Prym-Fashion plans to expand its services in the Indian apparel segment. The company will soon open a new fastener finishing facility, known as Prym Fashion India in Chennai. This new facility, which will begin operations in April, will enabel the company’s popular Gripfix fasteners for the children’s and baby wear markets. By stamping the fasteners in Germany and providing made-to-order enamel finishing at Prym Fashion India, the company will reduce lead times to India-based producers of children’s and baby wear by more than 50 percent.

Gripfix is the company’s bestseller in its baby wear range and has a secure five-prong system that neither tears nor comes off. The flat design of Gripfix fasteners maximises comfort, and the company’s commitment to product quality and reliability make them both durable and safe for use with clothing designed for infants and children.

Prym Fashion India will be located within the Chennai Free Trade Zone, allowing the company to export enameled fasteners to apparel manufacturers in South Asia, including Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The global modest fashion market has had to fight misconceptions. One is that modest fashion is long boring dresses. Also consumers have become accustomed to purchasing low-quality modest clothing and assume that all modest-fashion brands work at this level. Many designers tend to receive more support further away from where the majority of modest-fashion shoppers are. Though modest fashion is more prominent in the Islamic market, the Islamic market and media are the least supportive of up-and-coming Muslim designers. Instead such designers are doing well in the US, Canada and the UK. In the US market, they receive a lot of support from retail buyers and media outside of the modest-fashion industry, as they see the versatility in their designs to extend beyond modest fashion and into the mainstream.

Designers want the chance to sell beyond their website. Their dream is to see a modest rack in every department store and retail setup. By simply stocking modest-appropriate offerings, they feel retailers can increase their customer base and make modest women across the globe feel their real value in the fashion world.

But change is happening. People are looking at modest fashion as stylish. Big brands like Nike are adding hijabi collections.

Levi Strauss & Co., plans to open 100 stores in fiscal 2019. The company already has 70 more stores than during the same time last year. It also plans to roll out an online shop later this year, and a pickup-in-store feature to help boost sales. The company reported a 7 per cent increase in its first-quarter revenues to $1.435 billion for 2019 over the same period last year. Its net income, for the first quarter was $147 million compared to the $19 million net loss reported during the first quarter of the last year.

This was the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit constant-currency revenue growth. This growth was driven mostly by Levi’s women’s business, which grew by 18 percent. However men’s bottoms, whose sales increased by 6 percent, made up for the largest percentage of revenues. The wholesale business of the company also increased by 8 percent despite continued door closures.

The region that performed the most for the company included the Americas, which encompasses the United States, Canada and Latin America. Revenues in those geographic areas were up 9 percent to $717 million while in Asia revenues inched up 8 percent to $253 million, but revenues rose only 3 percent in Europe, to $465 million.

Michael J Nicholson is interim CEO of J Crew. Nicholson first joined the company as president and chief operating officer in 2016, also serving as chief financial officer until August 2017. Prior to this, he spent eight years at specialty women’ swear retail group Ann, where he served as EVP, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and treasurer. The executive’s other previous experience includes stints at Limited Brands, Victoria’s Secret Beauty Company, Colgate Palmolive and Altria Group.

The J Crew group currently operates more than 500 retail locations in the US. Sales at the J Crew brand fell four per cent in fiscal 2018. The company’s attempt to relaunch and reposition its namesake brand proved to be largely unsuccessful. Ultimately, the company’s five per cent increase in annual revenues was assured by 26 per cent growth at its consistent bright spot Madewell. So much so J Crew is considering launching an IPO for its Madewell business. The hope is that a potential IPO of Madewell could unlock significant value and generate meaningful proceeds that would strengthen the company’s balance sheet and increase overall financial flexibility, offering an improved platform to support J Crew’s turnaround and allowing Madewell to achieve its full potential over the long term.

H&M Foundation’s Global Change Award is spotlighting visionary young talent who have the power to reverse the damage caused by the fashion industry. The award invites designers from across the world to come up with disruptive solutions that will mitigate the after-effects of garment production. After filtering through a large volume of the applicants for the awards, an edited select of talent is then handed over to the expert panel that helps make the decision of picking the winners. H&M is also keen to touch upon the ethical use of artificial intelligence and applied analytics and talk about the preemptive measures that can be taken to reduce waste in production. Aside from winning monetary grants from the H&M Foundation in order to scale up their businesses, winners will also be a part of an accelerated mentorship program.

After the oil industry, fashion is the next big line of business to have severe environmental damage on its hands.

Swedish retail giant H&M set up the H&M Foundation to lead dedicated endeavors towards sustainability. The foundation is working toward reaching the sustainability goals set by the United Nations in 2015, which cover areas of education, clean water, women’s economic empowerment and safeguarding the planet.

European and US fashion brands sourcing from Vietnam adopt tactics that push down workers’ wages. They use harsh negotiating tactics with suppliers that lead to razor-thin margins, which often can be a driver of involuntary or excessive overtime. Workers in Vietnam’s garment and textile factories work excessive hours, sometimes more than 50 hours of overtime a month. Most workers earn more than double the country’s minimum wage but are still unable to pay for their basic needs. So they have to rely on excessive overtime to provide for themselves and their families.

This is so even though garment workers in Vietnam generally get higher wages than those employed in the other regional garment-making hubs such as Cambodia and Bangladesh. Better production planning and contract pricing could cut workers’ reliance on overtime work, which often leads to labor rights violations. Despite some advances for workers, global businesses have come under pressure in recent years to ensure their supply chains are free of labor exploitation, as a worldwide push to end modern slavery gains momentum.

Vietnam, one of the world’s largest garment manufacturers and supplying fashion chains such as Zara and H&M, is home to over 6000 garment and textile factories that employ about three million people. Fashion brands have been urged to review their costing policies to ensure workers are fairly compensated.

As per Global Driving Apparel Market: Snapshot, global demand for driving apparels is likely to expand at a CAGR of 5.3 per cent by 2025. In terms of revenue, these opportunities in the global driving apparel market will translate into $18,565.0 million.

The report says, there has been a surge in adoption of protection gear and other safety accessories. Several safety regulations or laws regarding the use of helmets, jackets and other protection clothing are fuelling the growth of this market alongwith the rising popularity of motorsports such as Formula One, IndyCar, and MotoGP.

Geographically, Asia Pacific has been identified as the most profitable region for driving apparels. This region provides for nearly a third of the total demand in the global driving apparel market. The market in this region is estimated to be worth $6,603.6 million by the end of 2025.

Many driving apparel retailers have opened their outlets in countries such as China, Japan, and India. However, vendors are also concentrating on Europe and North America with the demand from the latter region primed to expand at an above-average CAGR of 6.2 per cent during the forecast period.

Uniqlo is doing well in China. Business remains a bright spot for the retailer despite concerns that a slowdown in growth in the world’s second-largest economy would eventually take a toll. For the February quarter, the brand posted a double-digit jump in sales and profit in China. There was a 19 per cent rise in operating profit. Uniqlo’s sales and profit in China rose around 20 per cent year-on-year in the first half. It expanded to 633 locations in the country in the last fiscal year, up 78 stores from a year earlier, while in Japan it went down four stores to 827. Uniqlo is also growing online, with e-commerce sales in Japan growing 30 per cent year-on-year.

However an unseasonably warm weather forced it to slash prices for winter clothes. Amid heavy discounting to offload winter inventory, the retailer now expects an operating profit of 260 billion yen for the financial year through August, versus its previous estimate of 270 billion yen. That would still be a record high and a ten per cent year-on-year rise. Uniqlo is part of the Japanese group Fast Retailing. Uniqlo is known for its simple and affordable clothes such as lightweight down jackets.

The apparel supply chain has gone wrong. The current chaos, whether companies are willing to embrace it or not, must be acknowledged and accordingly accommodated. The sourcing sector’s current corporate culture hasn’t adequately embraced or acknowledged the chaos that comes with necessary change.

Though the industry—whether at sourcing conferences, trade shows, during executive pitches and the like—has embraced all the right buzzwords that lend the appearance of evolution and advancement, few have quite unlocked the key to retail as they believe they have.

Sourcing executives are afraid to change. What if they invest too heavily in data and technology and don’t see a return? What if they bring in the wrong service provider? Or move production to the wrong country? When business goes awry, sourcing executives are always quick to point fingers at their factory partners. It’s either that the factory can’t accommodate the need for more SKUs or fewer pieces per style or a quicker turnaround. Dramatic change can hardly take shape in the midst of like-minded people still surrounded by outmoded ideals. Change comes from different perspectives and from stepping outside of comfort zones, and the failure to embrace these two efforts is where the apparel supply chain has gone wrong.

Asos’ six-month profits before tax have dropped 87 per cent. One reason for the massive dip could be the major investments the UK-based e-commerce retailer has made in new technology. Another reason for such a steep profit loss was the major price discounting over consecutive quarters, as more competitors gain market share. Because the brand has continually had to discount products to remain competitive, it is tricky to move away from that. An additional factor that will affect Asos’ future success is its new extended return policy. Earlier this year, the brand shifted the policy from 28 days to 45.

Asos is spending on new technologies, like artificial intelligence, new marketing strategies, technology platforms and infrastructure, and focusing on growth in the US. Current areas of focus include reducing prices and refocusing the marketing strategy. However Asos’ total sales grew by 14 per cent and overall retail sales grew 13 per cent from the previous year. And unlike a lot of other fast-fashion companies, Asos has its marketplace, all these third-party brands, its own products, it has beauty. The brand has diversified its offerings, unlike a lot of other fast fashion brands that have just focused on cheap items and breadth of assortment with private-label goods.