Badly hit by Brexit and COVID-19 pandemic, UK’s apparel imports have been on a decline since 2019.

As per a Textile Today report, UK’s apparel imports peaked in 2018 at $26.502 billion, compared to $24.308 billion in 2017.

The decline started since 2019 when the import value was $25.809 billion. In 2020, it further decreased to $22.943 billion and 20.886 billion in 2021.It stood at $7.634 billion in the first four months of this year.

However, home textiles imports decreased only last year to $4.212 billion in 2021 from its peak of $7.974 billion in 2020.

The value of imports was almost at the same level in the preceding three years – $5.364 billion in 2017, $5.548 billion in 2018 and $5.593 billion in 2019. The figure stood at $1.274 billion in January-April 2022, according to analysis.

Fashion for Good and Textile Exchange have jointly released ‘The Textile Tracer Assessment’, a detailed guide of physical tracer technologies applicable to the textile supply chain. The assessment provides fashion ecosystem stakeholders with an overview to evaluate and determine which tracer technologies would best suit their sustainability and operational needs.

This guide assesses promising physical tracer technologies applicable for improving traceability verification in the textile industry. Today, there is a lack of reliable verification for fibres, materials, and finished products. Scaling and further implementation of physical tracer technologies can help to address key industry challenges for traceability and help authenticate sustainability standards and certification.

The Textile Tracer Assessment is a tool for stakeholders across the supply chain from suppliers, to brands, to certification bodies, who are motivated to explore and implement physical tracer technologies to supplement existing traceability models.

Current chain-of-custody processes fall short in physical/material authentications which may lead to false claims and the sourcing of fibres and materials with unchecked environmental risks. This report addresses the key challenges in both categories of tracer technologies, as well as how and where best they can be applied to strengthen chain-of-custody models and fibre/material integrity. Tracer technologies can only facilitate the flow of information, and thus should be considered within a wider context of sustainability strategy. Physical tracer technologies work best when implemented in tandem with digital traceability, and are key to supplement site-level verification, and transactional-level verification providing robust, holistic and future-proofed traceability governance.

T.Rajkumar, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), ManojkumarPatodia, Chairman, The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) and Ravi Sam, Chairman of The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), appreciated the unstinted efforts constantly taken by PiyushGoyal, Union Minister of Textiles in forming a Textile Advisory Group.

The industry leaders urged stakeholders to holistic growth of cotton textile value chain in India as advised by the Textile Minister. The strategy to have testing facilities from Farm to Industry and also production of clean and contamination free cotton would soon enable the country to brand the Indian cotton and its textile products on par with any other international cotton. The decision of using colored HDPE bag for fertilizer packing would resolve the perennial problem regarding white HDPE contamination present in the Indian cotton as the farmers use these bags for handling of Kapas (seed cotton), said the veterans.

The leaders hailed the tremendous opportunities that would emerge with the signing of FTAs with UAE and Australia and significant progress made for conclusion of FTA’s with EU, UK and Canada. Also with the support of benefits extended in the form of RoSCTL, RoDTEP, NTTM and PM MITRA schemes, the demand for quality cotton would increase exponentially. They said that the efforts made by Goyal would bring back the dominance of India in the international market. They appreciated the decision of using right seeds, adoption of modern technology and progressive agricultural practices would enable India to increase the yield and profit margins of the cotton farmers.

Driven by robust sales during the quarter, the Q1 net income of AV Birla group firm Century Textiles and Industries jumped by 78 per cent to Rs63 crore.

Primarily engaged in textiles, pulp and paper products, the company’ sales grew by 41 per cent to Rs 1,170 crore compared to the year-ago period.

JC Laddha, Managing Director, attributed the growth to the high operational efficiency and improved market demand. The pulp and paper business has performed exceptionally well during the reporting quarter, especially with increased demand in the paper and tissue segment, he said.

Supported by good demand for fabrics for apparel, the textiles business saw impressive growth The pulp and paper business saw sales increasing 49 per cent to Rs 857 crore. This was on the back of better capacity utilisation, which touched 97 per cent leading to a production increase of paper and tissue segments by 17 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, on a year-on-year basis.

Despite ongoing political and economic crisis, Sri Lanka has registered an impressive growth in garment and textile exports. in the first five month of this year despite the ongoing economic and political crisis. The country’s garment exports grew by 16.7 per cent to $2,206.6 million in January-May 2022 over exports worth 1,890.9 million in the same period of previous year, according to the statistics released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan textile exports increased by 17.9 per cent year-on-year to $149.2 million during the same period. However, exports of other made-up textile articles stood at $52.7 million during January-May 2022, registering a decline of 3.2 per cent year-on-year, according to the central bank’s report ‘External Sector Performance – May 2022’.

Textiles and garments exports accounted for 56.40 per cent of all industrial exports from Sri Lanka during the five-month period of this year, the report showed.

On the other hand, imports of textiles and textile articles rose by 19.6 per cent to $1,404.7 million, while clothing and accessories imports were up by 21.4 per cent to $109.7 million during January-May 2022.

South India Textile Research Association (SITRA), a textile research organisation here, plans to set up a centre of excellence in Tiruppur as a joint initiative with the Dyers Association of Tiruppur.

PrakashVasudevan, Director, SITRA says, the association working with Tiruppur cluster for almost eight years and wanted to promote green processing among textile units in the cluster. The plan was to set up a centre in Tiruppur, train processing sector personnel, promote use of eco-friendly chemicals, reduce use of water and energy, have a laboratory, demonstrate new technologies, and offer certifications too. This will be an exhaustive facility that will come up at a cost of Rs 70 crore to Rs 80 crore, he says

SITRA had worked with the spinning sector for several decades, extended its work to medical textiles, and wanted to strengthen its research and expand its work to the knitwear cluster in Tiruppur, he adds.

Fashion experts are giving up hope for a short-term peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and exiting from the country. H&M has announced plans to exit business in Russia. The decision involves closing of 170 stores and laying off of 6,000 employee

hen retailers like Zara parent Inditex, luxury giants LVMH and Kering, and online retailers Yoox Net-a-Porter and Farfetch have suspended sales in Russia to avoid running afoul of Western sanctions, and partly to head off public outcry. It worked — photos of dark Zara and Dior stores inside Moscow shopping malls satisfied most consumers, even if some knew their owners could theoretically turn the lights back on anytime they wanted.

That middle ground is increasingly unviable, as the war drags on and atrocities such as the massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha come to light.

Brands now face a choice: they can shut their Russian operations entirely, as H&M and Nike have done. They can sell their Russian businesses, as off-price retailer T.J. Maxx did when it sold a 25 percent stake in the Russian retailer Familia. Or they can continue with a wait-and-see approach.

The Bangladesh Bank extended the increased borrowing limit from the Export Development Fund (EDF) for textile millers and garment makers to December 31 this year.

In January, the central bank raised the loan limit to $30 million from $25 million in order to help exporters offset the business slowdown originating from the coronavirus pandemic. The disbursement deadline was set for June 30, 2022.

Now, the facility for the members of the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has been extended to December 31, according to a notice of the central bank. This is the third extension. The size of the EDF stands at $7 billion.

Calvin Klein Jeans tapped Fashion Clinic, a Hong Kong-based collective of designers and tailors with specialties in redesigning and up cycling dead stock garments and materials, to help tell a visual and wearable story about denim waste.

The PVH Corp.-owned brand partnered with the collective to develop the Reimagined Denim Collection made from excess and reworked denim. Handcrafted in Hong Kong utilizing 2,000 pairs of unworn jeans, no two pieces in the collection are the same. Fashion Clinic brought the pieces to life through patchwork, reinforced rips, washing and distressing techniques. Labels, buttons and zippers were also kept intact to further reduce waste.

Garments spanned an oversized ’90s jacket re-cut from four pairs of jeans and eight hours of handcrafting to straight crop jeans spliced together from two pairs of jeans with contrasting washes. Other items included a hat, skirt and bralette.

The garments were available from June 22-July 13 exclusively at a dedicated popup located at the Times Square Hong Kong shopping mall. Upcycled denim and “rescued textiles” were used throughout the space to create a denim jungle, including a giant denim tiger made from repurposed materials to mark the Year of the Tiger.

Primark will launch a new range featuring Recover’s RColorBlend fiber- a combination of recycled cotton from textile waste and low impact dyed recycled polyester, removing the need for garment dye.

The RColorBlend leisurewear range will be available to customers in selected stores across all 14 markets in Europe and the US markets.

Primark is expanding its partnership with recycled cotton producer Recover™ and will become the first high-street retailer to use Recover’s unique RColorBlendfibre on a global scale with the launch of a new leisurewear range. The partnership supports Primark’s commitment, through its Primark Cares strategy, to increase the amount of clothing containing recycled materials and builds on its ambition to make more sustainable fashion affordable for all.

Recover™ is a global producer of low-impact, high-quality recycled cotton fibre and fibre blends, including RColorBlend. The company transforms textile waste into recycled fibres and blends, helping to close the loop on fashion.

The range is made using recycled cotton and polyester fibres and includes t-shirts priced at £6, $10,€8 and sweatshirts priced at £11, $17,€13 in a range of colours including grey, blue and pink. It will launch in selected stores across 14 markets in Europe and the US.