China has emerged strong in the luxury fashion market. The country today, is redefining the world of luxury fashion with latest fashion trends influenced by extremely selective consumers. As Jing Daily report says, the luxury fashion industry in China has become more advanced due to the pandemic. It has emerged one of the most growing segments with demand being driven by domestic consumers.

Over the last decade, China has also witnessed a spurt in local independent multi-brand stores across the country. These stores help meet consumers’ need for new clothes and accessories, benefitting both foreign niche labels and new local brands. One reason for the growing popularity of these stores is higher brand awareness amongst Chinese consumers and a rise in domestic demand, says Mike Roberts, Former CEO, Green Room. Many of these stores are led by social media influencers whose fashion choices are blindly trusted by consumers.

An opportunity to regain lost consumers

The arrival of multi-brand stores in China is viewed as an excellent opportunity to attract lost consumers. As per latest Fund Business Intelligence survey, China has seen a dip in footfalls at shopping malls and department stores over the years due to increased competition from e-commerce players. The report shows, from 2014 to 2019, department store and footwear businesses in China dropped from 38.6 per cent to 26.3 per cent. Consumers are opting for multi-brand boutiques for personalized shopping experiences they provide.

Wenyan Jiao, Co-Founder, Shanghai and Wuxi-based boutique Mushion, attributes the dip in footfall to outdated operational methods of malls or department stores. Most malls and stores fulfill the needs of general consumers. They re-innovate their stores periodically to counter increased competition from specialist brands such as Proenza Schouler.

A popular multi-brand store Autumn Sonata chooses brands that uphold its values and promotes product exceptionality, avers Kian Zhang, Co-Founder. The store currently sells pieces from British brand Margaret Howell’s August/Winter 2020 collection.

Rolling inventory to innovative product assortment

Multi-brand retailers also attract consumers with a purposeful and poignant content on social media platforms, says Roberts. They adopt a rolling inventory model to uphold their brand values, and create an innovative product assessment. Many retailers also get their stores designed by indigenous architects who are aware of local Chinese customers.

Growth rate of multi-brand stores in China will continue to soar as local retailers act as a catalysts between global brands and audiences. However, mono-brand stores will also flourish as they will help brands track consumers’ shopping behaviors, desires and preferences.

US saw a 32.87 per cent Y-o-Y increase in its denim clothing import values from worldwide from January-June 2021.

As per Apparel Resources, the US imported $1.44 billion worth of denim apparels in January to June ’21 period as against $1.08 billion in the corresponding period of prior year.

Bangladesh ended 2020 as a top ranked denim apparel shipper to US but the country has been surpassed by Mexico in H1 ’21.

Mexico clocked US $ 286.28 million from its denim clothing exports to US in H1 ’21, noting 54.80 per cent Y-o-Y surge, while Bangladesh accommodated US $ 283.65 million in its respective shipment, growing by 49.25 per cent on yearly note.

Bangladesh was followed by Vietnam that shipped US $ 151.06 million worth of denim clothing to USA and upped its value by just 5.22 per cent on Y-o-Y basis.

Another country that emerged victorious is Pakistan that went past China to grab fourth spot in tally, jumping one rank up because of significant rise in its denim shipment value in the US market.

Pakistan’s shipment valued $150.97 million, with a whopping increase of 50 per cent, and the country remained marginally ahead of China that could hit a figure of $148.91 million in its respective denim clothing exports to US in H1 ’21.

Kornit Digital a worldwide market leader in digital textile production technologies, has acquired the associated assets of Somerville, Massachusetts-based Voxel8.

Voxel8’s advanced additive manufacturing technology for textiles allows for digital fabrication of functional features with zonal control of material properties, in addition to utilizing high-performance elastomers adhering to inkjet technology. Voxel8’s innovative technologies and talent will help Kornit Digital accelerate the execution of its 4.0 strategy to digitize sustainable, on-demand textile production, says Ronen Samuel, Kornit Digital Chief Executive Officer. With this advanced and proven 3D technology, the company will disrupt the business of fashion, empowering completely new creative decorative concepts and never-before-seen functional textile applications, while exploring new lucrative opportunities in the functional apparel and footwear markets.

Voxel8’s innovative and sustainable technology—tested by some of the world’s leading global fashion and footwear brands, such as Hush Puppies, which is part of Wolverine Worldwide, enables the digital creation of unique decorative and functional applications, while eliminating time and waste from the manufacturing process,adds Fred von Gottberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, Voxel8.

Arvind Limited, the $1.5 billion textile to technology conglomerate and the largest manufacturer of denims in India, has collaborated with Textile GenesisTM a block-chain enabled digital transparency platform for apparel supply chain. This collaboration will address the emerging need for Transparency across the complete Denim supply chain, backed by a credible Traceability mechanism.

This platform will provide complete traceability of upstream (cotton and other inputs) being used by Arvind to the customers. This technology works closely with a network of key sustainable fibre suppliers and textile chain partners helping create a sustainable ecosystem for major brands and retailers.

Arvind Denim’s wide range of sustainable offerings like single-origin non-conflict cotton Renaissance range of recycled cotton, polyester and other man-made fibres; natural indigo etc., will be available with full track & trace.

Path breaking digital ‘Fibercoins™’ technology from TEXTILE GENESIS™, allows brand and retailers full value chain traceability and visibility along with ESG (environmental, social and governance) credentials of the Supply Chain Partners from fiber-origin to retail.

As per its annual report for 2020-21, Welspun plans to launch expansion projects across three business verticals in ongoing fiscal with Rs 600 crore capex. The company expects its top line to grow by over 15 per cent in FY22 on the back of expanded capacities and with customer demand remaining buoyant. In all, Welspun India plans to undertake capital-light capacity expansion to address growing demand. It will expand the capacity of its Vapi and Anar plants through debottlenecking and rebalancing.

In the home textile segment, the company has an annual capacity of 80,000 MT for bath linen, 90 million meters for bed linen, 10 million square meters for rugs and carpets. According to the annual report, the capacity utilizations for these stood at 88 per cent, 77 per cent and 82 per cent respectively in FY21

For advanced textile, the annual capacity for Spunlance was 10,000 MT with capacity utilization of 92 per cent last fiscal. The same for needle punch was 3,000 MT with capacity utilization of 34 per cent, while that of wet wipes was at 75 million packs and capacity utilization of 28 per cent, it added.

Welspun India excepts to increase the annual capacity at full capex for soft flooring to 16.3 million square meters and for hard flooring to 10.7 million square meters.

US-based textile recycling technology provider CIRC has partnered Austrian technology group Andritz to commercialize CIRC’s patented textile recycling technology. As per Textile Today, Andritz will design and manufacture continuous processing equipment for CIRC facilities worldwide. CIRC technology can also separate and recover mixed polymer strands, including any blend of polyester and cotton.

Jorma Latva-Kokko, Vice-President-Mechanical Pulping, Andritz says Andritz will help CIRC capture a significant portion of the global circular textile market with its expansive engineering and equipment capabilities. Julie Willoughby, Chief Scientific Officer, CIRC adds, the Andritz team is working shoulder-to-shoulder with CIRC to implement its vision of a circular economy for textiles and beyond.

CIRC makes the technology to source nature’s raw ingredients and enables fashion brands to harness its proprietary technology that resources and re-harvests raw ingredients out of clothing waste. It aims to entirely eliminate the demand for raw ingredients needed to make clothing by creating new clothes entirely out of old ones.

Global supplier of high-quality Nylon 6.6 for apparel, and owner of the SENSIL® sustainable brand, NILIT has released its sustainability report for 2017-2020. The document, titled ‘Making Nylon Sustainable,’ details the company’s significant initiatives to improve environmental footprint as well as plans to positively influence the textile and apparel industry to choose more sustainable products and use them in more responsible ways.

As per Textile World, the report highlights NILIT’s accomplishments as well as its ongoing plans to continuously improve the ecological and social influence of its operations and practices in the market and in the communities where the company operates. The company has developed the largest portfolio of sustainable premium Nylon 6.6 products under its SENSIL® consumer brand through collaboration with brands, retailers, customers, employees, and vendors. The SENSIL® brand offers performance products that directly address the apparel industry’s most pressing environmental issues, such as water and energy consumption, waste reduction, use of recycled inputs, and impact to ecosystems.

Also, the NILIT Total Product Sustainability program ensures that all NILIT products meet stringent criteria for responsible production. The company also introduced QR Codes in all SENSIL® hangtags. Produced with FSC paper and distributed on certified garments from brands worldwide, these hangtags guarantee authenticity and provide more information to consumers about the technologies and benefits of premium Nylon.

Bangladesh RMG exports to the US surged by 26.81 per cent from January-June 2021 as increased vaccination in the US boosted demand for apparel items in the country. As per Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) data by the US Department of Commerce, US’ apparel imports from Bangladesh increased $662 million to $3.13 billion in the first half of 2021 from $2.45 billion in the same period of 2020. As per a New Age Data report, export orders and the inquiries from the US buyers increased in recent months as the country opened its business after massive COVID vaccination.

In value terms, Bangladesh’s apparel export to the US in June 2021 grew by 139 per while it increased by 133 per cent in volume compared with that in the same month of the past year. India’s RMG exports to the US Increased by 32.28 per cent to $2.03 billion in January-June of 2021 from $1.53 billion in the same period of 2020. Total apparel imports by the US from different countries in the first half of 2021 increased by 26.92 per cent to $35.37 billion from $27.87 billion in the same period of the previous year.

The US apparel import from China grew by 26.77 per cent to $7.31 billion from $5.77 billion in the same period of the previous year. Vietnam’s RMG export to the US in the first half of 2021 grew by 20.45 per cent to $6.81 billion from $5.65 billion in the same period of 2020. RMG imports by the US from Cambodia in January-June of 2021 increased by 13.85 per cent to $1.42 billion from $1.24 billion in the same period of the previous year.

German sportswear retailer, adidas predicts sales loss worth €500 million due to fast rising COVID-19 cases. The sportswear brand will suffer from its inability to produce enough stock to meet growing demands. The retailer gets substantial portion of its stock from Vietnam.

However, adidas’s sales in the first half of 2021 have touched pre-pandemic levels. The retailers’ sales in the first six-months grew by 52 per cent to €5.8 billion encouraging the retailer to raise its outlook for the full year. Kasper Rorsted, CEO, adidas, said, the brand plans to move its operations to other countries. However, ongoing interruptions mayhave a negative impact on its business in the second half.

The German retailer was founded in 1924 and is known for apparels, shoes and fashion accessories. It generated €21.915 billion in 2018.

Paris-based conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton, posted revenues worth € 28.7 billion in the first half of 2021. As per ETF Trends reports, the group’s revenues grew by 56 per cent from the same period last year and by 14 per cent from 2019. The fashion and leather goods segment saw the largest growth in revenues. Revenues from the segment during the first six months increased 81 per cent from 2020 and 38 per cent from 2019 to €13.8 billion. Profits from the segment increased to €5.6 billion.

Due to a strong stock market and near-zero interest rates, the pandemic did not slow down capital creation for many in 2020. According to Credit Suisse, more than 1 per cent of the global population can now be considered dollar millionaires, with the top 10 economies minting 5.2 million new millionaires last year alone, according to Credit Suisse. This brought the global total of adults with more than $1 million to 56.1 million, the most in history.

Introduced in July 2020, the Global Luxury Goods Fund (USLUX) grew by over 56 percent in the 12-month period ending June 30, 2021compared to its benchmark, the S&P Composite 1500 Index, which increased by 42 per cent.