FW
"The fashion industry has increasingly relied on forests to create alternative fabrics such as viscose, modal, lyocell and other trademarked textiles. Healthy forest ecosystems are essential for mitigating climate change, as well as maintaining species diversity and freshwater systems. Progressing conservation solutions that benefit local communities, species, the world’s climate and intact forests are drivers behind the work of Canopy and the Rainforest Alliance with Aditya Birla."
The fashion industry has increasingly relied on forests to create alternative fabrics such as viscose, modal, lyocell and other trademarked textiles. Healthy forest ecosystems are essential for mitigating climate change, as well as maintaining species diversity and freshwater systems. Progressing conservation solutions that benefit local communities, species, the world’s climate and intact forests are drivers behind the work of Canopy and the Rainforest Alliance with Aditya Birla. The CanopyStyle Audit is a requirement for the 100 brands and retailers — including Zara, H&M, Stella McCartney and VF Corp — who make up CanopyStyle and a key performance indicator of Canopy’s overall assessment of viscose producers’ progress on their CanopyStyle commitments.
Audit findings contribute to CanopyStyle’s Hot Button Issue Report, which assesses viscose producers’ overall performance on forest conservation, advancements on developing fabrics made from recycled fabrics and alternative fibres, and sourcing transparency. To further improve sustainability of its operations, Birla Cellulose will continue to advance research and development on new technologies of recycled and alternative fibres, as well as ensure that its company-owned mills and wood suppliers continue to maintain their own independent third-party certification systems. The company also intends to build on its existing chain of custody systems and certified material sources.
Burberry initiative
Meanwhile the Burberry Foundation has awarded £3 million to the Royal College of Art in London to drive sustainable textile research. The grant will see the establishment of the Burberry Material Futures Research Group and expand the Burberry Design Scholarship Fund, a move that aligns with Burberry’s new five-year responsibility agenda. The Group will be the first explicit ‘steam’ research center at a traditional art and design university, applying radical thinking to invent more sustainable materials, transform consumer experience and advance manufacturing for the benefit of industry and the wider community. It will operate as a virtual hub and move to a physical space following the completion of RCA’s new building in Battersea in 2020.
Burberry’s CEO and chief creative Christopher Bailey, says the Group will cover a broad scope of work, including the development of sustainable materials and new manufacturing methods, as well as support British-trained design talent. The Group looks to take a long-term approach to promoting the ‘steam’ agenda, tackling educational inequality, reducing waste and supporting social and economic development. It will be led by the Burberry Chair of Material Futures, who will also be the academic lead of the Material Science Research Center and the first industry-named Chair post at the College. The £3 million grant also includes £750,000 to expand the existing Burberry Design Scholarship at the Royal College of Art (RCA).
The initiative is in line with Burberry’s new responsibility agenda, which will focus on three ambitious goals over the next five years: to support one million people in the communities that sustain Burberry’s business and the wider luxury industry; to ensure 100 per cent of Burberry’s products have at least one element that drives positive change; and to create new approaches on how to revalue waste from luxury good production in order to become carbon neutral in its own operations.
With such an audit in place, a significant result has come to fore that approximately 25 per cent of the global supply chain for viscose has now been audited and found to be low-risk in terms of containing fibres sourced from endangered or ancient forests, providing CanopyStyle partner brands with considerably more information on where their viscose and rayon fabrics come from.
Vietnam’s earnings from garment and textile exports in the first quarter of this year were 11.2 per cent higher than in the same period last year. The textile and garment industry has been improving and catering to the requirements of global value chains. Productivity has improved thanks to the renovation of machines and equipment and the closure of factories with outdated technologies and those that consume a lot of power. Enterprises are being repositioned. Units are using few workers and high-productivity machines. The product structure has been adjusted to choose enterprises with higher added value.
The weakness of the textile industry is lack of input materials. If Vietnamese enterprises make input materials, their products would be able to replace Chinese products and can compete with Chinese products in price. In current conditions, however, it is easier and faster to seek input materials from China than domestic sources. This is because China organizes large-scale production and always has large stocks, while Vietnam only makes products to order.
Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has set a target of seven per cent growth over 2016. Currently, Vietnamese garment and textile products are available in 40 countries and territories around the world, with major markets including the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China and the EU.
A group of Vietnamese textile suppliers to VF Corp and Target Corporation have achieved $15 million savings in water, energy and chemical operating costs over the past 18 months. There are 28 such suppliers, with cut-and-sew, dyeing-and-printing, and garment-washing operations. They collectively invested $9.9 million in resource efficiency measures, achieving a significant return in the process. The suppliers implemented a combination of low cost and more complex factory projects, achieving average water and energy savings of more than 20 per cent, with the highest-achieving factories attaining more than double these average savings.
VF has been working on its supplier improvement program for nearly four years. Target actively works with its suppliers to develop programs that reduce the water and energy use across the supply chain. Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has set a target of seven per cent growth over 2016.
Currently, Vietnamese garment and textile products are available in 40 countries and territories around the world, with major markets including the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China and the EU.
Vietnam is one of the five largest textile and garment exporters in the world. However, the country is also one of the world’s leading importers of fabrics and materials. The shortage of high-quality materials for production is the biggest barrier to Vietnam’s textile and garment industry, hindering the country from taking advantage of free trade agreements.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR), in consultation with the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC), has announced the initiation of an out-of-cycle review of the eligibility of the Republic of Rwanda, United Republic of Tanzania, and Republic of Uganda to receive benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in response to a petition.
The AGOA Subcommittee of the TPSC (Subcommittee) will consider written comments, written testimony, and oral testimony in response to this notice to develop recommendations for the President as to whether Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda are meeting the AGOA eligibility criteria.
Signed into law in 2000, AGOA promotes trade and investment in sub-Saharan Africa, including through substantial trade preferences. In order to qualify for AGOA trade benefits, partner countries must meet certain statutory eligibility requirements, including making continual progress toward establishing market-based economies, the rule of law, political pluralism, and elimination of barriers to US trade and investment, among others.
US AGOA imports from Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda totalled $43 million in 2016, up from $33 million in 2015. US exports to Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda totalled $281 million in 2016, up from $257 million in 2015.
Farmers in South Carolina will be allowed to cultivate legal industrial hemp, which is defined federally as cannabis with a THC level below 0.3 per cent. Licensing to grow the crop mandates that growers must submit to a background check, among other requirements. Initially only 20 licenses will be issued the first year for 20 acres each. Applications will be accepted from July but it is unclear whether farmers will have enough time to grow this season.
The second year of cultivation 50 licenses will be issued for 50 acres each. After that, the number and size of permits that will be issued will be decided on.
Hemp is often considered an environmental super fiber. Hemp fabric is made from the fibers in the herbaceous plant of the species cannabis sativa. It's a high-yield crop that produces significantly more fiber per acre than either cotton or flax.
South Carolina wants to breathe life into some of its abandoned textile mills and make textiles in mills again. Cheaper labor overseas, technology and automation, international trade agreements and other conditions consistent with modernization, wages, education and economic diversification led to the demise of the textile industry in South Carolina from the 1970s through the 2000s.
The US women’s and men’s jeans market has rebounded after facing recent challenges, pushing up sales four per cent in 2016. However, while men are shopping for older styles, latest styles drive women’s sales.
Denim manufacturers and retailers are realizing the importance of striking a balance between giving consumers the features they know and love, and introducing them to some new elements. Women’s jeans introduced to the market within the past two years make up almost 70 per cent of the units sold in 2016 and nearly all the dollar gains for the year.
Older product offerings for women launched in 2013 or earlier retained 19 per cent of the units sold. However, these products were responsible for more than a third of the dollar losses for the year. Meanwhile men are still warming up to comfort stretch and new cuts. Most of the jeans sold for men in 2016 were older products that entered the market in 2013 or earlier. This was likely a factor why the men’s denim market grew at a slower rate than the women’s market.
Denim products introduced in 2016 were a much smaller portion of the men’s market but generated almost three-quarters of the dollars gained in the same year.
Applied DNA will tag 27.5 million pounds of cotton in the US for the 2017/2018 ginning season. The company expects to ship Signature DNA to mark 27.5 million pounds of cotton before the end of June 2017. It will tag, test, and track cotton.
Applied DNA is a provider of DNA-based supply chain security, anti-counterfeiting, and anti-theft technology. It meets the need for supply chain traceability, transparency, and trust within the cotton industry ecosystem with national retailers, their supply chain partners, and consumers.
America’s cotton producers will plant nearly eight per cent more cotton in 2017 than they did in 2016. Texas will lead all states in cotton production by a wide margin. Growers in the state indicated they will plant 5,932,500 acres of cotton in 2017. That number represents an increase of more than 2, 00,000 acres over 2016. Acres are going to cotton from grains due to very good cotton yields in 2016 and lower grain prices.
As the nation’s leading producer of extra long staple cotton, California is set to plant 1, 36,605 acres of Pima in 2017. The state’s remaining upland acreage (nearly 60,000 acres) is heavily dependent on seed companies who produce seed cotton in California. Still, conditions are bright for increased acreage in California in 2017, provided sufficient water resources are available.
Japan’s fast fashion brand Uniqlo’s supplier factories in China have poor working conditions. As factory workers’ base wages are too low to make ends meet, workers have no choice but to work overtime for 112 to 134 hours a month. This violated China’s legal upper limit on overtime of 36 hours a month. Women work 11 hours a day and are given only one or two days off in a month. Working hours may stretch from early in the morning until 10 pm or 11 pm.
When workers organized a strike in 2009, the company used gangsters to deal with the striking workers with physical violence. There have also been protests at Uniqlo in Indonesia. The aim was to draw attention to Uniqlo’s disregard for the fate of thousands of women who lost their jobs at Uniqlo's former supplier in Indonesia – and are still owed wages and severance payments. Uniqlo was evading accountability for workers who lost their jobs when a factory closed down in early 2015. The closure put 4,000 people out of work and pushed them into a desperate situation.
Fast Retailing claims it is keen on improving employees’ working conditions in order to fulfill its responsibility as a global company.
Deepak Perwani head of Pakistan Fashion Council has special plans for his country’s fashion industry. Other than showcasing designer collections, the Council will also be offering aspiring youngsters a chance to show their mettle on the ramp says Perwani.
According to Perwani, August 14 will see a special Millennial Show that will feature 10 promising designers. Talking about the fashion business in Pakistan that stands apart from its Indian counterpart, he says they may seem to be moving parallel but the Pakistani fashion is extremely cut-oriented. As per him yellows, oranges, greens and pinks are finding a place in their wardrobe. The fact that that their mindset is becoming more metrosexual
Having spent over seven years in the US, Perwani returned to the land of his origin because of the inspirational craftsmanship and designs to experiment with. That was more than two and half decades ago, and Perwani has had no regrets. Having steadily climbed the rungs to reach the top, he often takes to the hinterlands to help empower women of the minority communities by teaching them varied crafts that cater to city tastes. Perwani visited them every three months to talk to them, teach them stuff like how to make Rs 100 a day.
The proposed textile park in Warangal will offer units a host of benefits. This includes developing infrastructure around the surrounding villages to facilitate better connectivity to the park and special incentives like capital and power. Mill owners are assured of obtaining all necessary permissions in the shortest possible time.
Telangana’s vision is to have a fiber to fabric facility in the textile park. Everything right from spinning, dying to processing to finished goods facilities would be made available in the Mega Park. While textile parks in different parts of the country like Solapur, Tirupur and Surat are engaged in manufacturing specific categories of garments, the park in Warangal will cover all segments. The plan is to connect all spinning units both handlooms and power looms to the textile park. The park is coming up on 2,000 acres and around 1,200 acres have been earmarked in the first phase of development.
Telangana produces 60 lakh bales of cotton and consumption by local mills around 10 lakh bales. About 10 lakh bales are produced in erstwhile Warangal alone. About 33 spinning mills are operating in Telangana with a 20 lakh spindle capacity. The state is coming up with a new textile policy soon.
