An initiative from Field to Closet is making the concept of American grown and made, 100 percent cotton scrubs a reality.

To highlight the initiative, the kickoff event took place April 9 at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture in Tifton, Ga., and will culminate this summer with 15 hospitals in rural Georgia receiving medical scrubs at no cost. Ga. Gov. Brian Kemp attended the kickoff event.

Through innovative, collaborative partnerships, this project utilizes Georgia-grown cotton from Deltapine® seed to reshore American manufacturing by revitalizing an end-to-end U.S. supply chain. The initiative's foundation is rooted in agriculture and establishes a Farmer GiveBack program to address a fundamental issue in the garment industry, which typically sees the brand or end seller with the most significant profit.

The GiveBack program recognizes the rebirth of a robust cotton garment industry isn't possible without the grower; therefore, this initiative is designed to ensure the grower is included financially by sharing in the profit of the goods sold.

For the initial project, Field to Closet worked with America Knits in Swainsboro, Ga., to source Deltapine seed cotton grown in Georgia, which is spun into yarn at Parkdale Mills in Rabun Gap, Ga., and woven into fabric in Lilesville, N.C., at Hornwood, before arriving at America Knits for the final production of the scrubs. An additional benefit for the medical scrubs, this fabric is treated with PROTX2® AV. This antimicrobial technology inhibits the growth of bacteria and has been shown in lab tests to destroy viruses.

The pandemic has created immense opportunities for Chinese luxury fashion with European brands opening new stores, expanding digital operations and boosting e-commerce activities in the country. According to Maura Maggioni, CEO-Asia Pacific, Golden Goose, China houses the entire world’s purchasing capacity. A Jing Daily report says, for years, American companies looked at China as a land of opportunity. However now, Chinese consumers are moving away from American brands. This is evident from an AlixPartners survey which notes, 57 per cent consumers’ plan to reduce their expenditure on American products in future.

Quarantine fashion gains popularity

COVID-19 has also made quarantine fashion mainstream with retail segments like loungewear, athleisure and work from home clothes gaining more popularity. The pandemic has led to rise of new trends like Do-it-Yourself (DIY) beauty, skincare, and at-home wellness McKinsey & Company draws attention to the growing popularity of ‘above-the-mask treatments’ and eye-cosmetics. The Taobao Live sessions, that presented live makeup tutorials while wearing masks, have increased the monthly sales of eye shadow palettes.

Chinese consumers’ desire for sustainability, equality, peace, and justice too has increased. Around 60 per cent Gen Z consumers and millennials are trying to reduce the impact of their eating habits on the environment, says a survey by McKinsey & Company. Around 50 per cent are also opting for locally sourced products.

Discreet luxury on the rise

There is also a growing demand for understated and stylish luxury products in the country, says Martin Roll, Business and Brand Strategist. The pandemic has altered consumption patterns with consumers moving towards a more mature and discrete form of luxury. Luxury products are being looked at as future investments, making it necessary for brands to emphasize on their quality rather than volume.

Luxury heritage brands also need to create a strong resale strategy like Richemont which recently acquired Watchfinder or Burberry which partnered with The RealReal. Another golden opportunity for Chinese luxury brands is to expand their stores in Hainan and other duty-free channels.

Driven by technological innovation and sustainability, the Italian hosiery sector is growing at a robust pace even in the midst of the global pandemic. As per a Knitting Industry report, pandemic has increased the sector’s sustainability awareness and its use of eco-textiles. Alessandro Gallesi, President, ADICI, the Hosiery and Intimate Wear District Association point out, 63 per cent young consumers opted for sustainable products in 2020, as per a PwC survey. Gallesi advises companies to consider this trend while creating products.

Investments in sustainability increase

Hosiery producers are investing a lot of money in low environmental impact technology and materials. They are including green materials in their fashion collections, says Massimo Bensi, President, CSC, and Owner Manager, Calze BC. The CSC Enterprise Services Centre has offered its laboratory and skills to companies to develop sustainable and environmentally respectful products, informs Davide Bonassi, Director.

A world class company specialising in the creation and distribution of manmade fibers, Fulgar has committed to make its entire production process sustainable. Its eco-sustainable product portfolio includes EVO, a bio-based yarn made from castor oil, Q-NOVA, a fibre made from regenerated raw materials and AMNI SOUL ECO, a biodegradable polyamide.

Favored by national and international brands

Fulgar’s products are being used by many Italian and international hosiery brands. For instance Calzedonia has once again chose Nylon 6.6 green Q-Nova yarn by Fulgar. This 100 percent Made in Italy eco-sustainable polyamide 6.6 yarn is Global Recycled Standard (GRS 2015-005 certified by ICEA) and EU Ecolabel certified.

Similarly, Sarah Borghi, a luxury Italian-made hosiery brand has chosen the Amni Soul Eco biodegradable yarn by Fulgar for its new capsule collection known as the Green Collection. The new-generation sustainable yarns offer outstanding comfort and durability to the consumers. Sarah Borghi has also included other Fulgar products like EVO and Q-NOVA in its Green line.

Duelegs Bbf Group’s contemporary band Tightings uses Fulgar’s EVO yarn for its Celeste model and Fulgar’s Q-NOVA fibre for its Ambra model. These help the company combine looks, comfort and environmental awareness.

Maker of high-quality Made in Italy hosiery, Calzificio Schinell has also launched a range of eco-friendly tights using Q-NOVA recycled fibre by Fulgar while Donna BC has opted for Q-NOVA and EVO by Fulgar for products made with eco-friendly yarns. Fulgar has also launched its latest polyamide with antiviral and anti-microbial properties, reflecting its futuristic approach to sustainability.

Wrangler®, a global icon in jeanswear and casual apparel, has launched a new sustainability platform- WeCare Wrangler™ As per Textile World, the platform unites the brand’s legacy of sustainability with measurable goals designed to bring consumers the apparel they know and love while reducing the brand’s environmental impacts.

Coinciding with the launch of the WeCare Wrangler platform, the brand has launched the new Retro® Green Jean assortment which improves on favorite Wrangler styles with a variety of natural fibers, recycled hardware and eco-friendly materials from the hem to the waistband and everything in-between.

The WeCare Wrangler platform is guided by three key focus areas: Planet, Product and People. From protecting the soil, to saving water, to reducing waste and energy use, Wrangler is dedicated to challenging itself to leave less of an impact on the planet. It is committed to doing right by all people with the products it makes.

All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) has warned that any distortion in the policy of free-market mechanism will be a disaster for the textile exports of Pakistan.

As Pakistan faces its biggest crop failure this year, cotton manufacturers have claimed that yarn prices in Pakistan are more than the international prices which have caused financial stress to value-added textiles and increased their cost of manufacturing.

However, APTMA has stated that international prices of cotton are at 90 cents delivered to Pakistan from Brazil, the USA, and West Africa, and are consistent with the international market.

The press release also highlighted that the local requirement of 14 million bales of cotton is not fully met as according to APTMA, only 7 million is produced and half of it is exported. Apart from this, the spinning industry of Pakistan, which is the 3rd largest after China and India, is also exporting finished products at $5 billion.

As per APTMA, this has caused an artificial shortage and has disrupted the market. In another recent press release by APTMA on Tuesday, it was stated that monthly yarn production in Pakistan is around 200,000 tons which is in fact, a surplus.

The Association has further clarified that these false claims of shortages and high international prices are nothing but a bid by the manufacturing industry to get out of paying international prices, even though the prices have faced a dip due to the pandemic.

A Luxe Digital study has ranked Gucci the most popular brand online for the fourth consecutive year. The 100-year-old Italian fashion label accounted for 15.2 per cent of the total search interest online in 2021 followed by Chanel and Hermès, with 11.6 per cent and 10.2 per cent of the online search interest respectively.

Only one US, Tiffany & Co, was included in the list on the seventh place. A part of luxury conglomerate giant LVMH, the jewelry brand accounted for 6.2 per cent of online search interest. Online purchases for luxury goods increased 12 per cent to reach 23 per cent percent of total sales in 2020. Luxe Digital estimates, online luxury purchases to account for one-third of all luxury sales by 2025.

As per the study, global luxury brands continue to experiment with ways to engage China's growing affluent consumers online. China is on track to become the world's largest luxury market by 2025, with Tmall's luxury pavilion and dedicated

WeChat boutiques the most used channels at the moment. Brands also emphasized on the localization of their campaigns for the Chinese market, avoiding cultural faux pas.

Chip Bergh, CEO, Levi’s feels, the world is entering into the early stages of a new denim cycle with shoppers flocking to loose-hanging, wide-leg and flared jeans. Bergh says Levi’s started to notice an uptick in sales in new styles of jeans when it launched two different fits early last year: One pair of jeans that ballooned out at the bottom, and another that was high-rise at the waist and loose fitting.

The shift has been driven in large part by young consumers, says a CNBC report. It has been endorsed by all teens’ favorite websites, including Shein, Princess Polly, Urban Outfitters and Revolve. A separate note from UBS’ retail team earlier this week noted how fashion trends within the denim category are shifting. It completed a global, Google search analysis that found a significant spike in browsing online in January 2021 compared with January. 2020 for new jean styles, including ‘baggy/wide jeans’ and ‘straight jeans.

In the first quarter of this fiscal Levi’s reported double digit sales decline as ongoing store closures in Europe and weaker foot traffic in the US due to the COVID pandemic weighed on results. However, the brand boosted its sales and profit outlook for the first half of the year, assuming the global health crisis doesn’t become worse from here. The brand expects to reach its 2019 growth levels by the fourth quarter.

To achieve its target of 100 per cent renewable electricity, Shahi Exports is taking various steps like investing in solar energy, wind energy and energy-efficient infrastructure. As per Apparel Resources, the company is using agro-waste as biomass fuel for steam generation through boilers. It has also converted most of high-speed diesel-fired boilers into agro-waste or PNG-fired boilers.

Shahi Exports has two solar power plants of 32 MW and 52 MW capacities in Bellary and Bidar districts of Karnataka, respectively, which catered to 65 per cent of its electricity requirements in 2019-20. The company also has an 8.57 MW wind energy plant in Maharashtra. Combining energy generation through process steam turbines, wind and solar plants, 77 per cent of electrical energy consumption across the company was carbon-neutral.

The new facilities of the company incorporate green building design principles from the planning stage, be it using sunlight illumination on the production floors leading to minimal energy consumption. New factories are being designed to use the maximum amount of daylight and good ventilation.

Leading retailers MUJI and Flying Tiger Copenhagen have launched App Clips alongside MishiPay’s mobile self-checkout solution. With MishiPay’s ‘Scan & Go’ technology, in store shoppers can scan and pay for their shopping, eliminating the need to waste time waiting in line at a checkout. App Clips Codes are visually distinct codes that help users tap or scan to quickly access the experience. Each App Clips Code is encoded with a URL and can support NFC tagging.

When shopping in-store, holding the iPhone near the App Clips Code in-store launches the MishiPay App Clip through which the customer can checkout with Apple Pay without the need to download the full app. If a customer already has the MishiPay app installed on their device, they can hold their iPhone next to the App Clips Code to immediately launch the app, enabling them to scan items and checkout at ‘warp speed’.

By eliminating the need for shoppers to touch any in-store hardware and simultaneously avoid needing to wait in any lines in the store, MishiPay’s innovative mobile self-checkout system can help to keep both shoppers and staff safer. Deploying App Clips enables even quicker user adoption, eliminating the need to wait for the app to download.

Cotton Association of India has hiked the production estimate to 360 lakh bales from previously estimated 358.5 lakh bales for the season. The upward revision of 1,50,000 bales is attributed to a brightened crop prospects in the Northern part of the country, i.e. 50,000 bales each in Haryana, Upper Rajasthan and Lower Rajasthan.

CAI has retained its cotton export projections of 60 lakh bales for the season, but it has noted that cotton imports will be lower by about one lakh bales at 11 lakh bales against earlier estimates of 12 lakh bales.

As for stock position, spinning mills are estimated to have about 95 lakh bales in their warehouses as on March 31, with an average of 107 days’ cotton stock. CAI informed that over 90 per cent of the cotton crop for current season, spanning October 2020- September 2021 has arrived in various markets across the country as on March 31.

As per the trade body, against the projected 360 lakh bales for the entire season, 326.76 lakh bales had already arrived in various parts by March-end.

In all, the market received 459.26 bales of cotton in the first six months of the season. This included 7.50 lakh bales of imports and a record opening stock of 125 lakh bales at the beginning of the season.

Of this, 165 lakh bales have been utilized by the end-users, says CAI. The trade body expects 330 lakh bales of cotton to be consumed during October 2020-September 21.

Atul Ganatra, President, CAI, says, cotton consumption is estimated to increase by 80 lakh bales compared with the previous year’s offtake estimate of 250 lakh bales. "The consumption is estimated to reach its normal level this year after the disruptions and labour shortage caused by the lockdown imposed in the country to arrest the spread of COVID -19 pandemic, he adds.

The Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), Maharashtra Federation, Multinational companies, ginners, traders and MCX are estimated to have a total stock of about 156.26 lakh bales of stock as on March 31. CAI expects to close the current cotton year with a closing stock of about 106 lakh bales.