Japanese sportswear company Asics, is collaborating with the Charity I:Collect on a sports apparel recycling and reuse initiative in Europe. The initiative will be launched at the Barcelona Marathon on March 10 where the two companies will work together in order to collect used sports apparels and footwear for reuse or recycling.

The program will enable the recycling and reuse of Asics products at eight marathons happening across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. A product-driven company, Asics is shifting to more sustainable materials and engaging its customers and consumers on the journey to a circular business model is at the heart of its sustainability strategy. While working on its global program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Asics has identified that more than 80 per cent of CO2 emissions originate from the processes and materials that are being used to create footwear and apparel and end of life treatment of sold products.

Asics aims at collecting more than 30,000 pieces of sports apparels from consumers in Japan. The collected pieces will be further recycled by the year 2020. The aim is to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55 per cent across the globe by the year 2030.

"With environmental consciousness penetrating societies around the world along with an acute cultural shift towards athleticism and wellness, manufacturers are increasingly focusing on producing knitted shoes. Footwear brands Nike and Adidas launched a line of virtually seamless, knitted shoe uppers in 2012. The seamless designs of these shoes provide an almost “second-skin” feel besides eliminating waste by almost 60 per cent as in the case of the Nike FlyKnit – while simultaneously reducing labor hours and environmental impact, improving inventory management, accelerating to market time, and allowing for ultimate customisation."

With environmental consciousness penetrating societies around the world along with an acute cultural shift towards athleticism and wellness, manufacturers are increasingly focusing on producing knitted shoes. Footwear brands Nike and Adidas launched a line of virtually seamless, knitted shoe uppers in 2012. The seamless designs of these shoes provide an almost “second-skin” feel besides eliminating waste by almost 60 per cent as in the case of the Nike FlyKnit – while simultaneously reducing labor hours and environmental impact, improving inventory management, accelerating to market time, and allowing for ultimate customisation.

However, there are distinct limitations to the current seamless knitting technology. The process is markedly less labor intensive than the traditional cut-and-sew methods. Also, it is not yet fully automated. Shoe upper manufacturers are therefore opting for 3D knitting, which eliminates human labor from the production process and breaks through the seamless knitted shoe bottleneck.

Automating shoe manufacturing

3D seamless knitting technology enables flat knitting machines to produce a complete shoe upper, ready to be directly connected to the sole, with a single machine. This leap in knitting technology presents an exciting possibility of completely eliminating labor-dependent cutting, sewing and heat-setting from the shoe production process – and fully automating shoe upper manufacturing.

Raw materials also represent a considerable expense in the shoe manufacturing process, which is only aggravated by extreme fabric waste. By using 3D knitting solutions, each upper can be completed individually and requires no cutting or sewing post-production, resulting in a completely seamless shoe upper — and reducing waste by as much as 60 per cent, in the case of the Nike FlyKnit.

Replacing leather with textiles also has a positive impact on the environment. Leather shoes are responsible for an estimated 30-80 per cent of global impacts on all metrics, including climate change, resource use and freshwater withdrawal. This is in stark contrast to textile shoes, which only represent 6-21 per cent of total impact in the same categories.

Reduced delivery times

If the lifecycle of modern trends has been compressed to just 3.5 years, the concept-to-market process will need to be adjusted accordingly. The Adidas Speed factory is one attempt to close this gap. By bringing production closer to consumers, Adidas has managed to accelerate to market time by a factor of 3. In the future, Adidas hopes their Speedfactory will be able to complement their original production lines by quickly producing limited runs of customized products, or replenishing certain products that are selling more quickly than expected. 3D knitting opens the possibility of streamlining concept-to-market time by implementing a realistic local production solution.

3D knitting offers a solution to inventory problems. Rather than estimate consumer demand months ahead of time – and risk losses due to unsold inventory – 3D knitting opens the possibility to manufacture locally according to real-time demand. While this particular solution is still in its infancy, there is plenty of potential for 3D knitting to begin developing in this direction. With 3D knitting solution, customers can order customised shoes and have them delivered within a few days, cutting down manufacturing and distribution time from several months to just a few days.

A long way to go to be fully adopted

For a 3D knitting solution to truly become practical, it needs to be able to knit a double-sided upper while maintaining the versatility and flexibility of shoe uppers. The seamless shoe uppers are manufactured using a slightly improved sock machine, producing an end product that is much too thin, ‘tongue-less’, and rather limited in terms of design possibilities. As such, current technologies still require a certain amount of processing post-production. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but it’s certainly an exciting industry to watch.

The global women’s wear market is expected to register robust growth by 2020 as fashion is one of the important aspects of women’s wear. There are various channels available where women’s wear can be purchased. These channels include department stores, boutiques, retailers, specialty stores and online. Global women’s wear market can be bifurcated into five categories: clothing, footwear, sportswear, accessories and others.

Europe represents the largest market, closely followed by North America. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for women’s wear. Increasing promotional activity, rising disposable income, increasing consumer confidence and increasing shoppers eagerness to keep up with the latest fashion trends are some of the major driving force for women’s wear market. With the lower effect of economic recession, employment rate and disposable income levels are rising, which allows the consumer to spend more on apparels.

Some major companies operating in the women’s wear market include GAP Inc., H&M, The TJX Companies, Inc, Marks & Spencer Group plc, Benetton Group, Pacific Brands, Etam Development, Fast Retailing Co, Esprit Holdings, Aoyama Trading Co, Mexx Group, Arcadia Group, Next plc and Nordstrom, Inc.

US retail sales fell in December. This is the worst drop in nine years. The value of overall sales fell 1.2 per cent from the prior month. Excluding automobiles and gasoline, retail sales slumped 1.4 per cent. The steep drop however is at odds with figures showing a healthy job market and steady wage gains. The slump also may prove temporary as stocks have regained ground following December’s plunge.

All but two of 13 major retail categories showed a decline, with non-store retailers — which includes online stores — falling 3.9 per cent, the most since November 2008. The broad-based weakening reflected lower sales from clothing stores and gasoline stations. Auto dealers and building materials stores were the only sectors to record increases.

Receipts at health and personal care stores fell two per cent, the most since October 2016. Sales at sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores tumbled 4.9 per cent, the biggest drop since September 2008.

The prolonged trade dispute between the United States and China is affecting the US cotton market. With the cost of inputs rising, excess supply compared to demand, US cotton farmers are starting to think about alternate strategies. A solution to the dispute is in the interest of agribusiness, particularly cotton, as China is a major importer of US cotton.

With the expectation that there will be increased cotton acreage in the United States in 2019, the supply-demand situation is going to play a pivotal role in the cotton sector this year. The trade issue with China primarily centers around intellectual property rights that has been going on for over two decades, and therefore finding a resolution is complicated.

If the ongoing trade war is not resolved soon, mills in China could move away from US cotton permanently and toward Brazilian or West African cotton. The US cotton industry enjoyed a 46 per cent share of all imports going into China. But that changed when China issued a 25 per cent tariff on US cotton in retaliation for tariffs placed on Chinese goods by the US.

However, China is still seen as a key market for US cotton and the US will promote the benefits of its cotton. Chinese mills like US cotton for its quality, its consistency and its low contamination.

The minister for textiles, Smriti Irani, announced a new project with the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Chennai to create India-specific fashion trend forecasting. The project will use Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques to forecast fashion trends specifically for the Indian fashion market. While before international agencies would dominate the market and merely adapt their Western trend forecasts for the Indian market, this project aims to start with India to forecast more accurately.

The project also aims to account for the diversity in trends within India itself. NIFT students will work with local artisans to understand trends as well as with technology. The project is an attempt to consolidate indigenous data.

Shima Seiki’s Mach 2 S whole garment knitting machine offers the flexibility of producing whole garment knitwear using every other needle as well as conventional shaped knitwear using all needles. This feature helps users invest in their technology wisely.

The latest version of Shima Seiki’s 3D design system SDS-ONE Apex3 is at the core of the company’s Total Fashion System concept. Apex3 is designed to provide comprehensive support throughout the product supply chain, integrating production into one smooth and efficient workflow from yarn development, product planning and design to production and even sales promotion. With comprehensive support of the knit supply chain, Apex3 integrates every stage from planning and design to machine programming, production and even sales promotion into one smooth and efficient workflow. Photorealistic simulation capability allows virtual sampling to minimise the need for actual sample-making, reducing time, material and cost while increasing presentation quality in the sampling process.

Apex3 supports design and simulation in a variety of textile including flat knitting, circular knitting, weaving, pile weaving and printing for such industries as towel and home furnishings.

Shima Seiki, based in Japan, is a Japanese computerised flat knitting machine manufacturer. Shima Seiki’s seam-free whole garment knitting technology offers an alternative to labor-intensive manufacturing.

Italian investment bank Mediobanca held its firsts annual ‘Fashion Talk’, presenting the results of a fashion industry study, called Focus Moda, carried out by its research department. The study analysed the 2013-2017 results for 163 Italian fashion companies with annual revenue above €100 million (in the 2017 financial year), and compared the results of the top 15 of them with those of other leading European groups.

The aggregate added value generated by the 163 companies examined was equivalent to 1.3 per cent of Italy's GDP in 2017, an increase of 0.2 per cent compared to 2013. Notably, one third of the companies’ aggregate revenue was generated by 66 foreign-owned firms, chiefly owned by groups from France (26 companies), Switzerland (6), the USA (6) and the UK. Of the 163 companies surveyed, 48 per cent are based in the North of Italy, while the most highly represented market sectors were apparel, leather goods and eyewear.

The top 15 companies in the sample, all of them above the €900 million revenue mark in 2017, recorded higher profitability than the remaining companies, though it decreased slightly over the five-year period. Smaller companies, whose EBIT rose in the period, instead posted an average annual revenue rise that was higher than that of the top 15. It is interesting to note that, in 2013, 77.7 per cent of the sample's net income was generated by the top 15 firms, but the share fell to 56.2 per cent in 2017.

Japanese retailers are making headway in China. They include brands such as Casio Computer and Uniqlo. They are combining their physical presence with strong digital sales. Asics, known for its running shoes, has a large network of stores in eastern China, and to a lesser degree the central and northeast portions of the huge nation. Its sales are down two per cent in the United States and flat in Europe. They're up four per cent in Japan but advancing 40 per cent in China, thanks to strong demand for its Onitsuka Tiger brand of fashion sneakers.

Makeup brand Shiseido has a more even split between northeastern, eastern and central China. Its sales are up over 20 percent in China, driving record company-wide sales and record operating profits last calendar year. Casio sells its namesake watches and all manner of other electronic consumer goods.

Sony and Canon could follow in the footsteps of Casio, all three with a large network of Chinese stores. Japanese retailers are doing a better job than their US rivals in selling to the Chinese. China’s economy is increasingly driven by domestic consumption and consumer spending. Retail sales for China’s 1.4 billion population grew at nine per cent last year.

In early February, apparel retailer H&M revealed its plans to close 160 stores internationally and renegotiate 1,000 store contracts. H&M will need to reposition itself in the competitive apparel market. It can, however, use a similar approach to its Spanish rival Inditex, which has an adaptable and fast supply chain, reducing the need for heavy discounting. Forecasts suggest growth will continue to slow, meaning H&M is unlikely to be helped by market conditions and will, therefore, need to produce a market leading strategy to take on its rivals.

H&M has been struggling to compete against the growth of online e-commerce giants like Amazon, Asos and Boohoo that offer free shipping and returns. Meanwhile, budget chains such as Primark compete strongly on price. At the higher end, retailers such as Inditex have performed exceptionally well, and the company has managed to ramp-up its online sales.