British Wool has purchased new premises in Selkirk, which will replace its current depot in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders from the 2023 wool season.

The new site provides a more modern and spacious working environment, with increased capacity for wool grading and storage, providing more flexibility for the business and improved service to members. This development comes on the back of the sale of the Irvine site in 2021 and enables British Wool to optimise wool collection and processing costs in the region, ultimately helping improve wool prices for all British Wool members.

For local members delivering wool this season the arrangements will remain the same and there will continue to be no deductions for transport for wool delivered to an approved British Wool collection site.

Reviving and revitalizing face-to-face business meetings through the physical format, the 9th Intex South Asia – Bangladesh Edition concluded on a positive note in Dhaka.

The biggest international textiles sourcing show for fibers, yarns, fabrics, trims and more for the apparel industry was held from June 16-18, 2022, at the International Convention City Bashundhara, Dhaka. The show was attended by 4,860 trade visitors from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Malaysia, Brazil, Italy, Germany and more.

During the course of the expo, Intex South Asia once again presented the globally renowned Interactive Business Forum Seminar Series (IBF), hosting trailblazing industry seminars and workshops by global industry experts on India-Bangladesh business ties, green manufacturing, textile business and investment opportunities in Africa, latest digital technology to support RMG industry and logistics and supply chain with industry leaders and experts from the textile and apparel industry of South Asia.

The trends showcase at Intex South Asia had representations from Italtex, an Italian Trends Studio that showcased Fabric Trends for Fall Winter 23/24 & Spring Summer 2024 Collection; Pantone Connect with Live Colour Swatches on display for visitors and Fashion Snoops USA with their trends forecast. Also present were the Bangladesh Handloom Board showcased “Dhaka Muslin” with other traditional textiles and the BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology (BUFT) whose students presented innovative and sustainable fashion “Made in Bangladesh”.

For the first time, Bangladesh is participating in Techtextil 2022, which is expected to provide an opportunity to export high-value technical textile products to the $200 billion global technical textile market.

As per Saiful Islam, Commercial Counselor, Bangladesh Embassy in Berlin, the event will help Bangladesh diversify exports to technical textiles which many BGMEA members specialize in. It will help them represent Bangladesh at such international expos.

Held in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from June 21 to 24, 2022, Techtextil presented international exhibitors who showcased the entire spectrum of technical textiles, functional apparel textiles and textile technologies. Texprocess, the leading trade fair for the apparel and textile processing industry, and the Heimtextil Summer Special, international trade fair for home and contract textiles, were also held parallel to Techtextil.

The next Techtextil and Texprocess will take place from April 23-26, 2024.

A Texbrasil company, Santista Jeanswear, which presented its winter ’23 collection, at Denim City SP in May, has allied its sustainable processes with Eco Laundry. The company has also become the first Brazilian weaving company to achieve high scores in Light Sensitive Fabric Score (LSF) by Jeanologia®, which evaluates the performance of fabrics in sustainable processes in the criteria of luminosity, contrast, degree of white, threadbare and visual aspect.

Among the releases, the company highlighted articles Soft UP and UP which obtained high scores in the Blue Scan. Soft UP also achieved excellent score in the Light Sensitive Fabric Score (LSF). In addition to the Eco Laundry fabrics, the new Panther collection comes in black, Dakota, Dakota Mix and New Like in Super Stretchs and New Slime in the Sticker Power ranges with special Lycra®. The company’s fabrics were analyzed by designers Jorge Feitosa and Tom Martins. The showcase also featured special pieces washed by the Jeanologia Europa team

Nike’s Q4 revenues declined 1 per cent Y-o-Y to $12.2 billlion. Direct revenues increased 7 per cent to $4.8 billion during the quarter compared to earlier while wholesale revenues declined 7 per cent compared to a year earlier. The brand’s gross margins for the quarter declined 80 basis points to 45 per cent. Nike’s revenues for the full fiscal 2022 increased 5 per cent to $46.7 billion. Revenues for the brand Nike increased 5 per cent to $44.4 billion on a reported basis. Direct revenues increased 14 per cent on a reported basis led by 18 per cent growth in Nike’s digital operations. Revenues from Nike-owned stores grew 10 per cent.

Nike’s gross margin during the full year increased 120 basis points to 46.0 percent, primarily due to margin expansion in its Nike’s direct business, a higher mix of full-price sales and favorable changes in net foreign currency exchange rates, including hedges, partially offset by elevated freight and logistics costs and higher inventory obsolescence reserves in Greater China in the fourth quarter.

Levi’s collaborated with Reese Cooper to showcase its Spring/Summer 2023 collection at Paris Fashion Week on June 23, 2022. The collection includes a 10-piece jeans range from Levi’s, trucker jackets, hoodies, and T-shirts. It combines high fashion with heritage and offers fast fashion styles with formalwear garments.

The collection also includes a Levi’s Type II Trucker and straight fit jeans in triple-stitched organic cotton duck canvas in green or ecru shades, and a patchwork chore coat and straight fit jean in indigo denim made from cottonized hemp. Also, the line offers two graphic printed T-shirts in organic cotton. The graphics on are based on Levi’s workwear range. The Levi’s pieces were supported by ruched dresses, trench coats and cargo trousers.

The Japanese textile manufacturer Ecosensor™ by Asahi Kasei Advance has launched Spring/Summer 2023 collection offering high-tech fabrics to create a harmony between nature, body and mind. The collection comprises 40 new fabrics that meet the needs of the contemporary consumer, such as durability, wellbeing and performance. It covers the different market applications with seven fabrics for innerwear, two for outerwear, 17 for sports knit and 14 for sports woven.

The fabrics offered in the collection are made with sustainable materials certified by GRS, RCS or self-certified by each yarn supplier. The stretch fabrics are made with Roica™ EF by Asahi Kasei, the recycled stretch yarn made from pre-consumer materials. The main fibers used include certified recycled polyester and recycled polyamide, but the collection also features some blends, such as in Bemberg™, the high-tech yarn.

Even the dyeing and finishing phases - key moments for performancewear - have been certified by international labels such as bluesign® or OEKO-TEX® Standard 100.

Filidea Technical Yarns, the Filidea section specializing in development and production of technological, performance yarns in blends of natural and man-made fibres will showcase its R&D projects at Techtextil. The company has undertaken two important initiatives with other companies in the textile supply chain.

Filidea is participating in the European development project Trick in collaboration with 29 partners from six countries. A part of the European Horizon 2020 program, the project aims to reinforce the circular economy thanks to the development of a digital platform which is complete, traceable and available to operators in the textile sector.

Filidea has also established MagnoLab, a network of enterprises in the textile supply chain. MagnoLab boosts constant R&D activities. It aims to develop tangible solutions for the sector, to create values and to collaborate with regard to current and future demands.

One of the strengths of MagnoLab is the availability of a physical network of pilot facilities, installed in a unique plant in Cerrione (Biella), where it is possible to develop innovative products and processes using rapid, lean test cycles. This allows companies to concentrate prototyping activities to present to future customers and to experiment with solutions in terms of product and process to then transfer directly to the plants of the partners, and proceed to production at scale.

Brazil has imposed an anti-dumping duty on textured synthetic filament polyester yarn including synthetic monofilaments with a titer of less than 67 decitex, commonly classified in NCM (Mercosur Common Nomenclature) covered under HS Codes 5402.33.10, 5402.33.20 and 5402.33.90 originating from China and India.

The duty was calculated by SDCOM (Sub Secretariat of Commercial Defense and Public Interest of the Brazilian Ministry of Economy) Technicians using eight different parameters: cost of raw materials, direct labor, energy, production, operation and miscellaneous and profit, what is the ‘Constructed Normal Value (VNC)’ of the product compared to the actual price that the product was being sold for in the Brazilian market, etc.

They concluded the VNC of the Indian product is $1,955.63 (per ton – FOB) compared to the actual export price of $1397.06 (per ton – FOB). Therefore, it was concluded that Indian companies were exporting with dumping margin of 40 per cent.

It was further concluded that the average prices of polyester yarn from India and China were considerably below those of other importers. It was also noted that in the period investigated, imports of polyester yarn from India and China grew 110.4 per cent while the domestic producers had grown by 33.2 per cent while the local market had grown 79.9 per cent. It was therefore concluded that during that period, Indian and Chinese market share grew 10.9 per cent while local industries lost 3.9 per cent of market share.

The fashion industry is facing numerous challenges across countries. These include obstacles in delivery of in-demand products from suppliers. Also, suppliers are not able to predict demand due to uneven consumption patterns, says Achim Berg, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Co.

Focus on new alliances and technologies

Situations like these demand focus on new alliances and closer exchanges with brands, Berg opines. This would help suppliers predict demand by giving access to data. Brands also need to be flexible in their operations and improve product costs and Tier II and III suppliers, Berg says.

Demand recovery varies across regions. Recovery is strong in Asia with China leading demand. On the other hand, Europe is struggling due to lack of international travellers and fragmented nature of markets. North America, that initially witnessed a V-shaped recovery, is still going strong. Technology is playing an important role in recovery of brands with digitization of supply chains becoming extremely important.

Categories like dresses, high heels, even suits made a strong return in the first five or six months of this year. Europe is recovering so are the US and Asia. Together, these nations are expected to drive future consumption.

Managing costs

Though consumers desire to spend on fashion, mounting energy bills are preventing them from doing so. The Russia-Ukraine war is boosting energy bills and cost of living. It may also impact the fashion industry, particularly, he discounts, value fashion and midmarket segments.

Brands are likely to face a recession induced by current inflation levels. Rising energy costs and interest rates are likely to impact consumption and refinancing patterns and cost structures of companies. To manage costs, brands will have to review their investment budgets and cost structures, and prepare for a challenging 2023. They will have to move away from physical stores toward a more digital business model.

Traceability gains traction for brands

Sustainability continues to be the big topic. In the next 18 to 24 months, brands will have to focus on sustainability. They will have to emphasize on traceability and digitalization to ensure transparency across the supply chain.

Big players will get bigger in future, given the resources, brands and business systems they have built. Low-performing players will face challenges in funding some of the things that the top performers are doing. Brands need to diversify to geographic regions to balance risk. They should also expand their product categories with a bigger focus on digitizing operations.