Efforts are on toward branding and certifying the Indian cotton Kasturi.

The cotton industry will be supported with funds matching the industry contribution. Supply of good quality seeds in order to increase India's cotton productivity is an issue given serious thought. Advanced technologies related to high-yielding cotton seeds and innovative agronomy, such as high-density planting systems, to enhance the productivity of cottonare also being considered.

Since testing facilities need to be strengthened adequate modern testing facilities would be created through the Bureau of Indian Standards and Textile Research Associations.

The quality of Indian cotton fiber is paramount, therefore implementation of cotton bales quality control order under the BIS Act 2016 will be a must for the standardisation of cotton bales. A holistic plan for increasing cotton productivity has been presented by Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur, including improving cotton productivity through a farmer awareness program, HDPS and global best farm practices.

The textile industry and industry associations have been urged to join hands to promote handheld kapas plucker machines. The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry will take up this project in mission mode with distribution support from Cotton Corporation of India. Industry associations and industry leaders have together agreed to fund 75,000 handheld kapas plucker machines.

Lycra has new offerings for the swimwear world.

The brand meets different demands in stretch and recovery, alongside durability and quality in swimwear. The brand’s three key innovations include Lycra Adaptiv fiber, Lycra FitSense technology and Lycra Xtra Life fiber.

Lycra Adaptiv fiber is for paddle surfing in sea water, Xtra Life fiber is for competitive swimming, and T400 fiber isfor water polo in chlorinated pool water.Lycra has collaborated with Carvico to launch a special new fabric collection by Carvico and Jersey Lomellina, incorporating Adaptiv fiber.

The inspiration for this collection centers on the Metaverse, a parallel world where the real and virtual come together for new experiences. Meta Fit Land is the place where customers can discover the new era of wearability. Lycra is a global leader in developing fiber and technology solutions for the apparel and personal care industries. Extending the lifespan of clothing is more sustainable because it reduces the need for raw materials to make new clothes, and can therefore help reduce carbon, waste, and water footprints.

The global swimwear market is growing by six per cent a year.Growing consumer inclination towards beach and water activities is expected to propel the growth of the swimwear market.

Pure London has announced its latest campaign New Nobleness created in collaboration with its trend agency partner Promostyl.

Faced with the climate emergency and a deep awareness of the living world, the new theme gives rise to a new kind of nobleness, reflecting a desire to avoid yet learn from the mistakes of past generations while celebrating heritage, luxury craftsmanship, and great traditions. Integrity, selflessness, honesty, decency, courage, virtue, and kindness underpin the New Nobleness values.

It is a sensibility designed to continue to drive the force of change for good within the fashion industry, from the beginning of the supply chain through to the end consumer and by the same token offer a sense of wonder, majesty, elegance, grace, and iconic luxury that inspires and celebrates great fashion.

New Nobleness is a bold theme which encapsulates the honest understanding of the sustainability challenges the fashion industry faces and the courageous journey forward to a better world while presenting and elevating the beauty and value of fashion. The New Nobleness colour palette includes Imperial Green, Metal Bronze, Palladium, Feminine Force and Icon.

Pure London, a showcase for women’swear, accessories, footwear, and jewelry brands, will be held in the UK, February 12 to 14, 2023.

For the first nine months of 2022 China’s textile and garment exports rose by nine per cent.

The combined sales of China’s main retailers were up three per cent over the same period. The overall value-added output of China’s main textile companies saw a 0.4per cent decrease for the first nine months of 2022. Overall China’s textile sector showed stable growth over the same period. Earnings of Chinese textile companies with an annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan were up three per cent in the first nine months of 2022.

The EU countries, the US, Japan and Asean countries are still the major destinations for China’s textile and apparel exports. Year-on-year growth of exports to Asean and Bangladesh increased more rapidly to reach 23 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.The proportion of China’s textile and apparel exports to Europe, the US and Japan has moved down gradually. The proportion to the US, in particular, has declined rapidly since the US-China trade war. Although China’s textile and apparel still hold a dominant position in those countries, especially in Japan, yet parts of the share are being squeezed by Southeast and South Asia countries.

Apparel brands are accelerating product innovation and supporting initiatives to promote recycling and circularity in response to an ambitious new EU strategy.

The strategy sets out actions to ensure that textile products placed on the EU market from 2030 are durable and recyclable, free from hazardous substances, and made as much as possible from recycled fibers. Also, the strategy has a provision for addressing problems of mounting waste resulting from soaring demand for fast fashion.

It calls on apparel brands to reduce the number of collections they launch each year, and it urges the clothing industry to minimise the carbon footprint of fast fashion and its impact on the environment.In response, a number of brands are backing work on the development of new cellulosic fibers made from textile waste.

Renewcell, a textile recycling company based in Sweden, has constructed a facility for producing Circulose -- a dissolving pulp which is made from cotton-rich textile waste and can be turned into new viscose fibers and filaments.

Infinited Fiber, based in Finland, is converting a disused mill into a facility for producing Infinna -- a premium textile fiber which is made using cellulose-based raw materials.Luxury fashion house Hugo Boss has entered into a partnership agreement with the textile chemicals company HeiQ for the supply of AeoniQ -- a cellulosic filament yarn which is recyclable and made using a closed-loop process.

There is no dispute over the tremendous success of fast fashion and despite questions being raised about it using the planet as a dumping ground, its popularity continues. Globally, this segment of the fashion industry grew from $91.23 billion in 2021 to $99.23 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate of 8.8 per cent. Millennials and Gen Z can’t seem to have enough of it with the lure of quick trends and affordable pricing. However, as this consumption continues, there is a cost that the planet is paying.

The environmental price

A textile workshop by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) highlighted, companies produce nearly double the amount of apparel now compared to year 2000, and almost a 50 billion items are discarded within a year of being made. The publication also reported a piece of clothing was worn seven times on average in the US before being discarded. NIST attributes this increase to growing fast fashion that is characterized by trendy clothing and affordable prices which is possible through cheap materials and poor construction.

As per an UN Environment Programme fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of the world’s industrial water resources and is steadily drying up water resources and its effluents contaminating water bodies. To be quick and inexpensive, fast fashion often uses cheap chemical dies with high toxicity. As per World Bank estimates, around 20 per cent of wastewater worldwide comes from textile dyes. It doesn’t end there, the sector is responsible for 8 to 10 per cent of global carbon emissions. Nearly 85 per cent of textiles produced end up being dumped, choking large landmasses.

Mere washing of clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibers equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles. These microfibers land into waterways and into the seas, chocking riparian and marine life. The way things are, emissions from textile manufacturing alone are projected to skyrocket by 60 per cent by 2030, as per the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Frightening statistics

Environment activists are genuinely concerned at the statistics generated by independent bodies such as Business Insider. Producing a single shirt requires about 700 gallons of water whilst 2,000 gallons are required to produce a pair of jeans. It gets worse,35 per cent of all micro-plastics in the ocean come from the laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester accounted by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Developing nations in for the mega export dollars are quite lenient when it comes to compliance of international regulations and consumers worldwide don’t really care.

Social impact of fast fashion

Apart from concerning environmental impact, fast fashion has affected the labor force of developing countries as well. According to an NGO Remake, 80 per cent of fast fashion is made by lowly paid young women between the ages of 18 and 24. The US Labor Department issued a circular in 2018, charging Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Turkey, Vietnam and others for using child labour in their garment export industry.

A ray of hope

The UN has taken mighty strides by launching the Alliance for Sustainable Fashion. This aims at addressing the damages already done by this sector, and “Halt the environmentally and socially destructive practices of fashion” as well as mindless consumption that fast fashion advocates. Governments in developing countries can partner with their counterparts in developed nations to be more proactive to stop this continual assault on the environment. France has led the way, with President Macron making a pact with 150 brands to make the fashion industry more sustainable. Adidas are looking into personalized gear that can enable it to decrease returns, increase customer satisfaction and lower inventory. Ralph Lauren has committed to being 100 per cent eco-friendly sourced materials within 2025.

Whilst awareness of fast fashion is spreading fast, the question remains whether consumers are just paying lip service.

Winter clothes in Nepal have become very expensive. Reasons include a strong dollar, high transportation costs and low supply from China. Down jackets, long coats and fleece jackets have become pricier.Clothing that comes by air is costlier than that that comes overland.

Even Nepal-made brands are expensive. Imports have declined by nearly 40 percent, mainly due to the appreciation of the dollar that has made goods very expensive.The rule requiring importers to keep 100 percent margin amount to open a letter of credit, a measure intended to control imports, has also increased prices of goods.The cost of importing goods has increased by 15 percent from last year. Imports of apparels and clothing accessories into Nepal have fallen by 27 percent in the first three months of the current fiscal year.

Raw materials have to be imported from China but as these are not arriving regularly, prices of winter clothes have gone up in the domestic market.Prices of winter clothes in the domestic market have increased by Rs200 to Rs600 and these include fleece jackets, windcheaters, hoodies and joggers. Sales have also decreased due to inflation.Transport inflation jumped by 23 percent in the first two months of the current fiscal year.

Naia helps in the creation of comfortable, quality, sustainable loungewear.

Available as both a filament yarn and a staple fiber, Naia Renew cellulosic fiber is inherently soft, is quick drying and has reduced pilling properties. It blends well with other eco-friendly materials, such as modal and recycled polyesters, to produce sustainable fabrics for everyday garments – including tops, dresses, jumpsuits, twinsets, T-shirts, comfy pants and sweaters.

Naia Renew is produced from 60 per cent sustainably sourced wood pulp and 40 per cent hard-to-recycle waste materials, which would otherwise be destined for landfills or incinerators, with a low carbon footprint in a closed-loop process where solvents are safely recycled back into the system for reuse.

Loungewear has become the must-have item in every woman’s closet. Today’s consumers define comfort and sustainability with regard to loungewear. Two-thirds of consumers want more sustainable options in their loungewear fibers. Women in the US and Europe select comfort as their top priority when selecting loungewear. Consumers also want more comfortable fabrics and more versatile loungewear and will likely purchase more loungewear items in the future. Women are reducing the amount of formal clothing in their wardrobes and also prefer more sustainable loungewear with new and different fibers and would like brands to offer more of those options.

Vietnam’s exports of textile and garments to Canada grew by 40 per cent during 2018 to 2022.

Thanks to complete reopening, Canada’s demand for textile and garment imports has strongly bounced back. So there remains much room for Vietnam to increase exports to this market despite considerable competition pressure. Now Vietnamese businesses have been urged to adopt green practices to secure sustainable growth in textile and garment exports to Canada, where Vietnam ranks second among the exporters of such products. Greening is an inevitable trend in the textile and garment industry, forcing businesses in Vietnam to strive for sustainable development.Notably, in response to Canada’s demand for supply source diversification, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka have been emerging as strong rivals thanks to their capabilities to manufacture sophisticated products. This is another challenge for Vietnamese businesses. And to obtain sustainable export growth, businesses should devise a carbon emission reduction strategy, adopt a circular production model, use recyclable materials and clean energy, and practice energy efficiency.They also need to stay updated with new certificate systems in the industry and comply with buyers’ report requirements. Vietnamese companies’ capabilities of sustainable and circular production and firms with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certificates are being highlighted to Canadian partners.

Bangladesh’s apparel exports grew by three per cent in October 2022 compared to October 2021. However, earnings went down seven per cent.

The sector experienced a decline in orders of 25 per cent to 30 per cent due to inflation in the destinations, overstock and global economic turbulence.Just when the country’s export-oriented readymade garment industry was recovering from the effects of pandemic lockdowns, the Russia-Ukraine war has plunged the industry deeper into multiple crises. Rising energy prices are eroding the purchasing power of European consumers who are now spending more on daily necessities as opposed to fast fashion.

European shoppers are likely to reduce their Christmas purchases and this will prevent importers of Bangladesh apparel products to clear their whole stock. Buyers have been withholding orders for the last few months. Due to the recession in the US, Canada, and Europe, customers there are unable to buy like before, as their purchasing power has decreased because of inflation, energy crisis and also a possible food crisis.If Christmas salesdon’t reach targets, brands won't be able to order the product for the next season, which will again have a negative impact. Europe and the UK are the prime destinations of Bangladesh’s apparel exports.