Blackstone is the new owner of shapewear giant Spanx. Spanx founder Sarah Blakely retains a significant equity stake and will become the company’s executive chairwoman in the deal. Prior to the private equity firm’s majority stake, Spanx had been weighing options, and even mulled putting itself up for sale, with Goldman Sachs’ investment banking arm on the case since June.

While Spanx has made a name for itself in silhouette-smoothing shape wear worn by Katy Perry, Rebel Wilson, Khloe Kardashian, and Karlie Kloss, it has since branched into products like shaping denim and a full array of lifestyle apparel from loungewear, leggings, bras and underwear to skirts, arm tights and maternity wear. A selection of ultra-compression sculpting tees and tanks, shape-enhancing boxer briefs and socks is also available for men.

The opportunities to expand deeper into these categories caught the attention of Blackstone, which has been investing in female-led businesses including online dating app Bumble, Reese Witherspoon’s mission-driven media company Hello Sunshine, telecommunications firm Hotwire Communications and geolocation compliance technology firm GeoComply.

Blackstone is the world’s largest private equity firm. Blackstone also runs one of the largest real-estate focused funds in the world and is the largest owner of office space in India.

Orissa is offering a special incentive package for mega investments in textile and apparel including the technical textile sector. The aim is to make the state a textile hub of eastern India. Mega-investments are being sought from major textile and apparel players. With over 1.5 lakh acres of land at their disposal, multiple dedicated locations identified for setting up apparel parks, competitive land rates and ready to occupy industrial sheds, Orissa offers a compelling value proposition for units in the apparel sector. 

Over and above offering fiscal and non-fiscal sops, the state provides additional support for development of the sector. The sector specific policy offers various incentives including employment and investment based incentives, various fiscal incentives, capital grants of 20 per cent of the project cost of the park, interest free loan up to ten per cent of the project cost, among others. Orissa offers an abundant and skilled workforce for the apparel sector.  

Orissa has had a long history in textile and global trading. The strong driving factors for Orissa making it a manufacturing hub in the east are its strategic location in the Asean region, industrial infrastructure and proactive governance.

US duties on polyester yarn from Indonesia has become an obstacle to export of Indonesian textile and textile products and comes at a time when the industry is trying to boost its export market across the globe including the US. The imposition of fairly large import duties makes filament yarn more expensive and is a burden for importers in the US. To continue export market growth, the textile and textile products industry is now focusing on expansion to develop products in accordance with the wishes of buyers, which are currently more focused on green and functional products.

Indonesia is also reeling under coal prices. When global coal prices soar, domestic industries that primarily use coal such as cement, petrochemical and textiles experience difficulties. These are all energy-intensive industries. If prices of products rises it reduces competitiveness. If competitiveness decreases, income also decreases. If product prices go up, and competitiveness is weak, companies have to reduce their working capital and that means reducing the workforce. The textile industry wants the government to take emergency policies to maintain the sustainability of the user industry. 

Blockchain technology was introduced to provide immediate, shared and completely transparent information stored on an immutable ledger that can be accessed only by permissioned network members.  The technology is yet to be widely adopted in the fashion industry though stakeholders have been eyeing it for years to trace fashion’s notoriously opaque supply chain. 

Transparency, regulations drive blockchain adoption

As per a Business of Fashion report, to implement this technology in the fashion industry, suppliers along the chain, from cut-and-sew factories to fabric weavers, yarn spinners, ginning mills, and even farmers, need to be transparent in their operations. Post pandemic, transparency has become top priority for brands and retailers. This has given a boost to blockchain projects across the world. For example, UK Fashion & Textile Association (UKFT) and H&M have launched new blockchain projects sometime ago. The dual impact of Brexit and COVID is encouraging suppliers to adopt blockchain in their operations, says Adam Mansell, CEO, UKFT, which launched a tracing project in IBM and others including Next and H&M’s COS brand in August.

The technology is also getting a boost from new regulations by governments across the world. Earlier this year, the US banned imports made from cotton grown in China’s Xinjiang region on accusations of being made by forced laborers belonging to Uighur and other minority Muslim communities. Germany introduced a law making it compulsory for large companies to ensure their supply chains comply with social and environmental standards. The law is scheduled to take effect in 2023. 

These developments have caught the attention of global textile traceability champions. Blockchain-based tracing platform for fashion, TextileGenesis has launched pilot projects in collaboration with the US Cotton Trust Protocol, and a viscose tracing project with Kering and Bestseller. The company has teamed up with H&M for these projects. 

A verified record of garment history

Blockchain provides brands and retailers a verified record of the garment’s history at each step of its production. However, it mandates companies to ensure that the data they receive is accurate, says Nate Herman, Senior Vice President-Policy, American Apparel & Footwear Association. Funded by a research grant from the UK government, the UKFT’s traceability project is endorsed by Future Fashion Factory, which supports innovation in the UK garment sector, and Tech Data, a technology firm. Contrary to the fashion industry’s traditional tracing methods, the IBM project aims to capture information around each step of the chain, adds Keric Morris, Head-Standards, IBM. 

Focusing solely on cotton products, the project is onboarding suppliers in countries like Bangladesh, India, Turkey, and Portugal. It focuses specifically on tracing sustainable and differentiated materials such as organic cotton by using a digital token called Fibercoin, adds Amit Gautam, Founder and CEO, TextileGenesis. The project has enabled H&M to improve supply chain transparency and traceability. 

New tools to ensure accuracy 

To ensure the information logged on the blockchain is accurate, companies are using tools such as forensic verifications that test genetic or chemical markers in material fibers. Companies like TextileGenesis are focusing on organic cotton as it requires a certain amount of effort, and investment to deliver traceability.

Tarun Kumar Agarwal, Production Logistics Researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology predicts, many big brands will adopt blockchain in future. However, future development will depend on the returns it generates for brands. In coming years, the top 100 brands will trace most of their products, predicts Gautam. Meanwhile, the rest of the apparel retail market, including domestic retailers in Asia or Europe will continue to remain largely untraceable, he adds.

The Chinese down jacket brand Bosideng is the leading brand in the global down jacket market. So says Euromonitor, an authoritative global market research institution. Since it began to focus on down jackets in 2018, Bosideng has been racing ahead with excellent performance. In terms of design, Bosideng excels at integrating global designer resources for international IP collaboration. The great fusion of eastern and western cultures thus becomes a starting point to meet the needs of the international audience. Bosideng has launched collaborations with international designers. 

As consumption is upgrading, and young people are becoming the main consumers, down jackets need to be both warm and fashionable to meet their increasingly demanding needs. With growing concentration of the down jacket industry, Bosideng, the world-leading down jacket brand, has benefited from its strong core competitiveness. As a 45-year-old devoted and professional down jacket brand, Bosideng has forged ahead through product changes and technological innovations, developing strong competitive barriers in product quality and performance. Moreover, in terms of operations, Bosideng actively works on digital innovation in the supply chain for an active web presence. It has set up a data middle platform to connect all the links on the supply chain for a streamlined and efficient online service. 

The Indonesian textile industry is unable to handle the soaring coal prices. When global coal prices soar, many domestic industries that using coal such as cement, petrochemical, and textile experience difficulties. The fertilizer industry, the cement industry, the petrochemical industry, textiles are all energy-intensive industries. 

If the price of products rises, it reduces competitiveness. The textile industry wants the government to take emergency steps to maintain the sustainability of the user industry. Government intervention is needed, especially to prevent price fluctuations of strategic goods such as cement products, textiles, fertilizers, steel, paper, and others. Meanwhile, the textile and textile product sector has had to dig deeper into its pockets for production costs. Currently there are two factories that have turned off their power plants. Meanwhile, six more factories have reduced their generating capacity. 

Moreover, so far the majority of Indonesian coal is used for export. In 2021, of the production target of 625 million tons, the domestic market only absorbs a maximum of around 150 million tons. This means that there are still more than 450 million tons exported.

Bangladesh saw a marginal six per cent increase in overall FDI inflows in fiscal 2021. In fiscal 2020, FDI inflows into the textile and apparel sector saw 11 per cent increase. The FDI figure in textile and apparel sector is not as much as expected but is seen as a positive sign for the country when total investment is going through an immobile situation. Foreign investment is seen as an opportunity to grow in high-end products. One reason FDI was much lower than anticipated could be the country’s harsh regulations and bureaucratic complexities. 

In fiscal 2020-21 new investment, or equity capital, did not meet expectations and grew 12.08 per cent. Rather foreign companies operating in Bangladesh mainly reinvested their earnings. Reinvestment grew by 4.63 per cent year-on-year, keeping the country’s FDI trend steady. Bangladesh will invest in synthetic fibers. The country sees this as the future of export-oriented garment sector. Reputed brands and consumers are leaning towards manmade and recycled fiber to achieve sustainability. Buyers are choosing the fabric as a substitute to cotton fiber for sustainability and environmental issues. In keeping with sustainability many well-known brands may stop buying apparels produced from non-recyclable material. 

Commerce and Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal has asked the domestic industry to get into innovative partnerships for developing 100 textile machinery champions, which can be recognised across the world. Interacting with manufacturers, the minister urged them to get out of the command-and-control mindset and work through plug and play mode to make the textile sector vibrant. He asked them to focus on speed, skill and scale in order to develop 100 champions and bring the textile sector out of inertia. 

He further said that India should be aiming at becoming a global player in producing textiles machinery, producing at scale, quality as well as quantity, the kind of machinery which is required at global levels. He said the Center was not averse to imports but there is a need to reduce import dependency of textile machinery in India through concerted efforts of both the textile engineering industry as well as the government in order to capture bigger markets. The aim is to create a few global champions especially in the areas of manmade fiber, technical textiles, apparel, fabrics and made-ups because of the substantial value addition in these sectors. 

The government has set a target of achieving $100 billion in textiles and garment exports over the next five years and the textile sector has been assigned an important part to play in achieving it. 

The government and industry needs to act as a combined force to build Brand India in the textiles and apparel sector, says a CII-Kearney joint report. It suggests the government should focus on putting in place key enablers to attract investments in the domestic textiles sector and optimise operations like improved market access and cost-competitiveness while creating an enabling business environment. The report also underscored the need for industry players to adopt global best practices in terms of manufacturing competitiveness, enhancement of service levels, capabilities in design, innovation and need for more investments in sustainability and traceability.

It advises India to carefully strategize actions in five key areas, including apparel, fabric, home textiles, manmade fiber and yarn and technical textiles. The report calls for targeting a $16 billion increase by riding the China Plus One sentiment. India is suitably positioned on this, thanks to its relatively large strategic depth compared with Vietnam or Bangladesh. Besides, it recommends a $4 billion jump by positioning India as a regional fabric hub, starting with cotton wovens and then extending to other sub-categories. 

The Indian textile industry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors by employment. To realise its full potential in the global market, strengthening of the textile industry value chain and broader market access is a must. 

Textiles major Trident’s net profit rose 13 per cent in the second quarter. The company’s revenue for the quarter rose 44 per cent compared to the corresponding period previous fiscal. Trident continued its positive momentum from previous quarter and delivered the best performance in second quarter. The company is committed to embark inclusive growth for all its stakeholders and continuing to excel in future. During the quarter, the company also launched its new e-commerce website to strengthen domestic market presence and expects strong online sales in the coming quarters. 

Trident is one of the largest players in the home textile space in India. It currently has around 400 points-of-sales across the country and plans to further expand its retail presence by doubling its point-of-sales next year. Trident believes in offering innovative solutions and delivering high-quality value-added products to customers. The company is expanding spinning capacity at its Madhya Pradesh plant. The project will help strengthen existing home textile business and further expand market presence. Trident’s existing capacity is 5,43,744 spindles and 6,464 rotors, and the current capacity utilisation is 99 per cent. It has planned for small maintenance capex in the form of de-bottlenecking and upgradation of capacities.