The Council of ASEAN Fashion Designers (CAFD) says it’s time for the industry to reset its business landscape as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization and has changed consumer behavior. Datuk Kenn Yarn, Honorary Chairman, believes this is a crucial moment for designers to rethink, reinvent and regenerate to remain sustainable. The council also aims to bridge the gap between designers from ASEAN countries and global consumers.

CAFD was established to democratize the fashion industry by creating a level playing field for ASEAN designers, enabling them to be a part of the global marketplace and thrive in the globally competitive industry. Since its inception, the council has been encouraging ASEAN designers to carve a niche for themselves by prioritizing tailored clothes and high-quality materials whilst staying up to date with innovative technologies and digital marketing strategies.

To support CAFD designers, the council recently appointed a new committee comprising an eclectic group of leading entrepreneurs and professionals in technology, fashion, media and entertainment fields with influential business networks. Its newly appointed president is the owner of the Vietnam International Fashion Week (VIFW) and co-founder Trang Le.

Textile Excellence is organizing vTexShow – virtual textile exhibition, from September 21 to 26, 2020. This initiative is launched to complement the industry’s efforts to re-energize business in these challenging times. The show covers the entire value chain – fibers, yarns, fabrics, apparel, home textiles, dyes and finishes, anti-microbial finishes, textile machinery, and the latest addition to the textile industry – PPE manufacturers. It will host the PPE makers and suppliers in a dedicated exhibition area to connect them with buyers and consumers

vTexShow will present new real way of doing business to its visitors and help them to conclude business on a virtual platform. The show will act as a catalyst for re-energizing the industry as w it will bring in the best of the Indian and global players on to a single platform.

Researchers at the Dutch organization Ex Tax Project have carried out a study to examine how tax reforms targeting natural resources and pollution might work in the Bangladesh textile industry. The report, titled ‘Tax as a Force for Good’, looks at infrastructures in which revenues are invested in clean technology, along with spending on combining industry advances with social programs targeted towards low income groups.

The report concludes that tax reforms could lead to higher GDP and employment levels, while lowering carbon emissions and energy imports, potential green tax revenues from a carbon tax are estimated at $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide by 2025 while oil and gas subsidies are phased out.

Scenarios targeted at the textile industry were used in the report because of its importance to Bangladesh’s exports; findings showed that a higher GDP, lower emissions and an increase in employment are all achievable.

Crisil Ratings predicts a 25-30 per cent decline in revenues of RMG makers in ongoing financial year due to the prolonged lockdown and lower discretionary spending. The agency expects this fall to be sharper for exporters due to tepid discretionary spending in the US and European Union, which account for 60 per cent of India's RMG exports.

The working capital cycle of RMG makers has elongated because of higher inventory and stretched receivables, which is expected to impair their credit profiles, the report said. The last fiscal ended with 20-25 per cent higher inventory as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and lockdowns began in late March.

With demand depressed in the first half of this fiscal, inventories will remain high, which will add to the woes of exporters and will weaken credit profiles of some large global brick-and-mortar retailers, which will stretch receivables, the agency noted.

Consequently, retailers’ operating margins will contract 250-300 basis points (bps) to 7-7.5 per cent for the sample set, despite softer cotton prices, and cost-reduction initiative. Crisil Ratings Associate Director Kiran Kavala views that due to a sharp fall in profits, s RMG makers will not have sufficient cash accruals to meet repayment obligations in the first half of this fiscal. However, they are expected to utilize the cushion available in their working capital facilities, and will be helped by the moratorium on loan repayments, the government relief package to micro, small and medium enterprises, and the COVID-19 emergency credit lines

Though cash flows are likely to improve in the second half of this fiscal, the ratios of net cash accrual to loan repayments and interest coverage will still be significantly weaker at 1.4-1.7 times and well below 3 times expected this fiscal, compared with 2.4 times and 4 times, respectively, in FY20, it added.

Animal rights organization PETA has urged luxury fashion brand Ralph Lauren to ban both exotic skins and alpaca fleece from its clothing. Ralph Lauren has banned fur, angora wool and mohair in the past, off the back of PETA exposés highlighting cases of gross misconduct. More recent investigate work by the organization has demonstrated that such instances of violence are apparent in both exotic animal farms and those breeding alpacas.

Recently, both Uniqlo and Marks & Spencer banned alpaca wool from their apparel lines after the largest farm of its kind in Peru, Mallkini, was found to tie alpacas to stretching devices, almost dislocating limbs, before roughly shearing them.

Brands such as Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, Jil Sander, Vivienne Westwood, and Brooks Brothers have all subsequently banned exotic skins. According to a survey by YouGov and Commissioned by Human Society International, consumers deem brands using animal product as being unethical, cruel and out of touch. Only three per cent of participants in this survey said they would wear real fur.

Itema, the leading provider of advanced weaving solutions, including best-in-class weaving machines, spare parts and integrated services, has finalized agreement for the acquisition of PTMT, in business lease since April 2019. This acquisition by subsidiary Itema Tech srl allows the company to expand its product portfolio by adding PTMT technology, with the aim of consolidating and establishing a new leadership in the field of technical fabrics.

The operation confirms Itema’s Board Directors intention to invest in the textile machinery sector. Gianfranco Ceruti, President, Itema views the acquisition as enriching Itema’s technological offer for weaving machinery, adding even more value to the company’s proposal to the market. Ugo Ghilardi, CEO, Itema Group, said with Itematech the company is ready to respond to the needs of this specific sector, through the widest range of technological solutions offered by a single partner. Itematech will be able to count on Itema Group’s production capacity and its commercial and service network, along with the technological solutions that have always been the flagship of the Panter brand, such as the loom dedicated to weaving carbon fiber, in what is a unique synergy on the market.

The Itema plant in Colzate, at the forefront was quickly equipped by the Itema engineering team for the production of the ex-Panter models thus guaranteeing the high quality standards of Itema weaving machines.

According to management consultancy, Bain & Company, COVID-19 is pushing luxury brands to focus on their digital businesses. At the start of 2020, digital accounted for 12 per cent of luxury sales. By 2025, online sales could account for as much as 30 per cent of the luxury market, Bain estimates. Moncler, which previously outsourced its digital operations to fashion-tech outfit Yoox Net-a-Porter, plans to bring those operations in-house and double its e-commerce sales to 20 per cent of its business by 2023.

Similarly, Kering accelerated its digital growth by 6 per cent to account for 13 per of cent of its total retail sales in the first half of 2020. LVMH saw strong performance across its own e-commerce channels, as opposed to online sales through other retailers, which have tended to dominate online luxury sales.

E-commerce hasn’t been nearly enough to offset the tremendous losses luxury companies have suffered from closed stores and the plunge in international tourism, which makes up a large share of their sales. But it has softened the blow. For instance Prada’s online sales grew by 150 per cent in the first half of year versus the same period last year, despite total sales falling 40 per cent.

Chimney Sheep will soon start its sourcing project ‘Operation Wool’ for the third year in a row. The Cumbrian firm will collect approximately 22 tonne of Herdwick wool throughout August directly from local farmers. This equates to the wool from just over 20,000 Herdwick sheep which is 20 per cent of the UK Herdwick population and will fill five lorries.

This wool will be used to create the company’s chimney draught excluder, the Chimney Sheep. The project will provide financial support to the farmers at time the wool industry is declining due to the pandemic.

The farmers will be paid a better rate compared to selling the wool to British Wool whilst making it more cost effective for Chimney Sheep d by cutting out several sourcing steps.

A consortium of five Egyptian researchers have developed the world’s first high-performance fibers and reinforcements extracted from the byproducts of pruning of date palms, such as fronds and fruit branches, also known as PalmFil. The fiber is not only sustainable but also economical in manufacturing, compatible with textile and composite processing and offers the properties needed for lightweight cars of the future. PalmFil consortium succeeded in extracting the first long textile fiber from date palm byproducts and converting them into fiber tow, chopped fiber, spun yarn/ roving, nonwoven mat, woven fabric, and unidirectional tape. The new fiber represents a sustainable material base for a wide spectrum of industries ranging from natural reinforcements for composites in automotive and sporting goods, plaster reinforcements in construction, burlap sacks for packaging, ropes, and twines, non-wood papers, and other consumer products.

The R&D conducted by PalmFil consortium demonstrates the potential of date palm fibre; its use in the modern context and in industrial settings, says Dilip Tambyrajah, Secretary-General, International Natural Fiber Organization. The use of most natural materials like the date palm fiber contributes towards maintaining biodiversity, provide employment and income and enable sustainable development in general. However, the key to its revival will be the national will and support to encourage the development of a reliable supply chain that can service the various production sectors that could use the fiber, he adds.

The self-supported research was conducted for five long years. It relied completely on the consortium funds and was driven by a strong belief on the impact of such innovation on the sustainable development of rural communities and their livelihoods, adds Dr Ahmed Hassanin, Partner, PalmFil Consortium.

Turkish denim mill Calik Denim has postponed its annual event ‘Ever Evolving Talks’ due to COVID-19. The seminar was scheduled for October 27, just a day before Kingpins trade show. The seminar was launched in October 2018 with an ambition to change the way the sector thinks about not only its material ‘denim’, but more widely the ‘Fashion Industry and business in general. The first edition of this seminar focused on concepts such as innovation, technology and sustainability. It also highlighted fashion and denim trends guiding the future of the sector hosted experts such as Ken Segall of Apple, Matthew Drinkwater of London College of Fashion's Innovation Agency, Adriana Galijasevic of G-Star Raw, Roian Atwood of Wrangler and Matthew Williams of Alyx.

Last year’s edition gave a stage to topics such as Blockchain system, consumption habits of generation Z and climate change discussed by speakers such as Gen Z expert Matt Britton, Jessi Baker, Provenance and Leland Devon Melvin, ENFL player and NASA astronaut. The next edition of Ever Evolving Talks is scheduled for April 2021 in Amsterdam.