The Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) recently announced the appointment of new office bearers for its prestigious National Expert Committee on Textiles. This move reflects the chamber's commitment to strengthening the textile industry in India and promoting sustainable growth in the sector.

Sanjay Kr. Jain, MD, TT Limited, has been reappointed as the Chairman of the committee. Another notable appointment is that of Ajay Sardana, President & Head Strategy & Business Development-Polyester at Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), who has been appointed as Co-Chairman (North) of the committee.

Furthermore, ManMohan Singh, the accomplished Chief Marketing Officer of Grasim Industries Limited, has been elected as Co-Chairman (West) of the committee.

With a focus on policy matters and sustainable practices, the newly appointed office bearers are well-equipped to address the challenges and opportunities faced by the industry.

Bangladesh's garment industry, a crucial pillar of the country's economy, is currently grappling with a troubling situation due to a significant decrease in the volume of garment exports to major destinations. This decline has raised concerns about the industry's future.

Faruque Hassan, the President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), has highlighted during a press conference, the potential crisis looming over the industry, particularly concerning exports to the United States and the European Union (EU).

While garment export earnings exhibited positive growth until February, both the US and EU experienced a decline in imports. The months of March and April witnessed alarmingly negative growth in garment shipments, and this trend is expected to continue into May.

According to the BGMEA's report, there was a 12.65% year-on-year decline in garment exports to the US in terms of US dollars between November 2022 and April 2023. In terms of quantity, the decline amounted to approximately 25.95%. However, the value per unit of garment items increased by 17.94%. This increase in unit price can be attributed to the rising costs of raw materials and freight charges. As a result, international retailers and brands have been compelled to adjust their pricing strategies.

In contrast, garment exports to the EU increased by 7.10% in terms of US dollars. However, there was a decline of 4.12% in terms of quantity. The value per unit of garment items increased by 11.70%.

To address these challenges, Hassan called upon the government to implement several measures. These included reducing the source tax to 0.5%, lowering corporate tax on subcontracting incomes to 12%, and withdrawing the 10% tax on cash incentives for export earnings. Furthermore, he urged the government to provide a special 10% stimulus for the export of garments made from manmade fibers (MMF) and emphasized the importance of diversifying the types of garment items exported.

Hassan emphasized the high global demand for non-cotton items, as 75% of all garment items sold worldwide are made from non-cotton fibers. Encouraging investment in MMF-based garments could enable Bangladesh to capture a larger share of the global garment market.

Mango, the renowned European fashion brand, is embarking on a significant expansion in the United States in 2023. With a focus on the western and southern regions of the country, Mango plans to open more than fifteen new stores, including its debut in states like Georgia, Texas, and California.

As Mango celebrates the successful first year of its flagship store on New York's Fifth Avenue, the company is determined to establish a strong presence in the US market. This endeavor involves the launch of new stores in cities where Mango currently has no presence, such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Atlanta, Glendale, and McAllen. Furthermore, the brand aims to enhance its existing presence in states like Florida.

This strategic expansion demonstrates Mango's dedication to expanding its brand and reaching a broader customer base across the United States.

The planned store openings for this year include several locations in the state of Texas. Mango will open stores in prominent shopping malls such as The Shops at La Cantera in San Antonio, Galleria Dallas in Dallas, La Plaza Mall in McAllen, Memorial City Mall and Baybrook Mall in Houston, among others.

Mango's expansion also extends to the state of California, where the brand plans to establish new stores in Glendale Galleria in Glendale and Fashion Valley in San Diego. Additionally, four stores will open in Los Angeles: Brea Mall, Victoria Gardens, Los Cerritos, and Beverly Center, located in Beverly Hills, the exclusive neighborhood frequented by Hollywood stars.

These new stores will exclusively carry the Mango Woman collection, except for the store in the state of Georgia. Located in the Perimeter Mall in Atlanta, this store will have a selling space of 570m2 and will offer products from both the Woman and Man lines.

All of the new stores will showcase Mango's Mediterranean-inspired store concept, New Med, which reflects the brand's spirit and freshness.

Bluestar Alliance, a brand management company based in New York, has announced that one of its affiliates has acquired the wholesale and retail business assets of Dutch fashion brand Scotch & Soda in the United States.

This acquisition allows Scotch & Soda and its products to be sold in a network of retail stores across the country. It follows a previous acquisition by another Bluestar Alliance affiliate, which obtained the worldwide licensing and distribution rights for the Scotch & Soda brand. With this addition, Bluestar Alliance strengthens its position as a leader in the brand management industry, complementing its portfolio of consumer brands that includes Hurley, Bebe, and Tahari.

To oversee and expand the Scotch & Soda brand, Bluestar Alliance has appointed Anthony Lucia as the Global President of its Scotch & Soda USA and Global Business Operations. Lucia brings extensive experience from his tenure at fashion brands such as Hugo Boss, G-Star, and Escada.

Under Lucia's leadership, Scotch & Soda's strategy will focus on maintaining its premium retail distribution, which includes operating physical stores and a successful e-commerce platform. Lucia will oversee a smooth transition across the brand's retail footprint and global operations, optimizing the business for further expansion and profitability.

Bluestar Alliance plans to drive the growth of the Scotch & Soda brand by attracting new consumers and promoting the free spirit of Amsterdam and self-expression.

The company intends to invest in marketing initiatives that enhance brand awareness and foster strong consumer engagement worldwide.

With a global slogan of a better environment for a better tomorrow, environmentalists have kick-started the fashion industry into combatting textile waste and changing the fashion segment into a sustainable and circular economy. The fashion segment is one of the world’s biggest polluters, with around 21 billion tonnes of textiles and materials being dumped in landfills every year and accounting for around 10 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions and it’s time to sit up and take notice.

Kelp for a healthier textile ecosystem

Seaweed bioplastics have always made use of the world’s ocean seaweed-derived polysaccharides alginate, agar, and carrageenan, whose ability to gel into other materials has made them suitable for the development of coatings and films. Although seaweed fabric was discovered during the World War I, it was at a nascent stage when textile manufacturers were experimenting with many different sources of material, and seaweed fabric was made from using mainly brown algae, which is commonly known as Knotted Wrack.

This process uses seaweed to further produce a biopolymer called alginate, which is then combined with other renewable biopolymers to produce a strong and stretchable yarn, which can be knitted by hand or by machine to be used in many kinds of textile manufacturing. Some recent studies were conducted by US-based Keel Labs, which is focused on working on harnessing the natural power of aquatic ecosystems to transform the textile industry. Keel Labs came up with a new flagship material made from seaweed, a yarn called Kelsun which is made from the abundant polymers found in kelp, which has a lower environmental footprint than conventional fibers, currently available in the apparel market.

Kelsun will positively impact the garment segment

This wonder material Kelsun has a production process that does not use any harmful chemicals uses minimal water and does not create toxic by-products that intensify global warming. Kelsun’s production is a drop-in solution for an already existing yarn and textile production infrastructure, which is expected to open the key to many possibilities in the apparel segment.

As seaweed is easily and vertically farmed within the ocean, it sequesters carbon at a rapid rate and is thus a quickly renewable and regenerative organism with a far lower environmental footprint than normal apparel fibers currently available in the market. Kelp forests are easily found in the US along the Eastern Pacific Coast, from Alaska and Canada to the waters of Baja, California, and are mainly composed of rapidly growing large brown algae. Global warming and the pandemic has shown the world that sometimes in life, you need to turn back and follow your footprints to where it all began and the world was clean and unpolluted.

Keel Labs, incepted as AlgiKnit in 2017 was extremely functional in name and in vision as algae was used to make fibres. In 2022, it became officially known as Keel Labs, which currently harnesses the potential of many natural materials to transform the textile industry and the environment. Tessa Callaghan, Fashion Designer and Co-founder, CEO of Keel Labs in a signed article, “My co-founder, Aleks Gosiewski and I founded Keel Labs with a mission to harness the radical potential of our oceans to positively impact the fashion industry and the world. As a collective of scientists, designers, and innovators who are fighting against material waste, we are building a healthy relationship between nature and human ecosystems.” By using seaweed that is both renewable and carbon sequestering, Keel Labs is changing the textile ecosystem and creating a sustainable and circular future.

China’s luxury apparel market is on a seesaw ride with its highs and lows leaving analysts puzzled with what is yet to come by the end of 2023. While some feel profit levels will be low with a post-Covid slow economy that has drastically hit spending, others opine it will soar, up and away into the most profitable segments. The apparel industry in 2023 had started with a U-shaped recovery and the luxury retail segment in particular had an excellent start which was reflected in first-quarter results for most of the bigger premium luxury brands.

Profits soar for some luxury brands

As per PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Chinese luxury market is expected to reach $118.3 billion by 2025 and account for over 25 per cent of the global market. However, it’s mainly the fashion and leather goods of luxury conglomerates that are registering double-digit growth as categories such as cosmetics and mid-segment clothes are yet to recover post-Covid. With limited outbound flights and extended visa wait times, richer Chinese tourists are now spending more on luxury retail in the domestic markets in the first quarter of this year.

The world’s largest luxury group LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, recently saw its shares rise to a record high and has become the first European company to surpass $500 billion in market capital with its overall first-quarter revenues rising 17 per cent year-on-year. The company remains hopeful there will be a strong push from mainland China this year not only in fashion and leather but also in jewellery and plans to focus more on fast-developing major Chinese cities like Chengdu, Zhengzhou and Wuhan.

Other luxury retailers such as Hermès, too tasted success during Chinese New Year and the return of the well-heeled Chinese visitors to places like Singapore, Thailand and Australia. This helped them improve sales in most of Asia. Hermes is planning a slow and steady expansion into new cities across China that will help it forge ahead in the luxury segment. Luxury conglomerate Kering too is inching up slowly with its flagship brand. Gucci plans to soon an immersive exhibition in Shanghai, while its other brand Bottega Veneta will have a repeat fall 2023 show collection in Beijing this July.

Post-Covid restrictive economy dampens profits

However, contradictions are rife in the Chinese economy as Bain &Company highlights although the luxury market grew 42 per cent annually between 2019 and 2021, new wave of infections and China’s zero-Covid policy with city-wide lockdowns contracted the market by10 per cent in 2022. Categories with high online penetration, such as luxury beauty had single-digit declines while the premium watch market had drastic sales drop from 20 to 25 per cent. Even fashion and lifestyle products experienced a decline of 15 to 20 per cent, while jewellery and leather goods sales dropped 10 to 15 per cent.

Local competition, geopolitics affect luxury segment

China has the fastest rise in Gen Z population and an increasingly strong national sentiment where well-heeled consumers prefer premium domestic brands such as Anta and Li-Ning over global ones such as Nike and Adidas. This is leading to significant losses in market share. Some luxury brands are estimating a negative impact of -10 to -40 per cent of revenue this year due to the after-effects of the lockdown.

As local competition heats up, many global premium brands are facing high operational costs, totally different service expectations, and challenges to bring top industry talents, all leading to a loss of market share in China. Also, the turbulent current global geopolitics is a big risk to international brands in China with the after-effects of the Ukraine war, increasing tensions in Southeast Asia and China’s ambitions with Hong Kong and Taiwan. Clever retail and marketing strategies of global premium brands and understanding future expectations of Chinese customers should be the focus now.

The athleisure trend continues to dominate the fashion industry in Southeast Asia, as consumers prioritize comfort and functionality in their clothing choices. Athleisure brands have emerged as winners during the pandemic, and the trend is expected to remain very dynamic in the region, with a 9.5% retail value CAGR over the forecast period.

The pandemic has played a significant role in driving the trend, as people have turned to comfortable and functional pieces of clothing such as leggings, tracksuit bottoms, sports bras, and hoodies during lockdowns.

The athleisure trend in Southeast Asia is driven by consumers' increased focus on their health and wellness, with many people taking up regular exercise and making various routine changes to boost their physical and mental well-being. The trend is expected to continue as consumers' desire to lead a healthy lifestyle shows no signs of diminishing.

Hybrid working policies and the greater acceptance of remote working are also contributing to the popularity of athleisure, as people have less need for traditional business attire and formal clothing. This allows consumers to dress in more comfortable and versatile options that can be worn on and off the job.

Southeast Asia offers plenty of opportunities for versatile fashion items, with 40.3% of online consumers in the region willing to pay more for comfortable clothing in 2023. This prioritization of comfort is seen among both males and females, with more and more consumers prioritizing clothing that allows them to move freely and feel their best selves.

As a result, athleisure brands will continue to flourish in the region, and fashion brands in Asia, whether fast fashion or luxury, will continue to bank on athleisure.

Jeanswear retailers and brands are increasingly incorporating recycled content into their in-stock options, signaling a significant shift towards sustainability. According to a report by global retail analytics firm Edited, the availability of denim products containing recycled materials has risen by 28 percent in the UK and 18 percent in the US compared to the previous year.

"Recycled" has emerged as the most popular sustainability keyword in product descriptions, surpassing "organic" by featuring in 20 percent of in-stock denim options.

Affordability is another driving factor for the popularity of recycled denim. The report reveals that in the UK, jeans with recycled content have the lowest average price of $64, while in the US, the average price is $102.74, the second lowest among the sustainability keywords.

The increased prevalence of recycled denim can be attributed to a growing awareness of garment lifecycles and circular fashion initiatives such as the Ellen MacArthur's Jeans Redesign guidelines.

Organic cotton is also gaining traction in the denim industry, with a 28 percent increase in in-stock options for men's and women's wear. However, the overall availability of organic cotton textiles has decreased by 20 percent due to inflation and low supply. Despite this, mill-led programs and collaborations have contributed to the use of organic cotton in jeans.

The industry's focus on sustainability extends beyond materials to include environmentally friendly dyes, water-saving finishing processes, and promoting denim's durability through upcycled collections.

The continued efforts of brands and consumers to embrace sustainable practices are key drivers of the ongoing transformation within the denim industry.

Pure London, the UK's largest fashion festival, has unveiled an impressive lineup of resort wear brands that will be showcasing their latest collections. Taking place from July 16th to 18th, 2023, at the iconic Olympia London, Pure London is renowned for its ability to bring together the brightest minds in the industry, offering a platform to showcase the season's must-have collections, latest trends, and exclusive business insights.

Among the standout brands participating in this season's event are Guilty Beach, PALME, Terre Rouge, Sophia Alexia, Zen Ethic, NoLogo, One Hundred Stars, Coocu Resorts, Pho Firenze, and Sandy Tzatzou.

Making its debut at Pure London, Italian brand Pho Firenze presents an exotic collection inspired by the enchanting lifestyle of Tuscany. With crochet, tassels, and sheer materials, their designs combine youthful patterns and form-flattering silhouettes, resulting in glamorous creations.

Another newcomer, Coocu Resorts, draws inspiration from Greek heritage, architecture, and nature, offering dresses, kaftans, and tunics crafted from natural cottons, linen, and silks, featuring exquisite embroidery and jacquard patterns.

Pure London also welcomes Sandy Tzatzou, a Greek brand showcasing show-stopping swimwear complemented by feminine and elegant ready-to-wear styles. Returning to the festival, Zen Ethic presents chic and comfortable clothes inspired by the authenticity and spirituality of India, using natural and recycled materials.

Guilty Beach, a premium brand, displays timeless resort wear known for luxury, featuring beautiful embroidery, unique prints, and stunning beading. Luxury fashion resort wear brand Sophia Alexia specializes in exclusive, colorful prints adorning dresses, beach shirts, kaftans, and accessories, offering an elegant and flattering collection.

NoLoGo, a UK-designed brand, captures the essence of summer with versatile and practical styles, while PALME stands out with its cheerful colors and bold prints, equally suitable for city and beach wear. Terre Rouge, originating from Southern France, presents a vibrant cotton collection of colorful and easy-to-wear styles.

The festival will showcase collections that explore sustainable production, slow fashion, and traditional artisan craftsmanship from around the world, promising an exciting and inspiring celebration of fashion.

Ahead of the inaugural Organic Textile Week (15-21 May 2023), a recent survey conducted in the UK has highlighted consumer concerns regarding deceptive practices within the fashion industry.

The survey, which gathered responses from 2,000 individuals, found that a staggering 70% of participants would be less inclined to purchase products from brands making false claims about their organic credentials.

Furthermore, the study revealed that 59% of respondents expressed feelings of anger or disgust upon discovering that certain clothing brands, purporting to be organic, may actually contain hazardous synthetic pesticides and other harmful chemicals. This revelation underscored the growing demand for genuinely sustainable clothing options, with 57% of participants emphasizing the importance of purchasing clothes and textiles that are authentically sustainable.

Alarmingly, over three-quarters of those surveyed admitted to being unsure or unaware of the meaning behind the term "certified organic textiles." Astonishingly, nearly a third of the British population remained oblivious to the existence of organic textiles or clothing altogether. In addition, 56% of respondents confessed to lacking knowledge on how to identify certified organic items.

The survey findings also unveiled strong public support for legislation requiring clothing brands to adhere to transparent organic textile processing standards before being permitted to label their products as organic.

A significant 70% of participants advocated for such legal requirements, emphasizing the need to combat greenwashing practices within the industry.