Vietnam’s exports to Eastern Europe account for nearly three per cent of its exports. The potential not with standing, Vietnam has difficulties in exporting to Eastern Europe, including payment issues, inconsistent regulations in these countries, small size of orders, and lack of market information. Eastern Europe is Vietnam’s traditional and important market. The two sides have created solid legal frameworks for bilateral co-operation. Eastern European markets offer great potential to exporters given their relatively high GDP growth and less stringent quality requirements compared to western European countries.

The proposed EU-Vietnam free trade agreement would further boost trade between Vietnam and Eastern European countries, especially key Vietnamese exports such as seafood and vegetables, fresh and processed fruits, electronics and electronic components, textiles and footwear.

Trade between Vietnam and Russia is up 16.4 per cent from 2017 and 58 per cent from 2016. While Russian exports to Vietnam are growing faster every year, in Vietnam’s case it is slowing down. A change in Russian consumption habits and the less competitive prices of Vietnamese seafood are among the reasons. But Russian businesses want to move their garment and textile factories from China to Vietnam. Others are subcontracting Vietnamese clothing and leather shoe companies. This is a good opportunity to increase Vietnamese garment exports to Russia.

Piave Maitex will launch a jersey line combining functionality with sustainable features. The two main elements in the line are the premium stretch fibre Roica EF and perpetual. Both these are premium Global Recycled Standard (GRS) certified sustainable ingredients. Roica EF is part of the Roica Eco-Smart family, constructed with more than 50 per cent pre-consumer recycled content, and perPETual is high-quality sustainable polyester born from a cost-effective process that reverses engineer consumer waste PET bottles.

Piave Maitex is an Italian knitted fashion fabrics producer. Starting from two key high-tech, responsible raw materials, as demonstrated by the GRS certification, the manufacturer has managed to create and deliver three unique functional fabrics, dyeable and transfer printable, that perfectly combine creativity, innovation, real performance and sustainability all at once offering unparalleled comfort, performance, and tenacity. Piave Maitex was among the first textile manufacturers in Europe to get the certification of the quality system for the production and design of elastic fabrics. Piave Maitex is one of the major European producers of elastic fabrics, underwear fabrics and sportswear fabrics. The company’s offer has been enriched to cover a wider range of applications, while staying true to its DNA that revolves around quality, performance and innovation.

American & Efird (A&E) has a new line of advanced identification threads. One of the big challenges brands face today centers around authenticity. Loss of revenue, reputation, and brand trust are some of the potential outcomes of counterfeit products. A&E’s new thread line is designed to provide a tool, which adds advanced identification for greater visibility and transparency into the product creation process.

A&E is a manufacturer of industrial and consumer sewing threads. Known for its leadership role in innovation, product quality, and sustainability, A&E supports many of the world’s top industrial and consumer brands with thread products that require strict quality and performance. Through its global network, A&E’s products are manufactured in 22 countries, distributed in 50 countries and sold in over 100 countries. The textile thread manufacturer achieved its initial targets for zero-waste-to-landfill in 2015. American & Efird has also launched a new recycled polyester sewing thread. This is designed especially for athletic wear and high-performance apparel. The new thread is derived from recycled post-consumer plastic bottles and aims to provide textile manufacturers within the performance apparel, active wear, athleisure, and intimate apparel markets a recycled alternative to existing sewing threads. The air-entangled sewing thread is made with Repreve recycled polyester, a brand of US yarn supplier Unifi.

UK-base Corah Textiles has started commission knitting. The company currently employs seven people (four full-time and three part-time) and is looking to expand its operations. Corah also has a part time knitter and a Shima Seiki flat knitting machine programmer on a freelance basis. The company finishes or part-finishes garments and accessories and makes small production runs of accessories, lambswool and cashmere garments.

Corah offers all kinds of services, including hand-sewing operations such as pulling and tying-in of ends, stitching V-necks and crew necks. Machine operations include over locking, cup seaming, lock-stitching, buttonhole/button-sew, sewing back neck labels and care labels, inspection to bagging, and point to point body and collar linking. Corah offers linking in gauges of 4,5,6,8,10,12,14,16 and 20. From body linking to collar linking it’s comfortable in linking all products from various style shoulders and garments, pockets and trims and linking accessories. The link is for the middle market right up to high-end French fashion house products. Corah Textiles also has a few Shima Seiki flat knitting machines in 8 and 12 gauge along with warp scarf knitting machines and a pom-pom machine, where it makes small orders. It is in the process of installing washing/drying and pressing facilities, which hopefully will be done in the next few months.

Levi Strauss has launched garments made from a soft hemp-cotton blend in March. The denim icon found a way to make hemp fibers soft and blend with cotton, but in a way that uses significantly less water than the process used to turn hemp plants into a rough material. This will also help the brand future-proof its supply chain.

Levi Strauss started looking for cotton alternatives when looking at the growth trajectory of cotton demand compared to access to fresh water required for its cultivation and processing. It discovered cutting-edge research in Europe, where industrial hemp was already legal in many countries, and prepared a market-ready material after three years. The long-term goal is to incorporate sustainable cotton blends by using fibers such as hemp into all of its products. Levi’s is continuing to work on improving the quality of its cottonised-hemp to the point where it can be nearly half of a cotton-blend for most apparel as well as fully hemp for certain products. In five years, the brand expects a 100 per cent cottonised-hemp garment that is all hemp and feels all cotton.

However Levi’s doesn’t want to give the impression it’s out to fully replace cotton. Many years of research and development lie ahead. Plus it’s likely hemp will be just one of several natural cotton alternatives.

Denim brand ISKO will showcase its latest performance-wear innovation ISKO ArquasTM and, for the first time, ISKO VitalTM at this year’s fair for high performance functional fabrics and accessories –Performance Days. These two platforms cover a broad range of technical and style applications, offering cutting-edge solutions for those brands seeking new performance-enhancing features and exclusive technologies.

ISKO VitalTM, the world’s first woven compression technology platform, showcases unique solutions that prove the company’s long-standing R&D effort. Now in the process of being patented, this revolutionary concept can be easily used across several sectors, from sportswear to wellness to travel.

Compression technologies involved in ISKO VitalTM facilitate a pumping mechanism that has proven to be accountable for a wide range of benefits. Among these, fast recovery, superior durability, decreased swelling and enhanced sport performance stand out. The platform expresses its impressive potential through 18 different inspirational bottom silhouettes, combining both textile and apparel technologies.

Greatly influenced by ISKO’s expertise in woven technologies, ISKO ArquasTM provides ideal solutions for the outdoor, sportswear and activewear sectors. The platform consists of a wide range of textile innovations, bringing specific benefits to shape an advanced collection that features extreme freedom of movement and functionality. This collection has also widened its focus encompassing finish treatments so as to further enhance its qualities and benefits. To highlight the many different potential end-uses of its products, ISKO ArquasTM has been developed into five main demonstrative categories: active, outdoor, hybrid, golf and horse riding.

International Textile Machinery Exhibition, ITM 2020 shared an introductory video ‘Great Idea: ITM 2020’ on the website and social media accounts like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The video attracted a lot of attention on digital media in a short period of time as many shares and likes followed.

In this video, important participants of the exhibition express their views about the exhibition. Exhibitors, such as Oerlikon, Picanol, Monforts, Savio, Effe, Uster, Stoll, Karl Mayer, SPGPrints, Loepfe, Beneks, Itema, Elteksmak, SSM and Mayer & Cie, highlight its international success. Accentuating ITM as a ‘global brand’, company officials reveal that this exhibition allowing them to meet with textile markets of Turkey and the regions.

ITM exhibitions are a meeting point of new, extraordinary and original ideas; and a platform for launching new innovations in the global market. The exhibition bridges the gap between the eastern and western textile worlds.

Japanese fabrics are in demand in China. The advantages of Japanese printing, dyeing and special processing are based on the spirit of traditional craftsmanship that is passed down through generations, creating fabrics that are truly unique to Japan – a major selling point in China. As well as this, Japan has certain distinct fibers like Triacetate produced by Mitsubishi Chemical and Cupro produced by Asahikasei. Fabrics made using these unique fibers are extremely popular among high-end Chinese brands, especially women’s wear in Shenzhen. Chinese women’s wear and designer brands are keen to source unique fabrics that differentiate their products in the saturated market and so Chinese brands often move toward Japanese fabrics.

Japanese customer service is recognised by Chinese brands as being trustworthy. Among the reasons for the popularity of Japanese textile suppliers in China are upgraded consumption habits from Chinese consumers, as well as recognition of craftsmanship, flexible order services and reliability. Production timelines are reliably met without delay, while Japanese companies will also take responsibility for any problems with products and make a strong effort to find solutions. Japanese suppliers specialise in handling quick delivery, small quantity orders and product-in-stock services. This suits large Chinese brands with stocking pressures, who tend to display smaller collections in stores and only mass-produce more popular items, as well as smaller designers who use less fabric to start with.

Datacolor, a global leader in color management technology, has launched a new color life-cycle management solution that delivers greater transparency and confidence for both textile and apparel brands as well as suppliers, mills and dye houses. The new offering includes assessment services, a suite of comprehensive color assessment and lab audit services, that significantly reduce the time and cost of product development, ensuring a qualified supply chain, capable of meeting all expectations that assure color quality.

The solution focuses on the bottlenecks that the industry holds, it allows real-time tracking of data, helping brands with better sourcing decisions, based on mill performance and sophistication. This real-time information of the quality and consistency of products further allows suppliers to improve their operational efficiency.

Furthermore, the company has also introduced ColorHub, cloud-based software solution that provides an unprecedented real-time view of mills’colour performance. The solutions make the lab dip and color production data available to everyone, thus helping maintain shade consistency and quality. This further ensures taking corrective measures to the color issue at the right time.

The Riri Group has come out with an evolved version of the Aquazip called Aquatyre Zip. This is lighter, more flexible and extremely attractive, thanks to the design of the chain. Inspired by the world of sport, in particular, the bike, the shape of the tooth resembles the texture of a tire.

The Tra-in button is the combination of a classic snap and a hook that unifies aesthetics, reliability and usability. Entirely made of stainless steel, this new concept of button allows the wearer to perform one small gesture to open or fasten garments, without forgetting style. A revolutionary locking system makes it extra resistant to lateral traction. There are silicone and polyester heads for greater resistance, rings in synthetic technopolymers to solve oxidation and blocking problems, not to mention the infinite possibilities of coloration.

Riri, based in Italy, a leader in the production of zips and buttons, has three brands, Riri, Meras and Cobrax. The high quality of its products, designed season after season, supported by continuing innovation, an unmistakable customisation of details and constant search for excellence, have made the Riri Group the solution of choice for many top players on the fashion, high-end accessory, outdoor and denim markets.