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Post its turnaround Aeropostale will now open its first store in Spain by the end of the year. This will only be the starting point for an expansion plan for the brand in Spain and Portugal. The distribution will combine its own stores, franchises and corners.
Aeropostale is an US brand rescued from bankruptcy last year by a consortium led by Authentic Brands Group. Aéropostale's offer consists mainly of sweatshirts, T-shirts and jeans for young people between 16 and 22. Average prices are between 30 and 40 dollars in the case of blouses and 55 dollars in the case of jeans.
After changing hands, the company maintained a network of 700 establishments, of which 400 are in the United States and Canada and the rest are distributed between Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and southeast Asia.
Aeropostale was founded in the 1980s by RH Macy, the company that owns Macy’s department store, which launched it as a chain of shops specializing in urban fashion for teens. Authentic Brands closed 2016 with a turnover of more than 4,470 million euros. The group controls, in addition to Aéropostale, companies like Frye, Juicy Couture and Greg Norman.
In the US market, Authentic Brands competes with other brands struggling to make room in teenage lockers like Pull & Bear and Springfield.
In 1973, 2.4 million people worked in the US textile and manufacturing industries.By 1996, that number had dropped to 1.5 million. Today, the industry employs just 3,85,000 people. After cheap labor led to companies taking their businesses overseas in the ’80s and ’90s, almost 98 per cent of American apparel is now being made abroad.
But recent investments in automation and technology at American factories, as well as a rising emphasis on Made in America’ products, are promising for the domestic manufacturing industry. For US apparel companies, keeping their supply chain in the US is less a valiant act of patriotism and more about maintaining clarity and control over production. Direct-to-consumer brands that aren’t beholden to wholesale pay-outs and promotional cycles don’t need to send their production overseas in order to cut costs. And by keeping production domestic, direct-to-consumer brands get another advantage: they can react quicker to customer demands.
To get a low price overseas, companies have to order a lot of product, and have to order it at least six months in advance. But more and more, customers don’t want something produced in such massive quantities. Retail is getting pushed hard, and people aren’t shopping the way that they used to.
Vietnam is seeking partners in Armenia to develop garment production projects. Vietnam is the first country to sign a free trade agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union that includes Armenia. Vietnam will consider production and business cooperation with big companies of Armenia that already have distribution networks in Russia and the EU. Vietnam will mainly contribute machinery and production administration.
Armenia has expressed its desire to cooperate with major firms with much experience in production management so as to revive the local garment industry and boost export. Armenia will encourage investment attraction, create favorable conditions for foreign investors, and provide special mechanisms for Vietnamese investors through cooperation policies, multilateral and bilateral cooperation agreements, and granting of work visas.
Some 94 businesses are operating in the textile and garment industry of Armenia. The country exported 50 million dollars and imported 170 million dollars of textile and garment products in 2014. Armenian companies specialising in clothing, knitting and textile processing co-operate with European and American partners, while their main export markets remain the CIS states. They have substantial experience in cut, make and trim and full package contracting. Textiles are one of the oldest branches of the Armenian economy, and accounted for over one quarter of the total workforce during the Soviet era.
Textile companies are expecting a revival in their fortunes in July to September on a rebound in customer footfalls and restocking by traders following GST compliance. Profit margins of textile firms remained under pressure in the first quarter of the current financial year due to traders’ destocking ahead of the GST implementation effective July 1. Primary textile players had stocks returned to them amid fears of the GST’s burden on unsold inventory.
Not just small players large ones too, saw profits being squeezed in the quarter ended June. The implementation of GST has disrupted the unorganised sector, which has been demanding its removal on fabrics and resolution of the inverted duty structure. Besides, cotton prices, which remained elevated last year on low output, are expected to decline this year on expectations of a bumper crop. Adverse rupee movement against the Chinese yuan is affecting textile players. In addition, high cotton prices have posed a challenge. With supplies likely to rise in the upcoming season, cotton prices are expected to moderate by five to ten per cent.
India’s cotton output is likely to be higher in 2017-18 on an increase in acreage. Textile companies with low debt and a better product mix are likely to perform better.
Taiwan’s textile exports showed sound recovery signals in July amid improving industry sentiment. Textile exports rose 0.73 per cent year-on-year from the same month last year. The 0.05 per cent year-on-year increase in the first seven months is an improvement from a 0.04 per cent annual decline in the first six months of this year.
The country’s textile and fabric makers may benefit from rising demand ahead of next year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia. Some fabric makers are expected to secure large orders of sports apparel from global brands. Several other top manufacturers have expressed optimism about revenue and earnings picking up in the second half of this year.
The Taiwanese textile industry has developed environmentally-friendly concepts and done recycled polymer and polymer blends. From yarns for apparel to industrial and sport accessories, recycled yarns are growing in importance and are a core part of Taiwan’s textile industry.
Mixtures of new technologies and fashion allow new design elements that were hard to imagine in the past. Polymer based yarn developments in polyester, nylon, recycled and blended with natural fibers, lead the way. It is possible to have the look and feel of natural fiber fabrics with the performance and flexibility of synthetics.
Nike will allow Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) to access its supplier factories. WRC will have formal access to Nike supplier factories that manufacture WRC-affiliated collegiate products, to investigate working conditions and strengthen coordination regarding any remediation efforts. The agreement also improves coordination between the consortium and the sportswear company when a violation is identified and change is required.
Nike also continues to work directly with the Fair Labor Association, a vital organisation dedicated to raising the standards for workers through its comprehensive supply chain program.
A report by the Worker Rights Consortium found that factory workers in Vietnam endured poor treatment, including not being allowed bathroom breaks and being padlocked in the factory. In the case of that facility, WRC identified a number of significant labor rights violations and has been working since then to try to get them corrected.
Worker Rights Consortium is an independent labor rights monitoring organisation, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe. Its purpose is to combat sweatshops and protect the rights of workers who make apparel and other products. Nike plans to focus on the hottest-selling sneakers, slash the number of styles it offers and sell more shoes directly to customers online as part of a restructuring in which it also will cut about 1,400 jobs.
Techtextil will be held in Mumbai from September 13 to 15, 2017. This is a trade fair for technical textiles and nonwovens. It attracts key buyers who are looking for solutions across multiple technical textile applications in agriculture, automotives, building, clothing and protective clothing, environmental protection, geo-technology, housing and home, medical science, packaging and sports. Top textile players including Reliance, Welspun, Garware Wall Ropes, Lenzing and Archroma will showcase their latest solutions for these key application areas.
More than 160 companies from nine countries including: Austria, Belarus, China, France, Germany, Italy, Korea, Spain and Switzerland will participate at this premium industry platform. A symposium will focus on prime business topics that cover the most demanding application areas to disruptive technical textiles that will drive innovation forward. The symposium will present a global outlook on technical textile trends, future forecast on sustainability, and digitalization.
The fair will also launch an exclusive pavilion of Texprocess, the leading international trade fair for processing textile and flexible materials. In this area, some of the largest machinery importers will have live demonstrations of their new technologies to buyers.
Telangana will promote textile policies and highlight investment prospects at this trade fair in a bid to attract buyers and investors to the state.
The upcoming Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics to be held from October 11 to 13, 2017 has added an extra accessories hall to strengthen its influence across entire apparel industry. In the entire process of creating a garment, the accessories used might be the smallest part and applied at the very end but they can have an outsized impact on the final look of the garment. These small pieces will also have a larger-than-life impact at the event. The extra accessories hall will accommodate more than 630 fashion and garment accessories exhibitors participating this year. High-end European accessories suppliers will also feature in Salon Europe. The increase in accessories exhibitors this edition adds to the 4,500-plus total suppliers taking part across all apparel fabrics and accessories sectors.
With so many suppliers under one roof, buyers are guaranteed a range of sourcing options to meet all needs. As with the rest of the fair’s product groups, among the offerings are a number of new product launches, products styled for the autumn/winter 2018/19 season, innovative products and eco-friendly options.
For the first time at Intertextile Shanghai, Hong Kong accessories suppliers will be represented in the Button & Garment Accessories Industry Chamber Pavilion. Also within Accessories Vision is the Shishi Pavilion from China, who will be joined by a number of China’s leading accessories suppliers. Accounting for the increased number of exhibitors this edition, the Accessories Vision halls will have a more defined grouping of exhibitors to maximise sourcing efficiency, including lining, interlining, tag, ribbon and lace and embroidery zones.
The number of Indians in China has been rising over the years. Unlike the IT sector, which is drawing an increasing number of educated Indians abroad, in the case of China, it is the textile trade.
For example, Keqiao, in eastern Zhejiang province, is called the Chinese textile city and it turned out to be the largest fabrics export center of China. With opportunities opening up and China's open policy, more than 5,000 Indian middleman traders have come to settle in the textile town. The first wave of Indian migrants to Keqiao in the early 2000s coincided with its exponential growth of fabric exports. With the moving in of Indian merchants, Keqiao transformed from a local Chinese textile market to an international textile export center.
Most Indians working as middlemen in the cloth trade are Sindhis. Immigration increased as they came to know it was easier to find a variety of fabrics at cheap rates in Keqiao compared to other places and shops are highly centralised. Unlike Pakistani merchants in the region, most Indian businessmen come with start-up capital to start the new ventures. Most of their employees are in the late 20s and early 30s but as they have left their home at an early age they have years of work experience.
While India was once the largest garment exporter in the world after China. It has now fallen to the sixth position, behind Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Indian exporters now fear slipping to the ninth position in readymade garment exports, behind Myanmar and Ethiopia. They feel the proposal to slash export incentives including the cutting down of the duty draw back scheme from eleven to six per cent along with the appreciation of the rupee would affect them very badly.
Exporters in Tirupur say a cut in incentives will reduce price competitiveness, an important element in global competition. The threat of withdrawal of incentives has forced the exporters to go slow on orders. Competitors, Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh, have free trade agreements with the European Union, a major destination for Indian exporters. India is currently looking for a higher volume of trade with the United States and non-traditional markets like Eastern Europe.
Tirupur accounted for 45 per cent of the country’s total exports of readymade garments during the last fiscal and exports touched Rs 25,000 crores. The target for the current financial year is Rs 35,000 crores.
