Bjorn Gulden is the CEO of Adidas. This 57 year old Norwegian was earlier at Adidas, from 1992 to 1999, when he was senior vice president of apparel and accessories.

He is a professional football and handball player. Additionally, he was CEO of Danish jewelry brand Pandora, managing director of Europe’s largest footwear retailer Deichmann, president of Rack Room Shoes, and has held various management positions at outdoor apparel company Helly Hansen. He also holds the position of chairman of the board of Salling, Denmark’s largest food retailer.

Bjorn Gulden brings almost 30 years of experience in the sporting goods and footwear industry. As a result, he knows the industry extremely well and draws on a rich network in sport and retail.

In North America, the world’s largest sporting goods market, Adidas has doubled its sales. In addition, Adidas has strengthened its leadership position in sustainability and increased diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the company. Following the successful divestiture of TaylorMade, CCM Hockey and Reebok the company is now able to focus its efforts on its core brand Adidas.

For the third quarter, Adidas’ currency-neutral revenues increased four per cent. Revenue growth was the highest in Adidas’ strategic growth categories,football and running.

Retail prices for garments in the US decreased by 0.2 per cent month-over-month in September 2022.

After struggling to keep up with consumer demand following the release of stimulus and with the shipping crisis, apparel import volumes have been strong in recent months. Year-over-year retail apparel prices were six per cent higher.

The labour market continues to add jobs and to post wage increases near five per cent. However, both the pace of hiring and wage gains were slower last month. The US economy was estimated to have added 261,000 jobs last month. This was the lowest addition since December 2020, but job growth has nonetheless remained resilient to interest rate increases. The twelve-month average for job growth is currently 442,000.

The unemployment rate moved higher, from 3.5 per cent to 3.7 per cent month-over-month. This increase occurred despite a slight decrease in the size of the labour force and was a result of a decrease in the number of employed workers.Wage growth slowed to the lowest level in about a year (4.7 per cent) in October. Despite the slowdown, the latest value easily exceeds growth rates experienced after the financial crisis, which topped out near 3.5 per cent in the decade that followed the last recession.

World of Wipes will be held in the US, July 17 to 20, 2023. This is a conference on wipe products, markets and technologies and is for experts in the areas of dry and wet wipes, sustainability, end-use markets, substrate formation, raw materials and fibers, liquid ingredients, packaging, machinery, and market trends and data.

Presenting at WOW is a unique opportunity to recognize breakthrough wipes products or expertise, connect with next-level leaders, gain potential partners and customers, and change the future of wipes. Over 450 wipes business leaders are expected to convene and hear premium content in market research, product innovations, sustainability issues, new materials and substrates for all wiping products and their components.

WOW is targeted exclusively for wipes brand owners, converters, manufacturers, and their entire supply chain.Participants can gain a strong foundation of fundamental wipes knowledge, covering the basics of wipes design, manufacturing and applications, market trends, and opportunities in new product areas. The last WOW event connected more than 450 participants from 18 countries representing the entire wipes supply chain to explore issues and advancements in the growing multibillion-dollar wipes sector.

The event is organized by the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry which serves member companies in the nonwovens/engineered fabrics industry.

Shanghai Jiale has reduced Its Standard-Minute-Values (SMVs) on core styles by over 30 per cent with Coats Digital’s GSDCost.

Following a rigorous training program from GSDCost experts, Jiale has established its own robust SMV library for core styles, which has also benefitted cost management, capacity planning, production planning, and employee payroll accounting teams across the business. Following the implementation of GSDCost, Shanghai Jiale was able to establish international standard time benchmarks based on standard motion codes and predetermined times. This enabled the sales, costing, planning and manufacturing teams to communicate efficiently using the same language, based on a scientific method for correctly analysing manufacturing costs.The success of the implementation has resulted in the solution being adopted by Jiale’s production base across Indonesia.

Shanghai Jiale is a fashion manufacturer of knitted outerwear and sportswear. The company has established bases in China and Indonesia, and operates a complete manufacturing process from fabric R&D, weaving, dyeing to finishing, printing and embroidery. Shanghai Jiale has an annual output of 50 million meters of knitted fabrics and 50 million readymade garments.Coats Digital is the software business of Coats, the world’s leading industrial thread company and a trusted industry player. GSDCost is the international standard for establishing and optimising accurate method-time-cost benchmarks for sustainable garment cost optimisation and manufacturing excellence.

Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) has issued new guidelines to help apparel and footwear companies more efficiently and consistently measure their purchased goods and services (PG&S) emissions.

For apparel and footwear brands and retailers, PG&S emissions result from all the value chain activities that go into making finished products, from raw materials to fabric manufacturing to product assembly.

For every company setting a science based target (SBT), the foundation of the target is an inventory of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across scopes 1, 2, and 3.For companies operating in the apparel and footwear sector scope 3 emissions are usually the vast majority of their total emissions.

The purpose of the guidance is to provide apparel and footwear sector-specific guidance for calculating PG&S emissions so that there is greater consistency in how apparel and footwear companies develop their PG&S inventories; companies can overcome common challenges faced by the sector, for example the need to use a combination of primary and secondary data; companies starting the process of measuring PG&S emissions can do so more efficiently and in line with industry practice, which in turn should result in more companies measuring emissions and setting targets; and over time, with more consistent inventories, the apparel and footwear sector will be able to more accurately gauge its progress towards the GHG reductions needed to stay aligned with SBTs.

Mill owners in Bangladesh have huge stockpiles of yarn. This is mainly due to a decline in demand. So they want a halt on yarn imports, saying this would open a way to sell the stockpiled yarn and save them huge losses.

However, entrepreneurs in the garment sector, the main buyers of yarn, say that if there is an opportunity to import yarn at a cheap rate, it should not be stopped. They say traders will have a monopoly business if the government takes action to discourage yarn imports. But the garment industry is willing to buy yarn from the mills if the price is not much more than the price of imported yarn.

Bangladesh exports yarns and fabrics. Spinners and weavers in Bangladesh export yarns and fabrics after meeting the demands of domestic garment factories.Vietnam buys yarn from Bangladesh. Similarly, textile millers and yarn and fabric users in Turkey, South Korea, Egypt and Taiwan buy yarns and fabrics from Bangladesh.

So spinners and weavers are expanding their capacity to produce manmade fibers because of the growing demand.In the next two years, Bangladesh's yarn production capacity will see an addition of 2.5 million spindles. Currently, 13.5 million spindles are used to manufacture textile raw materials.

Spinners and garment exporters in Bangladesh have not been able to take advantage of falling cotton prices.

This is because of the unfavorable exchange rate, the energy crisis and the fall in demand for finished goods.Apparel manufacturers are also receiving fewer orders from international buyers amid the slide in demand from consumers buckling under deep inflationary pains caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Usually, millers, spinners, traders and users brim with joy when the cotton price drops even by a few cents in the international markets since Bangladesh is a net cotton-importing country. And less than two per cent of the country’s total cotton requirement is met through domestic production. Spinners in Bangladesh are sitting on piles of unsold yarn made from cotton imported earlier at a higher price.

Most spinners are failing to make the most of the reduction in the price of the white fiber.Already cotton imports have started declining. The stockpiling of unsold old yarn has reached five lakh tons over the last two months because of a lower demand from garment manufacturers.During peak times, spinners could sell 1.20 crore kgs of yarn a day to export-oriented garment factories. Owing to the lower demand, they can sell just 80 lakh ( 8 million) kgs of yarn a day.

Iluna’s multicolor laces are enriched with iridescent effects that give unexpected glows.

Iluna, based in Italy, is a company known for its high-quality design driven laces. The products that constitute the core business of the group are microfiber and tulle fabrics, rigid and elastic lace for outerwear, underwear, corsetry and beachwear, hosiery and seamless garments.

A novelty of this season is the new double face printing on polyamide with a high sea fastness and unexpected iridescent effects on GRS-certified tulle. The GRS-certified Green Label collection uses Renycle and Q-NOVA, both GRS-certified pre-consumer recycled polyamide yarns, in addition to the recycled stretch Roica by Asahi Kasei. New this season is the use of prints and foils while maintaining GRS certification aimed at unprecedented effects in both look, performance and hands.

Moreover, Iluna is introducing GOTS-certified organic cotton inside its gallons and allovers to add a natural touch to its Green Label line. Bioline embraces the circular economy and presents proposals containing Amni Soul Eco and Roica V550.

The company’s continuous path through the new dimension of responsibility continues in several directions: experiments with 16 different natural dyestuffs; and continued investment in technologies that can ensure significant savings in water and energy consumption, including GreenDrop, the new GOTS-certified digital pigment printing system.

Iran’s garment production in the first seven months of the current calendar year increased by three percent year on year.

Efforts are being made to make things easy for garment manufacturers to enhance exports. The decision to prohibit imports of some items has created huge opportunities for local manufacturers to increase their exports despite all challenges pertaining to the currency.

The country has taken measures aimed at renewing the country’s garment manufacturing industry, in a bid to enter international markets. Exporting apparel products to neighboring countries, including the CIS and, in particular, Azerbaijan, is on the agenda.

There are about 50,000 apparel manufacturing units in the country.Foreign representatives, branches and distributors of apparel in Iran who seek business licenses have been mandated to produce goods worth 20 per cent of their import value inside Iran and to export at least 50 per cent of this domestic production.The initiative is aimed at increasing domestic production, creating jobs and reviving Iran’s apparel industry. Public interest in domestic products has dramatically surged over recent months.

Plans are underway to establish a new apparel industrial town in Fashafouyeh, located in Tehran province’s Rey county, with the aim of limiting imports, boosting domestic production and making the price of Iranian clothing more competitive.

US apparel retailer Gap will sell its Greater China businesses to e-commerce service provider Baozun.

Gap has granted Baozun exclusive rights to manufacture and sell its products in the Greater China area. The arrangement can last two decades, with an initial term of ten years that can be renewed twice for each five-year term. Baozun will acquire Gap Shanghai Commercial and Gap Taiwan, which operate the whole business of Gap Greater China, with a primary deal size of $40 million and no more than $50 million for adjustment.

Gap had been in any case reducing its manufacturing exposure to China over the past few years and has been migrating sourcing out of China.

Headwinds persist for global consumer brands in the world’s second-largest economy.Deal makers have seen opportunities for merger and acquisitions involving multinational firms that look to spin off their China units, as growth outlook in the country grappling with strict Covid-curbs remains uncertain amid intensifying competition with domestic brands.

Earlier this year, American fast fashion retailer Forever 21 made its third effort to enter China after having left the market twice, while major sportswear companies Nike and Adidas lost ground to local brands Li Ning and Anta in recent years.