Tukatech has opened a center in Bangalore, offering a complete array of services for fashion design and development, providing the most advanced fashion technology and industry knowledge for any type of apparel customer.

The five-story building designed for collaboration or private meetings offers desks and private meeting spaces. Fashion professionals can take advantage of apparel CAD, 3D virtual sampling, sample cutting, and sewing. A communal micro factory concept will assist in the production of small runs. Startup companies, e-commerce companies, brands, and supply chains can come on to the same platform. The one-stop center offers services such as plotting, pattern making, grading, marker making, and sample making, and through to cut and sew and supply chain guidance. These services will help almost all these companies that need technical services without the need for hiring specialists and purchasing equipment.

Founded in 1995, Tukatech is the garment and apparel industry’s leading provider of end-to-end fashion software and garment manufacturing technology solutions. Tukatech offers award-winning 2D pattern making, grading, and marker-making software, automated marker making software, 3D sample making/virtual prototyping software, as well as garment plotters, and automatic spreaders and cutters for production. The capability of Tukatech’s technology remains unparalleled in the fashion industry.

The uptrend in the China’s nylon market has ended as most plants chose to absorb the higher cost in order to keep their customers. In fact, sales of cloth factories had improved recently. For example, some large jet-spinning plants have a good sales/production ratio of around 200 per cent to 300 per cent last week. However, many fabric plants had large stocks in hand and they were still suffering deficits, since nylon filament prices were falling through the first nine months of 2019.

Many fabric mills were also selling at profit-losing rates in order to transform the stocks into cash. Fabric mills had no intention of procuring more than they needed to. Toward the end of the third quarter, and the usually peak sales month of September, the market remained mild, and plants’ capital flow was generally tight. On top of that, there were no clear signs of an improvement in trade relations between China and the US, since textile and apparel products were still under the additional import tariff list.

Based on the normally weak demand in October, nylon filament yarn plants are more inclined to keep their production going according to sales, and control their inventory to restrict risks when feedstock cost is high.

The textile industry in Pakistan have urged the government for subsidised gas and electricity rates and tax breaks. Exporters are unclear about the actual energy tariffs for the purpose of quoting prices of products. In September last year, gas supply to the industrial sector (exporters of the zero-rated section, including textile and jute, carpets, leather, sports and surgical) was revised from 28:72 to 50:50 for domestic gas and LNG respectively. The electricity tariff was fixed at a certain level without building other charges (quarterly adjustment, fuel price adjustment and various other surcharges) to the export industry which would be part of the subsidy claim to be picked up by the federal government. But the industry is now faced with an additional quarterly adjustment charged by distribution companies. The industry regrets that implementation of the decisions on reduced energy rates is selective, partial and subject to irrelevant and non-professional interpretations at the lower levels.

A special energy package was extended early this year to the erstwhile zero-rated industry to provide it a competitive energy tariff to expand and increase exports. These rates were notified in October last year but captive power plants were excluded from the ambit of the zero-rated industry. Later, captive power generation of these export units was also included in the same tariff.

Reebok and Adidas have jointly launched a sneaker called Instapump Fury Boost, the shoe merges Adidas’ technology Boost with Reebok’s silhouette Instapump Fury.

Boost is a cushioning technology from Adidas. It uses a material called thermoplastic polyurethane that compresses under pressure for better shock absorption and instantly bounces back to its original shape. Adidas originally introduced Boost in 2013. Reebok first launched the Instapump Fury sneaker in 1994. At the time, the sleek sandal-like design stretched over a thin GraphLite shard that bridged a gaping split sole unit. The Instapump Fury pushed the limits of what was possible in the world of athletic footwear and became a cult classic lifestyle favorite. There was no other athletic shoe like it. Now it is being rereleased with the Boost technology from Adidas and other minor changes and upgrades. The Instapump Fury Boost will be released across three packs that salute the heritage of the Fury and Boost concepts.

Reebok and Adidas are under the same umbrella but their products stayed entirely separate from one another — until now. Most footwear brands stand alone as powerful pillars and paradigms of product. As the sneaker industry shifts, evolves, and changes, two major brands are joining forces for the first time ever.

Madewell’s sales in 2018 were up 32 per cent compared to 2017. The denim company makes popular apparels for Gen Z and young millennials. Its active customers have grown 30 per cent from 2017. Madewell may go public in 2019. Earlier this year, Madewell launched a curvy style and offers up to size 24 online. In fiscal 2018, only 19 per cent of Madewell’s revenue came from jeans. Most of it was generated from lifestyle products including T-shirts, jackets, footwear, bags and dresses. Madewell is known for sustainability and higher quality items.

But the growing secondhand trend is an unexpected headwind for Madewell. The same customer who will buy Madewell because it lasts long is the environmentally conscious consumer. More women than ever are willing to buy secondhand products in the US. So Madewell has to keep an eye on the secondhand market and has to think about its response to that. Madewell’s planned IPO may finally break it free of struggling parent J.Crew. However, it faces stiff competition from the abundance of similar retailers with overlapping offerings, innovative denim competitors, and a growing secondhand market.

American Eagle claims the most share of the US jeans market among 15- to 25-year-olds and ranks second in all jeans brands, behind Levi’s.

If India chooses not to enter into free trade agreements, it can give an edge to its competitors. By choosing to enter, India can kill the chances of its domestic industry.

The concessional tariff offered to polyester yarn under India’s free trade agreement with Indonesia and Vietnam combined with the post-GST tariff rationalisation is harming the growth prospects of a section of domestic textile mills that deal with this manmade fiber. Polyester yarn imports are subject to zero duty while polyester staple fiber carries an import duty of five per cent. This makes yarn imports more attractive than import of yarn fiber for local production of polyester yarn. There has been an 855 per cent increase in the quantity of polyester yarn imports to India over the last 26 months.

On the other hand, India’s apparel exports have been facing challenges for the last two years due to other countries FTAs. India’s position in the EU market for instance has been adversely affected by the preferred access competing nations such as Bangladesh and Vietnam has by way of FTAs. These could make it increasingly difficult for India’s apparel exporters to maintain their competitiveness in its largest market, the EU, which accounts for about 35 per cent of India’s apparel exports.

Under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), India may trim or remove tariffs on Chinese goods only in phases. Tariffs on the most sensitive items will be the last to go. India plans to reduce or abolish import duties on a total of 80 per cent of imports from China, against 86 per cent from New Zealand and Australia, and 90 per cent from Asean, Japan and South Korea.

While the RCEP will benefit India in better integrating with the global value chain and improving its trade competitiveness, several domestic industries — including steel and pharma — have strongly resisted any such deal on fears that cheap Chinese products, diverted from the US due to the ongoing trade war, will flood Indian markets. The dairy industry, in particular, is opposing any such deal with New Zealand, a major dairy producer and exporter.

RCEP is a proposed mega trade pact between the ten Asean members, India, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Of the 16-nation grouping, India currently doesn’t have any free trade agreement with China, Australia and New Zealand. The RCEP deal will be far more ambitious than any of its existing free trade agreements with Asean, Japan and South Korea.

Bangladesh’s yarn consumption has doubled over the last six years. This is because of the high demand from domestic garment manufacturers and the high volume of garment exports. In fiscal 2012-13, the country’s knitters and weavers consumed 10 to 11 lakh tons of yarn. Last year, the amount was 22 lakh tons. Imports are increasing because of cheaper yarn from India and China. So the garment sector, the country’s main export earner, is depending more on imported raw materials, which is a worry for domestic spinners. So spinners have lowered their production capacity to 77 per cent from 90 per cent over the last six months.

Despite a lot of internal and external shocks, garment shipments from Bangladesh have maintained robust growth over the last seven years because of competitive prices and a flawless supply of yarn and fabrics, which has reduced lead times significantly. Bangladesh’s garment exports to new destinations such as Japan, India and China have been growing at a faster rate in comparison to traditional markets like the EU, the US and Canada. Garment exporters have been receiving a lot of work orders because of the US-China trade war that compelled many international retailers and brands to come to Bangladesh.

Brands like Lenzing and Eileen Fisher are working toward goals like zero waste, clean water and sanitation. Lenzing’s goal by 2030 is to reduce emissions by 50 per cent and to be net zero by 2050. The company works with retailers and brands to support their own sustainability goals and educate consumers about them. Fiber producer Lenzing is the maker of Tencel. Eileen Fisher’s vision includes supply chain transparency, supporting regenerative agriculture and circularity. Consumers can bring used clothing to an Eileen Fisher store where it is cleaned and resold at lower prices if it is in good condition, chopped up and recycled, or used in wall installations. Eileen Fisher is a women’s clothing retailer.

Ambitious sustainability goals in the textile industry are being reached through partnerships between retailers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Because not every company can afford to maintain a large sustainability department, a way out is for companies – and competitors – to work together. In November 2018, a signed UN charter detailed how the fashion industry, whose practices have been criticized as environmentally detrimental, can reduce emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. The fashion industry sees it as an obligation, after inspiring consumer consumption, to now encourage consumers to reuse and recycle, in that order.

More than 300 readymade garment factories in Bangladesh face the threat of closure since they have failed to make the required remedial progress. Among other steps, their export license may be suspended. Some 3,780 garment factories were assessed for fire, electrical and structural integrity by Accord and Alliance and other initiatives after the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people.

Now factories are inspected jointly by experts supported by ILO and the buyers’ platforms Accord and Alliance. Bangladesh now has 67 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) factories, certified by the United States Green Building Council, of which 13 are platinum. Seven out of world’s top 13 LEED certified factories are in Bangladesh and 280 more are in the pipeline for getting certification. Meanwhile the labor law was amended in July 2013 and another revision of the law is in progress. A workers’ welfare fund has been created to which the garment industry alone contributed around 10 million dollars last fiscal year. Before the Rana Plaza tragedy garment factories focused only on child labor, limiting working hours, wages for overtime duties and on achieving technical compliance like fire extinguishers, gloves, boots, helmets for workers.