A national team of six Taiwanese textile manufacturers are modifying their production lines and ramping up output to help meet the rising demand for surgical masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The team is being led by Makalot Industrial, who had the advantage of research and development conducted 17 years ago when the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic hit Taiwan.

Taiwan mostly imported protective hospital gowns then and the government began encouraging domestic manufacture to start making PPE. So the company filed an application in 2003 for a license to manufacture protective gowns. The company's research team came up with a design, which it patented three months later.

The company is now on its way to produce 100,000 protective gowns by late April and is aiming to manufacture another 220,000 at its factory in Vietnam. It also plans to set up a production line in Chiayi in southern Taiwan, which will manufacture 10,000 gowns per month initially and gradually raise its monthly output to 50,000, he said.

The team of five manufacturers has been contracted by the government to deliver 1.1 million isolation and protective hospital gowns by April. Meanwhile, Kang Na Hsiung Enterprise, a manufacturer of hygiene products and synthetic textiles, has revived its production lines for melt-blown non-wovens—the main raw material used to make surgical masks—which had been mothballed for at least five years. The company has ramped up its daily production of melt-blown non-wovens to 2.4 tonne, which can make more than 3 million face masks.

Milan Women’s Fashion Week, which is scheduled to be held in September, will become the first season to combine men and women’s collections! Fashion freaks can definitely feel ‘fruit of patience is really sweet!’

Earlier, Milan Men’s Fashion Week was scheduled for June this year. The announcement was confirmed by Camera Nazionale della Moda (The National Chamber of Italian Fashion). Men’s shows due to run from June 19 to 23, will now run alongside Milan Women’s Fashion Week, planned from September 22 to 28 this year.

Spanish fashion brand Mango opened a new new logistics centre in Llicà d’Amunt, a picturesque town outside Barcelona. Approximately 600 people work six days a week at this highly automated facility, where around 400 operations are machine-driven, to process items for store deliveries.

The company has so far invested €232 million in the 186,000-sq. mt. facility, which can stock up to 7 million hung garments and 20 million folded garments and accessories at the same time. It was completed in 2016 but became fully operational last summer. By incorporating the latest automation technologies, the centre is able to process 75,000 garments an hour, tripling the retailer’s former capacity.

As soon as hung garments arrive at Llicà d’Amunt, they are unloaded onto one of nine automatic loading bays, which can process 27,000 garments an hour. Each bay is equipped with a classifier that separates the garments by size and style. They then travel along a 24-kilometre rail to be shipped out to stores or held in the warehouse. According to Mango, its hanging garment installation is one of the most automated in Europe.

On the opposite side of the logistics centre are automatic loading docks that can process 1,000 boxes of folded garments and accessories per hour. The boxes are passed through a weighing and labelling area and identified with a tracking ID so they can be located at any time. Like the hung garment area, the folded garment warehouse prepares boxes to be either shipped or stored based on in-store sales information.

German sportswear maker Adidas has apologized to landowners for not paying rent for stores around the world forced to close by COVID-19 lockdowns. The brand needs credit even after staff cut their working hours, executives waived part of their pay and the company stopped share buybacks.

Many retailers around the world have been seeking to defer rent payments as they look to ride out the coronavirus shutdown, passing on the financial pressure to their landlords.

The brands plans to suspend a €1 billion ($1.09 billion) share buyback it had planned for this year as a way to conserve cash after closing its retail outlets in Europe and North America.

Adidas AG is a multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the world, after Nike. It is the holding company for the Adidas Group which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, 8.33% of the German football club Bayern Munich, and Runtastic, an Austrian fitness technology company. Adidas' revenue for 2018 was listed at €21.915 billion.

Pakistan textile industries have demanded emergency measures from the government as foreign buyers have canceled or suspended $1.3 billion worth of textile products due to Convid 19. According to Pakistan Chemicals and Disease Association, the supply chain in the country is also likely to be affected due to lockdown in the production of textile, pharmaceutical and other industrial sectors. Pakistan exports $25 billion annually, but the outflow is stopped due to lockdown.

Ijaz Khokhar, Chief Coordinator of the Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association, says canceling orders from global buyers or delay will affect labor and more people will go below the poverty level. The airlines and the hotel industry, on the other hand, have been the most affected by the outbreak of Coronavirus all over the world and buyers of hotel businesses abroad have also delayed their imports from Pakistan

In order to adapt and respond to labor challenges in cotton farming, such as those posed in Western China, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has set up an expert Task Force on Forced Labor and Decent Work to review selected elements of the Better Cotton Standard System.

The task force will produce recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the system in identifying, preventing, mitigating and remediating forced-labor risks. The Better Cotton Standard System is a holistic approach to sustainable cotton production that covers all three pillars of sustainability–social, environmental and economic, and addresses the many challenges of cotton production.

The Task Force on Forced Labor and Decent Work brings together representatives from the civil society, retailers, brands and consultancies with a strong expertise in human rights and forced labor issues in supply chains, particularly in the textile sector. The Task Force also draws on the expertise of a project adviser with a background tackling the risks of child and forced labor in cotton harvesting at the International Labor Organisation.

H&M’s 2019 Sustainability Performance Report released recently shows, the Swedish retail giant H&M sourced 97 per cent of its cotton from sustainable sources in 2019, as it moved one step closer to achieving 100 per cent sustainable cotton. The fashion retailer has also committed to stop sourcing conventional cotton for collections from 2020 onwards in a bid to accelerate its sustainability targets. By 2023, the company wants 100 per cent of its materials to be either recycled or sourced in a more sustainable way.

Among other things, H&M explored new circular business models with the launch of on-demand, customisation, repair and rental initiatives. New sustainable materials were introduced, such as the cellulosic fibre made by Infinited Fiber Company from recycled cotton textiles and Re:newcell’s ground-breaking Circulose.

There were also efforts to provide more transparency, with the brand disclosing viscose and other man-made cellulosic fiber suppliers. And 100 per cent of H&M’s textile and leather supply chain are now enrolled in the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals program which tackles the issue of hazardous chemicals in the global textile industry.

One of H&M’s latest initiatives is Treadler, a B2B service for external textile and apparel retailers announced in March. Initially working on a small scale, the service will give companies access to H&M’s global supply chain to help them overcome initial business barriers and accelerate sustainable change.

PVH Corp recorded both a fourth-quarter and full-year sales uptick in 2019, on the back of strong sales growth at Tommy Hilfiger. Sales of the New York-based company said full-year increased by 3 per cent, or 5 per cent on a constant currency basis, compared to 2018, reaching $9.91 billion for the year ending February 2.

Sales of its brand Tommy Hilfiger rose by 8 per cent increase, or 11 per cent on a constant currency basis, driven by outperformance in Europe and added revenues resulting from the company's acquisition of its Australian distributor, Gazal Corporation, in the second quarter.

International comparable store sales increased 9 per cent, while North America comparable store sales decreased 6 per cent, due to weakness in traffic and consumer spending trends, especially in stores located in international tourist locations.

Calvin Klein, however, witnessed a 2 per cent decrease, or 1 per cent increase on a constant currency basis, compared to the prior year, impacted by foreign currency conversion, and softness in Asia due to the Hong Kong protests, and trade tensions between the U.S. and China. International comparable store sales dipped 1 per cent, while North America comparable sales decreased 2 per cent, due to weakness in traffic and consumer spending trends, especially in stores located in international tourist locations.

VF Corporation, a global leader in branded lifestyle apparel, footwear and accessories, announced the appointment of Markus Hamm as vice president and general manager, Kipling EMEA, effective April 1, 2020. He will be based in Antwerp, Belgium where the brands’ marketing and sales operations are based and will report to Vera Breuer, global president Kipling.

Hamm has many years of market experience and a successful track record across Sales, Marketing and Digital, combined with excellent leadership skills. After joining VF in 2004, he held various key sales positions for Jansportand Eastpak, including sales director, DTC & strategic accounts director and most recently taking over wholesale, strategic accounts, sales operations and digital for the Eastpak brand.

In Kipling, Hamm will be responsible for leading the Kipling EMEA organisation, maximising business and financial objectives and overseeing the general execution for all functions.

Council of All Pakistan Textile Mills Associations and Pakistan Apparel Forum has urged its government to revive zero-rated sales-tax regime and reinstate SRO 1125 in its true spirit to address the industries’ liquidity problems. The associations also submitted their proposals for a relief package to demand government’s support and relief for textile industries in the covid-19 situation. They said that hardships of exporters in terms of liquidity would multiply in the presence of 17 percent sales tax.

Thus, restoration of zero-rating or exemption from sales tax was crucial, for which SRO 1125 should be revived in true spirit. Under current circumstances, the local markets were closed, the intention of the government to collect sales tax was not being achieved, and by continuing to collect 17 percent sales tax, the government was creating severe liquidity problems for the exporters.