Furthermore, bio-sensor-based baby apparel is gaining traction in the market, owing to its ability to quickly detect various activities of the infant, thus catalyzing the market growth. Apart from this, easy access to apparel and accessories, coupled with the infrastructural development of retail stores, is propelling the market growth. Moreover, the increasing number of working women has increased their purchasing power, which has resulted in greater demand for designer clothes for toddlers. Additionally, the rising trend of baby photoshoots is providing a boost to the market growth.

The overall business atmosphere in Bihar has improved drastically in the last few years and the state is now getting many proposals from big investors and reputed companies, said Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister, addressing an investors’ meet after launching the Bihar Textile and Leather Policy for 2022. He also assured the investors all possible assistance from the administration and the state government.

The CM further said, his government would ensure that Bihar becomes the top destination for investors in different sectors in the coming years.

The government is currently working in various sectors, especially ethanol production, textile and leather, to attract investors in a big way, added Yadav while lauding state's industry minister Syed ShahnawazHussain for creating awareness among the investors about the facilities provided by the state government.

Investors are frequently arriving in the state with investment proposals. Such a turnaround happened mainly because of the consistent efforts of the industry minister, he added.

The textile and leather policy envisages capital investment subsidy up to Rs10 crore as well as freight subsidy up to Rs10 lakh per year.The power tariff for such units will be Rs2 per unit in order to provide competitive electricity rate to the industries to set up units in the state, he said

The new policy is aimed at opening doors for new textile and leather industries in Bihar. The state government has made several provisions for various types of incentives, including capital investment, employment generation, power tariff and skill development subsidies, Yadav said.

Highlighting the crisis faced by the industry, Raja M Shanmugham, President, The Tiruppur Exporters’ Association (TEA) has urged NirmalaSitharaman, Union Minister of Finance to announce Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) 5.0 for garment sector.

Addressing the increase in policy repo rate by 50 bps to 4.90 per cent, Shanmugham said the central bank has taken the decision mainly to ensure the inflation remains within the target, while supporting growth.

However expressing apprehension he said that the increase of interest rates by banks will further impact the sustenance of MSMEs in Tiruppur Cluster.

He also emphasized on the protection of lakhs of jobs associated with MSMEs, out of which 65 per cent are women workers hailing from rural areas.

TEA has sought an immediate intervention to address the liquidity crisis issue and bring back the Value Added Tirupur Knitwear Garment Sector into a normal business mode, gain confidence and sustain in the business.

On June 7, Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing announced plans to raise prices of fleece and jacket in the Fall/Winter by as much as $7.54. As per a report by The Street, the company has been forced to raise priced due to increasing production costs. Currently, the hike is only effective in Uniqlo’s Japan stores. However, other brands across the globe are also raising prices. For instance, Ireland-based Primark, the retail subsidiary of Associated British Foods plans to raise prices of its Fall/Winter collection.

Similarly, British fast fashion brand Next increased prices by 8.5 per cent for fashion items while the prices for certain Zara items were raised by 10 per cent, as per a UBS Research report. The prices of H&M were also hiked by 10 per cent for certain items in March.

However, despite rise in prices, these chains continue to remain significantly more affordable than next rank in affordability. The prices of a Levi’s jeans have increased to $70 a pair without discounts while the prices of a Gap shirt start at $50. Currently apparel and footwear costs have increased 6.8 per cent from 2021, as per data from the Labor Department.

Sales at apparel stores rose by 11.2 per cent over the prior year, well above the prevailing rate of inflation for the category, says Neil Saunders, Managing Director, GlobalData. A lot of these sales were driven by consumers preparing their wardrobes for the spring and summer seasons.