A group of fashion CEOs, retailers and designers, including luminaries lie as Dries Van Noten, Tory Burch and Craig Green, have called for greater efforts to encourage sustainability in an open letter to the industry. The group noted the current environment presents an opportunity for a fundamental and welcome change that will simplify their businesses, making them more environmentally and socially sustainable and ultimately align them more closely with customers’ needs.

The group emerged from a series of Zoom conferences this month, uniting a surprisingly broad array of figures including fashion forward designers, dynamic executives, influential big boutique owners and even online retailers. The first of their two key demands included adjusting the seasonality and flow of both women’s wear and menswear goods, starting with the Autumn/Winter 2020 season besides maintaining a more balanced flow of deliveries through the season to provide newness but also time for products to create desire.

Another of their goal is to greatly reduce the bane of all designer houses, discounts, in order to allow more full-price selling. This fledgling fashion forum also calls for greater sustainability throughout the supply chain and a new sales calendar, which they claim would lead to less unnecessary product; less wasted fabrics and inventory, and less showrooms.

The letter is also signed by the likes of Joseph Altuzarra, Linda Fargo of Bergdorf Goodman, Erdem Moralioglu, Gabriella Hearst, Shelly Corkery of Brown Thomas, Marine Serre, Mary Katrantzou, Michael Kliger of Mytheresa, Pierre-Yves Roussel and Rodrigo Bazan of Thom Browne.

A Bloomsberg report says India plans to welcome factories leaving China by designating a 461,589-hectare land pool for manufacturers. The land, including existing industrial land in Tamil Nadu, could also include available land in special economic zones where infrastructure is already in place. The Central government is reportedly working with states to ease land acquisition impediments. Already, manufacturers from the US, China, Japan and South Korea have reportedly expressed interest in this investment.

India currently accounts for 7.5 per cent of US apparel and textiles imports, and its growth over the year to March was flat. The country ranks 63rd on World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report for ease of conducting business. It ranks among the top 10 improving nations as far as starting a business and trading across borders is concerned.

On the other hand, China’s share of US apparel and textiles imports has fallen 39 per cent year over year. Now the country accounts for less than 31 per cent of the market, according to data from the US Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA). Much like its non-China sourcing players, the country is suffering from order drought and ever-escalating tensions with the US, which could further complicate trade in the not-distant future.

H&M Group is expanding into new European markets with its brands Cos, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories and Arket adding new webstores in nine additional markets across the continent.

The new markets include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Croatia that will launch this week (on May 14). They’ll be followed by Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus on May 20. Customers can sign up to get access and a special welcome offer, the day before the launch. If they subscribe on the website through the country selector page, they can get access to the VIP shopping day, taking place a day before the grand opening.

These new online markets are part of H&M Group’s ambition to make its brands available to more customers globally. The importance of online to the group was made very clear last week when its total sales fell 57 per cent from March 1, but online sales rose by 32 per cent during the period.

Ludhiana-based textile giant Trident Group has decided to increase the wage of its 12,000 workers by 38 to 48 per cent. Workers under institutional level (IL-1), mainly operators getting Rs 18,000 per month, witnessed an increase of Rs 7,000 and will now get Rs 25,000 per month. Similarly, IL-2 (senior, skilled and experienced) operators and supervisors who were getting around Rs. 27,000 per month will now get Rs 40,000 per month. As per the company’s recent annual report in 2018-19, its manpower strength stood at 13,816 as compared to 12,579 in 2017-18.

As per sources, these hikes will be applied from June and are expected to be retained there for always. The objective of this move is to use at least 80 per cent capacity in the near future.

The company has received a huge order of towel and bed sheet from US-based retailer Target. It aims to do at least Rs 1,000 crore business with the Target. On the other hand, majority of the staff of the Group has also deducted 20 to 50 per cent salary of its mid to top-level management for the months of May and June.

Harish Kairpal, Finance Secretary of Knitwear Club, has requested the Punjab government to allow them to operate their units in non-designated areas. Dinesh Kalra, President of Ludhiana Business Forums and a garment manufacturer also urged the government to reopen units in MLU areas and non-designated areas like Shivpuri, Kundanpuri, Kidwai Nagar, Chandan Nagar.

According to representatives of Knitwear Club, one of India’s largest bodies of the garment manufacturers, one of the reasons for a high percentage of garment units in Punjab not being able to start operations is that the government has granted permission to only those factories which are located in the designated industrial areas, whereas 85 per cent of Ludhiana’s garment industry is based in non-designated and mix-land use (MLU) areas.

Vinod Thapar, Chairman of the club revealed it’s been almost 20 days since the state government allowed factories to start operations. But, it had said that only those in designated industrial areas can reopen. As a result, close to 25,000 micro and small garment and textile units are still shut.

In another setback to these manufacturers, for more than 45 days their units have been shut and they have not even able to make any sales. Now the units are totally drained out now and can’t pay the workers before operations resume.

Gap’s move to expand into other categories has generated mixed reactions from the industry. As a part of its deal with licensing firm IMG, Gap will be selling products in the home décor, furniture and textiles spaces. Gap-owned Banana Republic and Janie and Jack will also be expanding into new categories, yet to be named. Additionally, Gap will be launching baby equipment and care products, presumably under its existing baby clothing brands.

Ken Cassar, Principal at Cassarco Strategy and Analytics Consultants, views this move as a big payoff. However, Georganne Bender, Principal at Kizer & Bender advises The Gap GPS to reinvent itself. Most current footprints for Gap brands are too small to make an impact selling furniture, home decor and apparel a la Anthropologie.

Kathleen Fischer, Director of retail marketing at enVista also believes that launching a new segment in current times is not ideal as demand is weak, supply chains are broken and money is tight. Fischer advises Gap to shore up its current business model before branching into something new.

According to Jeff Weidaeur, Principal at SSR Retail, the best time for a brand to stretch into adjacent categories is when it has a strong share in its primary category. Neil Saunders, Managing Director at GlobalData, opines this move will enable Gap to raise some quick and cheap money.

Gap is also planning to slowly reopen stores as some US states and cities begin lifting lockdown restrictions. The brand plans to open 800 of its Gap, Old Navy, Athleta and Banana Republic stores by the end of the month.

Coats Digital, the world’s leading industrial thread company, has launched PPE Fast Start, an initiative to support manufacturers switching part of their production facilities and supply chains to help address the global shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The PPE Fast Start version for FastReactPlan provides manufacturers with a highly visual, intuitive solution which supports a fast, detailed and accurate order confirmation process and a production plan which is optimised for delivery, efficiency and speed.

Similarly, the Fast Start for PPE version of GSDCost, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) helps them to establish and optimise accurate time and cost benchmarks for garment costing. It also enables staff with little or no manufacturing expertise to develop a ‘time-cost analysis’ for selected PPE products ensuring that the Standard Minute Values (SMVs) used for costing, capacity calculations, performance targets and planning are accurate, reliable and consistent.

There is also a Fast Start for PPE version of IntelloCut, the real-time, automated fabric planning solution for optimised fabric utilisation which gives manufacturers complete control over fabric usage in the cutting room. It optimises the processes of cut plan, lay plan and allocation, end bit usage and management, tracking and reporting.

All three of the PPE Fast Start solutions have been configured to support rapid, remote implementation and can be fully operational and delivering significant, measurable business benefits in a matter of weeks.

Apparel Textile Sourcing Trade Shows recently added Apparel Textile Sourcing Virtual edition to its 2020 trade-show calendar. Scheduled to take place May 25-29, the show will feature supply-chain focused seminars, buyer-and-seller matchmaking, and interactive booths, through which attendees can shop ready-to-order apparel, textiles and accessories.

While ATS postponed its Apparel Textile Sourcing Miami show due to COVID-19, moving the event from May 27-29 to November 11-13, show organizers wanted to aid its exhibitors and attendees. The introduction of the virtual ATS component was to deal with the challenges stemming from the pandemic faced by the industry. According to Jason Prescott, CEO, JPC Inc and ATS Trade Show producer, COVID-19 has led industry leaders to come together in the spirit of collaboration to support the health of the apparel business.

The producers of the event are currently approaching attendees registered for the Miami and Canada editions of the ATS shows, in addition to brands from TopTenWholesale.com and Manufacturer.com

AEPC says around 20 per cent of apparel exporters in India have resumed operations with 25-30 per cent of their workforce. Many apparel makers opened some of their factories with a rudimentary workforce in April to make personal protective equipment, but now more factories are being opened and production of apparels is being resumed. These include leading exporters like Shahi Exports, Gokaldas Exports, Texport Industries, Matrix Clothing and Orient Fashion Exports.

With lockdowns in place the world over to contain Covid-19, many companies had cancelled or deferred their orders, said people in the know. Some of these orders were in the middle of production and the salvage value of these was less than a quarter of the cost. According to industry estimates, between 15 and 25 per cent of orders placed before the pandemic have been cancelled with companies invoking the ‘force majeure’ clause and not all have reimbursed their suppliers for the material loss.

Meanwhile, companies have been negotiating for longer payment schedules than the usual 30-day or 60-day cycles to 90 and 120 days, leading to cashflow constraints for manufacturers. Some have even tried negotiating for 180 days.

New orders for fall and winter collections are also being delayed as stores in the western hemisphere are only now slowly opening and the companies are yet to assess the demand. Since many corporate offices in Europe and the US remain closed, it will take longer for clarity to emerge whether these orders will come at a later stage or not.

Export business upwards of $3 billion has been impacted due to the Covid-19 pandemic because key European markets like Italy had gone into lockdown even before India in mid-March.

Labor rights advocates recently complained to the Workers Rights Consortium that Bestseller is imposing retroactive price reductions, order cancellations and extended delays in payment of invoices across its supply chain. The Denmark-headquartered apparel retailer—which also owns the Jack & Jones, Mamalicious and Vero Moda brands—has canceled up to 20 per cent of completed and in-process orders without compensation while imposing price cuts of up to 25 per cent on the orders it is accepting.

Despite it’s previously announced commitment to accept delivery of finished and in-production orders, plus its pledge to remain in “close dialogue” with suppliers amid the coronavirus pandemic, Bestseller has not promised to pay for these orders in full. Instead it is telling suppliers to accept retroactive cancellations and price reductions on its orders, which vary in size from supplier to supplier and which, in the aggregate, constitute a huge financial blow to Bestseller’s supplier base and to the workers who make its clothes.