Unifi Inc. has appointed Helen M Sahi as Vice President, Global Corporate Sustainability. In her new role, Sahi will lead, develop and drive the sustainability strategy and execution for Unifi, and will sustainability into the everyday fabric of the company’s business. Her responsibilities include: ensuring that Unifi’s sustainability strategy and practices are aligned with the company’s business objectives, and that all sustainability efforts are evaluated through a robust set of metrics.

With three decades of experience helping companies such as Avery Dennison Corp. and Bank of America set and achieve their sustainability strategies and goals, Sahi has, throughout her career, built effective partnerships with external organisations and NGOs to support and advance their sustainability efforts.

Through their brand partnerships, Unifi’s REPREVE® has become the leading global branded recycled fiber with a goal of transforming 30 billion plastic bottles into fibers by 2022, Sahi says.

Increasing demands for productivity and ever more complex applications, combined with the growing variety of materials, are key challenges faced by the sewing industry. In response to these challenges, Groz-Beckert will display a variety of special application needles (SAN®) – offering the perfect needle for every situation, tailored to the relevant application at the IFAI Expo (Industrial Fabrics Association International), in Texas, USA

The expo will be held from October 15-18, 2018 in the “Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center” in Dallas. Groz-Beckert will participate with the Sewing product area at booth #2016.

The special application needle SAN® 5.2 delivers the best results for sewing technical textiles. The special shaft reinforcement increases the needle stability, for example, and the double coding in the point area improves the thread guidance in both linear and multi-directional sewing processes. For extremely fine loop and weave materials, on the other hand, special applications needles SAN® 10 and SAN® 10 XS are used.

13th edition of trade show Woman will open in Paris from September 28 to 30. This edition will have a slightly modified format. Some of the show’s women’s wear exhibitors already presented their pre-collections at the beginning of the season, in June, when a new man/woman mixed format was launched.

For the forthcoming September session, the Woman show is focusing on labels that are sticking to the traditional calendar, presenting two main collections a year. Altogether there will be 80 labels exhibiting at Woman. The selection of brands is international, and features ready-to-wear labels but also accessories - a segment which was very popular in September last year, with buyers who finalise their budgets at the end of the month.

The show organiser, fresh from the New York edition of Woman, is aiming to consolidate the position of the Paris September session in the calendar, at a time when pre-collections are becoming increasingly important. Next January, the second edition of the event in the Man/Woman format will again be staged in three different venues, to respond to the rising interest by women’s wear and co-ed labels for showing with men’s wear.

Kohl’s has launched a woman’s plus sized brand. Evri (Easy, Versatile, Real value and Inspiring) aims at empowering women with stylish and functional pieces for all shapes and sizes. Evri will offer a deep assortment of modern wardrobe essentials and relevant fashion wear that can be worn from day to night, with Kohl’s signature quality and value. The brand’s focus on fit solutions will also ensure customers have an easy shopping experience and feel confident in clothing that is both comfortable and flattering.

The apparel will feature dresses, tops and bottoms in sizes that take in account both shape and height, ranging from short to tall, with additional options available in more curvy and less curvy. With this brand, Kohl’s aims at enhancing its women’s plus offerings to customers.

The launch of Evri is a part of Kohl’s overarching transformation of its plus shopping experience. For fall 2019, customers will experience Kohl’s redesigned plus in-store layout, which will provide an elevated and cohesive space, allowing women to easily find their best fit in their favorite brands, with apparel specifically designed to meet their needs. Kohl’s is an omni channel retailer with more than 1000 stores in the US.

PVH has joined ACT or ACT (Action, Collaboration, Transformation), a collective bargaining tool which sees global apparel brands and retailers and trade unions working to achieve living wages for workers through industry-wide collective bargaining linked to purchasing practices. It is a pioneering initiative aimed at linking brand purchasing practices to garment factory wages.

PVH, is the first US company to join ACT. Myanmar and Cambodia are pilot countries for the ACT initiative. ACT brands now collectively source from factories employing 50 per cent of Cambodia’s garment workers. In Cambodia ACT works at ensuring buyers cooperate long term with suppliers.

ACT attempts to bring to Myanmar stable and predictable industrial relations through collective bargaining, industrial upgrading and integrating into the global economy and meeting the skills needs. Myanmar has the vision of industrial and social upgrading of its garment industry.

Apart from PVH, other brands that are a part of ACT are zLabels, a collection of German brands sold online as Zalando, Bestseller and Cotton On. ACT has a total of 20 member companies. ACT is aimed at making contributions to industrial relations and sector development. Brands that are members of ACT ensure their purchasing practices support the collective agreement.

The Readymade Garments Export Council of Egypt is planning to increase its exports by 15 per cent to around $1.7 billion during the remaining months of this year. The council will increase its share of exports in international markets by participating in pertinent exhibitions and dispatching promotional delegations to the United States and Europe.

In 2018, Egypt participated in three international exhibitions, including the Sourcing at Magic held in Las Vegas,; Magic Show, also in Las Vegas from August, and Origin Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. Egypt’s exports of ready-made garments increased by 10 per cent during the first seven months of 2018 to hit $907 million, compared with $824 million in the same period of last year. Turkey was the country’s top importer of RMG with a value of $84 million, followed by Spain with $79 million. Britain came in third with $59 million, followed by Italy and France at fourth and fifth with $46 million and $29 million, respectively.

In terms of regions, the United States was a leading market for the ready-made garment exports from Egypt with $480 million, up 14 per cent from last year, while European markets came second with exports registering $306 million, a 15 per cent increase from the first seven months of 2017.

A new report titled ‘H&M: fair living wages were promised, poverty wages are the reality’ from Clean Clothes Campaign states many garment workers manufacturing clothes for the brand live below the poverty line – despite its promise of a living wage by 2018. The report focuses on poor wages, excessive overtime and workplace faintings in the brand’s factories.

According to the new study, garment workers at H&M in India and Turkey earn about a third – and in Cambodia less than half – of the estimated living wage. In Bulgaria interviewed workers’ salary is less than 10 per cent of a living wage.

Overtime hours in three out of the six researched factories often exceed the legal maximum, and in Bulgaria workers reported that they have to work overtime just to earn the statutory minimum wage.

As reported by Ecotextile News, H&M’s combined figures claimed its “fair living strategy” now reaches 655 factories employing more than 930,000 garment workers, up from three factories in 2013.

Bangladesh wants its apparel products made from American cotton to get duty free access to the US market. The rationale is that both readymade garment manufacturers and cotton growers will benefit and consumers would also benefit as they will be able to buy the products at reasonable prices.

Bangladesh imports a huge amount of cotton from the United States and uses it to make garment products, of which significant portions are shipped back to the US as finished goods. The country also wants reinstatement of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade facilities for Bangladesh goods, which were suspended in June 2013.

But since 2013, with the help of Accord and Alliance, Bangladesh has dramatically transformed its garment and apparel factories, making them among the safest in the world. The country also has already met all three UN criteria necessary for graduating from LDC status in 2024. Bangladesh imported 4,59,000 bales of cotton from the US in the last fiscal year, which amounted to 6.85 per cent of the country’s total cotton imports of 6,700,000 bales.

The country’s exporters are among the highest tariff payers among the 232 exporting nations to the US. For Bangladesh, tariffs are 15.2 per cent of the value of all its shipments.

Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics will be held September 27 to 29.

It has lined up 4400-plus exhibitors, offering unparalleled sourcing for the season. High visitor footfall is anticipated at the industry’s leading trade fair.

For visitors looking for the industry’s latest apparel textile innovations, one particular must-see is the Functional Lab. The product zone has more than double the exhibitor numbers than the 2017 autumn edition and will feature the innovative Taiwan Pavilion along with pavilions from Invista and Hyosung as well as an events space.

The Functional Lab, along with other display areas and product zones, will present a curated collection of leading products, ideal for visitors who want to streamline their sourcing process.

Another way for visitors to fast-track their sourcing experience at the fair is the Trend Forum, which will feature product samples from exhibitors across the fair. Every sample is handpicked.

Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics is widely regarded as a prime platform to find and meet n

"Export Promotion Council (EPCH) at its 32nd Annual General Meeting [AGM] held recently in New Delhi recently informed that for the first time the number of registrations at the council has exceeded 10,000 handicrafts exporters. It has now increased to 10,641. Handicraft exports during the year 2017-18 too increased to Rs. 23,029.36 crores. The council undertook several multifarious activities for the development and promotion of handicrafts exports from the country during the year 2017-18. ."

The 32nd Annual General Meeting of Export Promotion Council (EPCH) was held in New Delhi on September 25. The meeting highlighted that for the first time, the number of registrations at EPCH has exceeded 10,000 handicrafts exporters.  The actual number stands at 10,641.  Handicraft exports during the year 2017-18 increased to Rs 23,029.36 crores

The council undertook multifarious activities for the development and promotion of handicrafts exports from the country in 2017-18. These include: organisation of four international fairs in India; two editions of IHGF-Delhi Fair, Home Expo India, Indian Fashion Jewellery & Accessories Show,  over 200 informative and interactive seminars in 40 different craft clusters,  36 specialised trade exhibitions, brand image promotion programs/buyer-seller meets in 18 leading markets.

The council also made representations at various levels related to GST and was able to garner maximum support for the handicrafts sector. It signed several MoUs with national and international organisations for the promotion and development of exports.        

With an objective to offer avenues for technological upgradation, skills development and marketing opportunities, EPCH set up and upgraded infrastructure and facilities at various craft hubs.   These include: Handicraft Productivity Centre-Jaipur, Technology Upgradation Centre and Wood Seasoning plant-Saharanpur and initiated Trade Facilitation Centre-Jodhpur.