Indian home textile major Welspun’s second quarter net profit jumped 66.5 per cent. The company continues to calibrate capex according to cash flows. In the first half of the fiscal, its capex was Rs 460 crores. For 2019-20, the total capex is expected to be Rs 600 crores. The company has started a flooring business under Welspun Flooring. Welspun is looking at offering luxury performance tiles, wall-to-wall carpets and artificial grass for offices and cricket fields. Its emerging businesses are gaining traction. Its recently commissioned flooring solutions plant could provide tremendous growth opportunities in the domestic market as well as the export market.

Welspun is going into advanced textiles. The big bet on advanced textiles includes making disposable towels out of non-woven textiles and filters for the auto and power sector. Advanced textiles will broadbase Welspun’s clientele by adding sectors such as auto, healthcare and FMCG. The company is known for bed sheets and towels and has introduced reversible bed sheets and quick-dry towels. It is one of the largest suppliers of home textiles to retailers like Walmart, Costco and others. The company also sells premium licensed brand products like Wimbeldon, Nickelodeon and Disney. Branded products account for 17 per cent of its revenues.

Indian textile units have asked for liquidity support and a one or two year moratorium. Other issues are pending claims under the various rebate schemes; release of TUFS subsidy; reducing the margin money for working capital from 25 to 10 per cent and the debt-equity ratio norm from 1:1.33 for the entire textile and clothing industry; extending the five per cent interest subvention for all textile and clothing export products; slotting recycled PSF under the five per cent GST rate; and enhanced EPF benefits.

The National Committee on Textiles & Clothing (NCTC) is meeting regularly to discuss various issues ranging from fiber to fashion to arrive at a common understanding of both short term and long term policy measures for domestic and international markets.

For the purpose of long term policy measures, NCTC will hire the services of a competent agency to undertake a study and recommend various policy measures to enable the entire textile and clothing value chain covering all types of fibers and products to remain globally competitive and achieve a sustained growth rate, both in the domestic and international markets. Among the measures proposed by NCTC are imposing adequate safeguards on the imports of fibers, yarns, fabrics, readymade garments and used cloths from China, Bangladesh and Indonesia; including the anti-dumping duty in the duty drawback calculation and enhancing the rates appropriately.

Michael Scheiner is chief marketing officer, Tommy Hilfiger. Scheiner has over 15 years of experience at global brands. He joins Tommy Hilfiger from Hollister. His work helped to move Hollister into the top five brands among teens and supported Hollister’s recognition as a top omni-channel retailer. He is expected to lead Tommy Hilfiger into a new era of innovative marketing strategies – particularly across digital and experiential platforms – to reach and engage the next generation of consumers. Additionally the brand will engage him in helping fuel its ongoing digital transformation, enabling it to respond strategically to new disruptions and position Tommy Hilfiger as a leader among its competitors.

Tommy Hilfiger is a leading lifestyle brand, with a globally recognized name and identity. The company’s marketing initiatives have been instrumental to the increasing footprint of Tommy Hilfiger through the consistent growth of global brand awareness and consumer-centric strategies that build and retain a loyal fan base. Today, brand exposure is at an all-time high as a result of standout collections, campaigns, partnerships and impactful consumer activations worldwide. As one of the world’s most globally recognized brands, its marketing teams around the world play a pivotal role in inspiring, exciting and engaging consumers.

Hugo Boss has deployed artificial intelligence and tablets at its production facility in Turkey. The 65,000 sq. mt. factory with around 4000 employees is reimagining the ways humans and machines interact. The factory produces as many as 9,00,000 suits annually, as well as two million shirts and 5,50,000 pieces of women’s apparel. The plant has also started to deliver single piece orders to pilot stores in Asia. In time the plant will be developed as a platform for products, services, and knowledge.

Between shifts, workers have to clean up workplaces and unplug machines. When it was first implemented, the process would take 40 minutes, whereas now it’s cut down to only five or ten. The flexible shifts enable faster adaptation to fluctuations in demand for the numerous product groups that are made at the plant.

Over 1,600 tablets are used on the shop floor, allowing mistakes to be immediately flagged to the colleague who worked on the previous step where the error was made in the production line, reducing the number of follow-up mistakes. By noticing and acting on the mistake the worker can choose to rehearse the task with the help of a mixed reality game that was developed for the factory. Over 1,000 operations have been taught with the help of a virtual dojo.

Bangladesh has reduced the source tax on export proceeds for all sectors from 1.0 per cent to 0.25 per cent. The aim is to boost readymade garment exports. The reduced source tax rate will remain till the end of this fiscal year. Bangladesh garment exporters have long been demanding for source tax reduction. The tax reduction decision was made in the wake of sluggish growth in export income in recent months.

Bangladesh’s export earnings in the first quarter of the current fiscal year fell 2.94 per cent year-on-year. Knitwear garment exports declined 1.64 per cent while woven garments fell 0.87 per cent.

Bangladesh has put in action a multi-pronged approach to ensure that garment exports to new countries get the much-needed traction in every possible way. It is also working toward increasing apparel exports to South America, Russia and Brazil, among others. Wage payments are being digitized. Workers are paid through their mobile wallets. Additionally, to streamline the production process and keep the future in perspective, entrepreneurs are being encouraged to set up units within planned industrial zones. Europe and USA have long been the export strong holds of Bangladesh. Non-conventional market places for Bangladesh include Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Turkey.

Tinctorium has created a proprietary bio-synthesized dye solution that can eliminate the need for toxic chemicals in the color production process. The company is creating a proprietary bio-synthesized dye solution that can eliminate the need for toxic chemicals in the color production process. Tinctorium uses fermentation biotechnology in order to grow blue dye. It programs and grows naturally occurring bacteria in order to produce the relevant color. The bacteria is fed with sugar which allows them to grow, and the bacteria are programmed to specifically secrete an indigo precursor. The company then combines the precursor with an enzyme to create a direct glucose indigo solution that can be directly applied to yarns using existing equipment as a substitute for indigo dyes. The entire fermentation process happens in less than a couple of days. The dye is also easier to purify and is sustainable.

Indigo production masks the darker side of denim manufacturing. Over 99 per cent of the industry uses a petrochemical yeast synthesize dye solution. Even factory explosions happen regularly as part of the dye creation process and pollution in both the way that things are produced as well as in the dye application process and in waste water.

Cone Denim has used Intrinsic Advanced Materials’ CiCLO technology in its newest collection of stretch denim. Products made with CiCLO fibers reduce the persistence of plastic microfibers in oceans and plastic accumulation in landfills and allow synthetic plastic-based fibers to behave more like natural fibers. This patent-pending technology provides the platform for making Cone’s CiCLO stretch denim eco-friendly and a more sustainable stretch solution. CiCLO stretch denims are also offered in Cone’s Distilled Indigo shades, for an even more sustainable denim. The flexibility of the technology opens many opportunities to innovate new denim constructions, creating denim with a reduced impact on the environment. Cone Denim is known for its signature S Gene stretch denims which incorporate polyester components into the stretch. S-Gene delivers stretch and recovery without sacrificing soft hand feel.

Cone Denim, based in the US, has been a leading supplier of denim fabrics to top denim apparel brands since 1891. It offers vintage, selvage, and rigid and stretch denims. Cone Denim is the first denim mill to offer a product line with CiCLO technology. Cone’s aim is to offer sustainable denim fabrics in the effort to reduce synthetic microfiber pollution in oceans and decrease the accumulation in landfills.

Hanoi Tex is on in Vietnam, October 23 to 25, 2019. This is a fabric and garment accessories expo and an important event of the Vietnamese garment and textile industry. It gathers advanced technology, equipment and accessories in the industry as well as the latest information to serve Vietnam’s garment and textile industry. Suppliers from 15 countries and territories across the world such as China, Korea, Germany, Italy, the UK, the US and others are participating. Hanoi Tex aims at creating conditions for the Vietnamese garment and textile industry to learn and select modern and environmentally friendly equipment. The event will also provide an opportunity for enterprises to meet partners, promote their brands and seek business opportunities.

Vietnam is ranked third in the world in garment and textile exports with an export revenue of over $36 billion in 2018 and an estimated export revenue of $40 billion in 2029. The country’s garment and textile industry has proved its significant role in generating jobs, ensuring social welfare, and contributing to the budget. The industry has created jobs for more than two million people and continues to generate an additional 2,00,000 jobs each year.

Asahi Songwon Colors will set up a greenfield factory in a joint venture with Tennants Textile Colors to manufacture red and yellow pigments in the plant.

The plant to be commissioned in March 2021 will be set up in Gujarat and will have a capacity of 2400 tons annual production. Asahi Songwon, based in Gujarat, is a blue pigments manufacturer. Under the joint venture, Asahi will have a 51 per cent shareholding and Tennants Textile Colors a 49 per cent shareholding in the joint venture company Asahi Tennants Color.

The joint venture gives Asahi the perfect launching pad to widen its presence as a leading global supplier of pigments. With TTC’s technology and Asahi’s manufacturing efficiencies, Asahi Tennants Color is set to make a mark in the AZO pigment space. The new venture with the UK-based group will enable Asahi to expand its global pigment presence, currently dominant in the phthalocyanine pigment space, to the full range of pigment colors.

Currently, Asahi is a market leader in the blue pigment business, supplying to top global multinational corporations, but now, after commissioning this project, we will widen the product basket. Pigment is a basic raw material as almost all industrial sectors need pigments with printing ink, paints, plastics and textiles.

"With prices of clothing falling and disposable incomes rising, fast fashion has become one of the major trends of the 21st century. However, this has also contributed to major environmental crises and the textile industry is now regarded as the second most polluting industry. People are now questioning the moral and ethical compromises they have to make to keep up with the latest fashion trends."

With prices of clothing falling and disposable incomes rising, fast fashion has become one of the major trends of the 21st century. However, this has also contributed to major environmental crises and the textile industry is now regarded as the second most polluting industry. People are now questioning the moral and ethical compromises they have to make to keep up with the latest fashion trends. The case in point is about the fast fashion brands, which prided themselves on providing ‘fashion at low prices’ but since 2013, these brandsare known more for their associations with the Rana Plaza type of incidents: where a factory collapsed due to the hazardous state of the building, claiming the lives of over 1,100 workers and permanently injuring over 2000 more. The disaster revealed the horrendous working conditions faced by those who work in the overseas factories producing clothes for our high street; including low wages, no health care benefits, unsanitary and mentally damaging working environments and excessively long working days.

A wake up call for brands

The incident compelled both consumers and brands to change their attitude towards environment protection. As 2018 Weber and Shandwick public opinion poll revealed, around 83 per cent millennials plan to boycott a brand for ethical, moral, or environmental reasons. This would serve as a huge wake-up call for offender brands who are now being pressured by both the government and the consumers to take responsibility for their extremely influential actions. Recent reports reveal, around 200 high street brands have signed up to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition so far.

On its part, one of the brands teamed up with Cotton Connect and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in 2013 to create the Sustainable Cotton Programme. This scheme trains farmers in sustainable cotton farming techniques to produce organic cotton. The brand now plans to train 160,000 farmers across India and Bangladesh in efforts to exclusively use 100 per cent organic cotton in their products within the next few years. Though these efforts on part of the brands are admirable, still a lot needs to be done.

Role of social media

Social media too has contributed to the rapid rise in popularity of second-hand resale websites and apps such as Depop, eBay and Gumtree. Schemes like TK Maxx’s “Give up clothes for Good” in association with Cancer Research allow customers to donate their unwanted clothes to charity, preventing perfectly wearable clothes from ending up in a landfill.

Social media also exposes environmental offenders through its ever-present advertising and the ‘swipe effect’ which that thoughtless buying. For instance, earlier this year, The Guardiantriggered a nationwide boycott of the #IWannabespicegirl, which was being produced in a factory where wages averaged at 35p an hour and shifts were mandatory for 16 hours per day. Retailers like Marks and Spencer temporarily ceased trading of the brand’s products and launched an investigation into the production of its t-shirts. This campaign is yet another example of how the public are waking up to the dark consequences of fast fashion and demanding change.

Need for a more focused approach

Though a step in the right directions, these initiatives need a more critical eye that will push these companies to become more sustainable. Though the industry has set the ball rolling for becoming more sustainable however, it needs to reduce its consumption of fast fashion products to be truly sustainable. =