Fast Retailing-owned J Brand has launched Limitless Stretch, a fabric created at the company’s Jeans Innovation Center in Los Angeles. Available exclusively in its new Sophia skinny fit, the fabric is able to stretch to twice its size and retract without any sagging. The fabric features 30 percent more stretch than other premium denim fabrics on the market

The brand predicts the fabric to be an immediate customer favorite, as it’s an update to its signature skinny fit that helped launch the label 15 years ago. The super skinny silhouette features a mid-rise waist and a slightly longer inseam than other J Brand styles, and will be available for Fall 2020.

To accompany the launch, J Brand is rolling out a black-and-white campaign that pays homage to the updated classic and underscores the “effortless beauty” of the J Brand customer.

J Brand’s Limitless Stretch fabric also checks off another box on the list of consumer demands increasing in light of the pandemic: sustainability. The new denim is washed using J Brand’s Eco Wash water-saving process. By the end of the year, the brand will incorporate sustainable technologies into 100 percent of its washed denim.

Kontoor Inc., with a portfolio led by the Wrangler and Lee brands, has strengthened liquidity and improved its financial position in the second quarter, even as the economic crisis that resulted from the global pandemic brought down sales and earnings.

The company ended the quarter with $256 million in cash and equivalents, and approximately $1.1 billion in long-term debt. It repaid $175 million against the revolver in conjunction with the closing of the amendment to the credit facility in May.

Due to the company’s strong cash generation, in June it made an additional discretionary repayment on its revolver of $75 million. As of June, Kontoor had $225 million of outstanding borrowings under the revolving credit facility and $273 million available for borrowing against it.

Inventory at the end of the second quarter of 2020 was $433 million, down $105 million or 20 percent compared to the prior-year period.

Revenue for the second quarter ended June 27 decreased 43 percent to $349 million. Kontoor said the revenue declines were primarily the result of COVID-19-related wholesale and owned-door closures, and stay-at-home orders, as well as an approximate $33 million timing shift of shipments from the second quarter to the third. Revenue on a year-over-year basis sequentially improved each month as the quarter progressed.

Curato, a Mumbai based multi-designer store exclusively for men is all set to launch their E-commerce website to provide as the part of seamless shopping experience to its patrons. Curated by Tanisha Rahimtoola Agarwal, the website features a plethora of Indian designers across athleisure, occasionwear, experimental to classic wear.

The website showcases a finely curated collection of designers across categories, stocking everything from apparel, footwear, and accessories. For contemporary silhouettes, it has brands like Antar-Agni, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Kunal Rawal, Rohit Gandhi & Rahul Khanna; They have a host of designers who also represent athleisure wear such as Nought One & Gully; For quirky Silhouettes, they have Sahil Aneja, Noo-Noo & Shivan & Naresh. With the festive season around the corner, the newly launched portal offers a repertoire of ethnic, timeless Indian wear by leading names like Payal Singhal, SVA, among many others. The e-commerce website will offer a seamless shopping experience to the shoppers.

A new report, from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRCC), portrays an “emerging and widespread pattern of supplier factories appearing to target unionized workers for dismissal.

The report highlights nearly 5,000 job losses it argues are linked to union membership at nine factories in Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh and India. Workers say they have been disproportionately targeted due to union membership and organizing.

Among the cases mentioned in the report are a supplier in India making clothes for H&M that sacked 1,200 workers in June citing lack of orders because of Covid-19. Meanwhile, the supplier’s other factories remained open. Workers and unions claim the closed factory was the supplier’s only one with a union, and was targeted for this reason.

As production slowed in the garment sector in Asia as a result of plummeting sales caused by the pandemic, factories began to make thousands of workers redundant across the region.

By early April, in Bangladesh a million garment workers had been sent home without pay or had lost their jobs after western clothing brands cancelled or suspended £2.4bn of existing orders.

The report looks in detail at several ongoing disputes between unionised workers and managers in factories in India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Bangladesh and India. In every case it is alleged that big name brands should have been more active in ensuring workers were not punished or targeted for being union members.

Walmart Labs, the technology arm of the US retail giant, has launched its new global identity as Walmart Global Tech. Subsequently, the Indian entity will now be known as Walmart Global Tech India.

Walmart said the main objective behind the move is to capture the brand’s energy as a human-led, tech-empowered innovator that positively impacts the lives of millions of associates and hundreds of millions of customers globally.

The launch of Walmart Labs’ new global identity comes at a time when e-commerce firm Flipkart recently strengthened its wholesale presence with the acquisition of Walmart India, which operates the Best Price cash-and-carry business.

Walmart Global Tech has a team of over 15,000 software engineers, data scientists, and service professionals within Walmart, delivering innovations that improve how its customers shop and empower its 2.2 million associates.

Its teams at Walmart Labs India are using technology to deliver leading-edge innovations for the retailer. These innovations help in ensuring a seamless experience for 275 million customers per week, across 11,300 stores under 58 banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 10 countries. The teams work on the innovations to define the Walmart experience everywhere across the world - from brick-and-mortar stores to apps to online.

Bigger may not be better in case of the textile and apparel industry; especially during the current unprecedented times. And as Md. Eousep Novee argues in the article ‘Rightsizing the textile and apparel industry to make business sustainable’ published in TextileToday, the industry needs to tame its desire for expansion and focus on rightsizing its businesses to combat the current critical situation, say experts. In the last 10 years, many textile and apparel factories in Bangladesh have fallen into the ‘capacity expansion trap. Lured by the desire to expand production and manpower capacity, these once profitable factories are now incurring excessive fixed costs and executing orders at loss only in a bid to survive.

Many of these factories also failed to pay their monthly installments with high interest rates of interests. Even those who did not borrow from banks suffered due to the existence of bank burrowers as they had to take orders with the minimum price to counter competition. Over 90 textile and apparel companies burrowed money from the stock market in the last 10 years. Most of these companies now face losses as their expansion plans failed miserably.

Timing investments wisely

Companies fall into the bad expansion trap as an unscrupulous increase in production capacity proves counterproductive and increases their production costs instead of decreasing them. Also, the proportion of returns from additional capacity is quite variable. Hence, factories need to be compact rather than composite in their pattern of expansion.

A case in point is the US-based Boston Market Franchise, which was compelled to close 200 of its 900 stores in 1998 due to poor sales. To ensure positive returns, factories, need to time their investments wisely. They should avoid investing once the rate of increase of their returns starts diminishing.

Poor management leads to expansion failure

Some of the earlier capacity expansion decisions were taken with a view to improve the efficiency of their supply chains. Companies believed that adding allied and related production units could boost their efficiencies.

However, their decisions failed to fetch positive outcomes as their expanded units required independent supply chains. They needed new factories to produce accessories which in turn required a separate supply chain for procuring raw materials.

Managing an expanded business requires rightsizing to make it more sustainable Factory owners and management CEOs must adopt rightsizing to ensure investment security and profitability of their businesses.

It’s common to see people wearing suit with casual shoes, leggings with heels, or yoga pants at work. Growing interest in health, recycling and environmental protection is compelling consumers to mix sports and fashion and create new style trends. Sportswear brands are adapting to this new reality by combining technical features and design with a new sports aesthetic or ‘athleisure’. Brands are segregating their products according to customers’ needs. They are also segmenting sales on the basis of consumers’ growing in interest in healthy living and well-being.

The biggest market for sportswear in the world is the United States while Germany is the biggest sportswear market in Europe followed by France, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom. France and Italy are Europe’s largest athlesiure markets while Japan is frequently visited by design teams from major brands across the world.

Creating new looks for every season

To succeed in these new growing markets, sportswear companies need to align their business with new values. They need to create more athleisure trends for both men and women of all ages. They also need to keep an eye on millennials, who in five years will account for nearly 50 per cent of the workforce.

Another challenge for sportswear brands is to create attractive looks for each season. The sportswear trend is currently being driven by specialized personal shoppers only in the US. However, growth will finally be determined by global affluent consumers who will ultimately decide whether a look is good. For such customers, brands need to combine their luxury sportswear with expensive technical items from good brands.

Sportswear brands also need to maintain their identity to sustain longer in the market. They should be well-aware of customers’ choices and emphasize on personalizing their products. They should explore innovative designs and materials to attract customers.

Managing limited editions like resale

The trend of launching limited edition collections was started in 1980 by American brands. Since then, the trend has spread across the globe with many sportswear brands launching limited editions targeting sneakerheads. Some of these top brands have also opened stores specializing in limited-edition products.

As limited editions collections symbolize the status and exclusivity of sportswear brands, the industry must manage this rising phenomenon like a resale business. It should resell limited-edition collections by adverting about them on the social media and through well known personalities. Sportwear brands must also be careful while segmenting products. They should separate each group of customers to offer right items. They should also introduce a sales model where each sell products associated with consumer profile.

Brands must be careful to ensure the sustainability of business. They should be attentive to demand but should not lose their roots. They should let their customers decide whether they want to buy purely technical sportswear or trendy garments that can be mixed and matched for a fashionable look.

Tradeshows giant Hyve plans to launch three virtual forums next month, Fashion Together (comprising Pure, Pure Origin, Moda and Scoop), Autumn Fair @ Home and Glee Gathering.

These forums will provide exhibitors and attendees with the opportunity to showcase and discover new products, engage with suppliers via The Virtual Showroom, and hear market-leading content from retailers and trend forecasters on what 2021 may hold for the industry and how they can kick-start their own sales now.

The event teams behind Autumn Fair, Glee, Pure, Pure Origin, Moda and Scoop said these virtual forums are a key part in their new Refuelling Retail initiative. This brand-new initiative calls for all market players to refuel the retail industry after a challenging first eight months of 2020.

Importantly, the three new forums will be non-commercial events “allowing existing customers to participate at no additional cost, aiming to connect the industry this autumn as all national and international retail trade exhibitions had to be cancelled due to COVID-19.

Vietnam-based South Korean fashion firms are likely to benefit from the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), according to a report by the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), which recently said apparel producers in Vietnam can enjoy the benefit of that FTA for goods made with South Korean materials.

Clothes produced with Chinese materials, on the other hand, cannot enjoy the benefits of the EVFTA, as China does not have a pact with the EU, according to South Korean media reports. South Korea implemented its own FTA with the EU in 2015.

Vietnam's imports of South Korean materials to produce clothes reached $1.7 billion in 2019, accounting for 11.5 per cent of the total. Those of Chinese goods reached $6.7 billion, or 58.9 per cent. KITA said exports of South Korean materials to the Southeast Asian nation may also increase on the back of the EVFTA.

Vietnam was the third-largest export destination for Asia's No. 4 economy in 2019, with China and the United States standing as the top two.

South Korea's combined exports to Vietnam in 2019 reached $48 billion, down by 0.9 per cent from a year earlier. Over the cited period, the country's exports dipped 10.4 per cent amid the growing protectionism around the globe and falling prices of memory chips.

SaigonTex/SaigonFabric 2020 has been postponed and the trade fair will now be combined with its 2021 edition. The decision has been taken in view of the Vietnamese government continuing with the 14-day quarantine policy for foreigners entering the country.

Joint organizers Vietnam National Textile & Garment Group (Vinatex), Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), and VCCI Exhibition Service Co have recommended foreign companies to exhibit in HanoiTex/HanoiFabric, which is scheduled for December 17-19, 2020.

The Vietnam Saigon Fabric & Garment Accessories Expo is held concurrently with the Vietnam Textile & Garment Industry Expo—the biggest and the most influential event in the textile and garment industry of Vietnam. These two expos are aimed to provide a one-stop market for all buyers in Vietnam and the neighboring countries.

The next concurrent event will be held from April 7-10, 2021 at SECC, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.