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South Korea’s popular fashion labels are rushing to enter Europe and America’s prestigious department stores. Fila Korea, a shoe and apparel brand, will debut at Bloomingdale’s, the department store chain in the United States. It will open Fila stores at Bloomingdale’s nine locations in the first half of this year and launch additional stores at 30 other Bloomingdale’s department stores across the US in the latter half of this year.
Fila already operates outlets in Kohl’s and Macy’s – American department stores that carry budget clothing and fashion-- but it is the first time the company is adding stores in Bloomingdales.
In Great Britain, Samsung is expanding its presence through its men’s apparel brand Juun. J. It opened its Juun.J store in Harrods, a London-based luxury department store well known to be selective about its offerings of brands, in 2013 and has operated a pop-up store, temporarily introducing its latest collection, in recent months.
Handsome, a fashion unit of Hyundai, opened its men’s apparel System Homme in Galeries Lafayette in Paris for the first time as an Asian fashion label. It is also operating a pop-up store of the female lineup of System in the French department store. The pop-up store is located on the same floor with global fashion names like Kenzo, Isabel Marant, and Carven, and it is the first time for a Korean fashion brand to run a pop-up store in Galeries Lafayette.
"Canopy, award winning environmental not-for-profit, announced that CanopyStyle, which focusses on the elimination of ancient and endangered forests from the production of rayon and viscose fabrics, has hit the significant milestone of 100 committed brands. Kathmandu, SVILU, Raquel Allegra and Duffield Design are the latest to join to groundbreaking initiative with strong forest conservation sourcing policies making the CanopyStyle 100 a reality."
Canopy, award winning environmental not-for-profit, announced that CanopyStyle, which focusses on the elimination of ancient and endangered forests from the production of rayon and viscose fabrics, has hit the significant milestone of 100 committed brands. Kathmandu, SVILU, Raquel Allegra and Duffield Design are the latest to join to groundbreaking initiative with strong forest conservation sourcing policies making the CanopyStyle 100 a reality. The CanopyStyle 100 consists of 100 global brands, designers and retailers who have strong, sustainable sourcing policies for their rayon and viscose fabrics and are united in their conservation vision for our global forests.
Manu Rastogi, Textile R&D and Responsible Materials Manager of Kathmandu points out the strength of the collective action being driven by the CanopyStyle 100 is how her company will be successful in addressing the critical issue of protecting endangered forests from ending up in fabrics. They are inspired and excited to join Canopy and The CanopyStyle 100 to forward lasting protection in the world’s forests, said.
Sourcing sustainably
These fashion and apparel leaders, representing over $115B in annual revenue, have all committed to end sourcing of ancient and endangered forests or controversial sources in fabrics from their supply chain, and to kickstart sourcing next generation closed loop rayon and viscose from recycled clothing and left-over straw. They will also put their global might behind Canopy’s work to advance conservation solutions on the ground for landscapes of hope including Quebec’s Broadback Forest, Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem and British Columbia’s last stands on Vancouver Island.
The Beginning
The CanopyStyle initiative was launched in October 2013 with five fashion brands signing on as early ignitors, and in just over 3.5 years has become the fastest moving environmental initiative in the apparel industry. The question for customers now is, if my favourite brand isn’t part of CanopyStyle, then why not? No-one wants the last stands of 1,000-year-old trees cut down to make their jeans or t-shirts. The CanopyStyle 100 is acting on that and as a result we see similar sourcing commitments from nine out of the world’s top 10 largest viscose producers, said Nicole Rycroft, Executive Director, Canopy. One hundred clothing companies are now waiting to see suppliers like Fulida, Xinxiang Bailu and Shandong Yamei move forward on CanopyStyle Audits in order to meet their policy requirements.
Now that the US is more or less out of the TPP, Japan is mobilizing remaining members. Japan, as leader, is seeking a path forward for free trade in Asia. This country is now the largest member of TPP. A revived TPP with Japan at the head could dent China’s hegemony in the region.
The pact would boost Japan’s real gross domestic product by 1.11 per cent. Preserving the TPP could also stem the anti-globalist tide that has swept the world in the form of Trump’s ascent and the UK’s move to leave the European Union.
The new US administration has taken a fairly short-term approach to trade, showing little interest in creating rules for free trade under multilateral framework -- the founding principle of the TPP. Japan's plan of advancing that cause with other nations and dealing with the US one-on-one for now leaves room for an American return to the framework in future.
However, a revamped TPP does present tough questions for Japan, such as what to do with import quotas for rice and milk that were set with eleven trading partners, including the US, in mind. Japan will also face the challenge of responding to US requests one-on-one for greater market liberalization than the TPP would have provided.
The Directorate General Customs Valuation (DGCV) has reviewed textile invisible coated lining material fabric and textile lining material fabric customs duty under section of 25(9) 1969. There last time a determination of textile lining material took place was in year 2013, so, a revision was done according to trends prevailing in the current international market.
Meetings were held in the month of January, February, and April for undertaking the review. Every stakeholder was requested to submit relevant documents. However, due to different gram-mages, thicknesses of a sample the documents were not submitted by any stakeholder and importers and representative of trade organizations argued that prices of an item differ globally. The highest stress was on textile invisible coated fabric which is similar item is being assessed and released at the lesser rate ranging from $2.30 to 2.65 which has twisted un-stability in the local market.
Later, various methods such as: valuation methods, transaction value method, identical/similar goods value methods were accepted by the Directorate. But these could not be exclusively relied on. Thereafter, market inquiry as envisaged under Section 25(7) of the Customs Act, 1969, was conducted. Online values were checked and conversion costs from constituent material at the country of export were not available as computed value method in section 25(8) of the Customs Act, 1969 could not get applied. All the information was evaluated and analyzed for the purpose of determination of customs values. Accordingly, the Custom values of textile lining material fabric and textile invisible coated lining material fabric were determined under the Section 25(9) of the Customs Act, 1969.
American outdoor apparel company, Patagonia, has come out with a HyperPuff line, comprising hoodies, parkas, and jackets. Patagonia’s latest line combines the best of both synthetic and down.
Down creates a tangible area of warmth around the body but it’s useless when wet. Synthetic materials continue to insulate even while exposed to moderately wet conditions and provide excellent breathability during vigorous physical activity.
But one of the biggest problems with synthetic insulation is its lifespan and inability to retain loft over time, as opposed to regular down, which typically lasts decades. So the HyperPuff line features a synthetic puff jacket that actually puffs, mimicking the warmth of goose down while upholding the increased durability offered by synthetic materials.
Hyper Puff does not use Primaloft insulation. The insulation was developed internally with another supplier in Asia who had access to a special non-woven machine which orients fibers vertically instead of horizontally, like traditional insulation. The product’s unique ability to compress and spring back to life is unprecedented, allowing for easy transport of an otherwise bulky jacket in a small stuff sack. When removed from the sack, the jacket puffs up immediately.
The decision between wearing synthetic or down in the coldest and wettest of places no longer remains a compromise. HyperPuff provides the best of both worlds and ensures continuous warmth — even when wet.
Bangladesh’s apparel exports to nontraditional markets declined sharply in the third quarter of the current fiscal. Reason: sluggish global demand, low unit price of garment pieces and high duty in these markets. Exports of readymade garments to non-traditional markets grew by 1.57 per cent in the July-March period of the fiscal year 2016-17.
The nontraditional markets are: Australia, Japan, China, Chile, Brazil, Japan, Russia, South Africa, New Zealand, Malaysia, Korea, India and Turkey. Exports to Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Korea dropped 26.97 per cent, 16.97 per cent, 16.86 per cent and 14.87 per cent July-March 2016-17 fiscal compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal.
While shipments to Australia and India declined by more than seven per cent, exports to Japan and Turkey witnessed a meager growth of 2.11 per cent and 0.29 per cent. On the whole, exports of readymade garments to non-traditional markets grew 1.57 per cent in the July-March period of the fiscal year 2016-17.
On the other hand, income from some traditional and major markets such as Belgium, UK, USA and Canada fell by 6.89 per cent, 6.85 per cent, 7.56 per cent and 6.41 per cent during July-March 2016-17 fiscal.
Telangana is preparing a handloom directory. This will have complete details of the condition of handloom weavers and the sector, including the number of handlooms, handloom weavers and workers, production capacity etc. with full capacity and estimates. Based on this, special policies would be formulated for the handloom, power loom and textile sectors.
Subsidy will be extended to weavers by linking it to their Aadhaar and biometric identity. Subsidy benefits will be directly credited to the accounts of the handloom weavers. The existing handloom workers will be protected, and if some workers want to shift to other sectors, cooperation will be extended to them. Loan with special subsidy will be extended to those contemplating to shift to other remunerative sectors. A 50 per cent subsidy on yarn will be given to handloom weavers.
Data on how many weavers weave silk, cotton and grey cloth will be collected. They will be given opportunities to sell their products not only to the government but the outside market. The state will set up its own handloom depots in addition to National Handloom Development Corporation yarn depots and provide more benefits to the weavers. There are 17,000 handlooms in Telangana and 14,300 are geo-tagged.
Pakistan’s textile industry wants Chinese investment. The hope is to enter into successful joint ventures to benefit from each others’ entrepreneurial potential. The two countries are planning to enter into joint ventures for 1,00,000 spindles, 500 airjet looms and fabric dyeing and printing plants in Pakistan.
Chinese companies are looking mainly at the cement, steel, energy and textile sectors, the backbone of Pakistan’s economy. Chinese firms are eager to expand abroad at a time when growth has slowed at home. Pakistan has offered a package to the exporting industry with an added attraction of 12 to 15 per cent for producing and manufacturing in Pakistan.
To ease the cost of doing business, the country has announced an export-led growth package encompassing provision of drawback of local taxes and levies at four per cent on yarn and greig fabric, five per cent on processed fabric, six per cent on textile made ups, seven per cent on textile garments against realisation of exports.
The foreign investment policy offers zero per cent duty on imports of capital goods, zero per cent corporate income tax rate, 10 years’ corporate income tax holiday, 50 acres minimum land required for special economic zones and permission of 100 per cent private ownership.
Mimaki will participate at Texprocess and Techtextil, Germany, May 9 to 12, 2017. The manufacturer of wide-format inkjet printers and cutting systems will showcase its TS300P-1800 with sublimation inks and the Tx300P-1800 printer with pigment inks during the large-format inkjet printing step of the micro-factory, involving sublimation printing on polyester and pigment printing on cotton and mixed fibers.
Both have been developed for the textile print industry. The TS300P-1800 wide format, high-speed dye sublimation textile printer delivers cost-effective printing while maintaining high quality and productivity and is designed to print onto the thinnest of transfer paper. The Tx300P-1800 direct textile inkjet printer delivers high-quality printing on a wide range of textiles and is ideally suited for applications such as fashion, furnishing, soft signage and exhibitions.
Texprocess serves the international garment-manufacturing and textile processing industry while Techtextil brings together technical textiles and nonwovens showing the full range of potential uses of textile technologies. The events will allow Mimaki to demonstrate its textile inkjet print technologies and educate a wide audience. There will be a roundtable discussion on high speed dye sublimation printing which will explain the difference between sublimation transfer and direct dye sublimation printing, and how each technology can be beneficial for home textiles and interior design.
The Kufner Group, a technical fabrics producer, offers innovative textile solutions. The XShield, Kufner’s solution against electromagnetic radiation, has a variety of applications in different markets: from fashion and casual wear to home textiles, automotive, military, sports, health all the way to building and electronic industry uses. The XShield technology can also protect against unauthorised access via RFID-data-theft. Kufner will demonstrate some of these solutions at Techtextil, Germany, May 9 to 12, 2017.
The THS (textile heating systems) technology developed by Kufner has been used in automotive interiors in the field of dashboards, steering wheels and seats. Besides apparel applications, such as active sports or healthcare, Kufner technology can provide heating for the artificial grass of a football field or geo textiles in greenhouses.
In the next few years, Kufner wants to establish new applications for its THS technology. Kufner is known for technically advanced fusible interlinings and shaping canvas across the high-quality fashion sector. The majority of Kufner’s woven, knitted and nonwoven interlinings go into menswear.
Kufner is also world’s leading in stabilising leather for car seats and upholstery. All renowned car producers use the refined technology to maintain the natural elasticity of leather while simultaneously achieving the required stability.
