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German multi-channel retailer Otto has published its environmental targets for 2017.
Its voluntary action plan focuses on the deeper supply chain, including measures focused on the transparency and use of certain chemicals in early stage processing. The company also plans to expand its share of sustainable cotton from the Cotton Made in Africa program, which aims to improve working conditions by means of further qualification measures in the factories.
Other focuses include fair wages in the manufacturing countries. The Otto Group intends to complete the conversion of cotton volumes for propriety and licensed brands to be sourced in an environmentally friendly way, to halve the volume of CO₂ emissions in location and transport, and to complete the integration of suppliers in risky countries for the social program.
Otto is a member of the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles. The retailer wants to recruit new members to the AST in order for it to gain global influence in the textile sector, and improve environmental protection on a much wider scale.
In future Otto feels significant changes are necessary in the area of product manufacturing and consumption. The group expects a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, better environmental and social standards in global supply chains, different consumption patterns, and more sustainable products.
Mexico is reforming its labor laws and offering guarantees for workers' rights. Experts will register trade unions and collective agreements impartially, transparently and efficiently. This reform will help combat one of the main problems faced by workers in Mexico –protection contracts.
At the moment, unrepresentative trade unions cannot demonstrate through a democratic process the legitimate support of the workers they intend to represent.
The constitutional reform abolishes the tripartite conciliation and arbitration boards and transfers their legal role to a higher court of justice. This means that the labor justice system will no longer be directly controlled by the President of the Republic, complicit state governors and employer-dominated trade unions.
The reform will pave the way for workers to better enjoy their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. The new legislation will guarantee Mexican workers the right to be represented in collective bargaining by a union of their free choice and where all procedural rules, particularly the right to democratically elect the union and union representatives of their choice and to vote on any collective bargaining agreement before it is registered, are observed and respected.
Clothing brands like Adidas, C&A, Inditex and Nike have declared their support for the reform.
Gerber’s digital solutions help companies collaborate and go from initial design to production and shipment with greater speed, quality and visibility.
Its new cutter is a stripe, plaid, and five-star automated matching solution. This new automation solution will help apparel manufacturers automate manual processes to improve quality, increase productivity, shorten cycle times, reduce labor costs and accelerate time to market.
The AccuMark 3D can be used to validate patterns and simulate virtual garment samples so realistic that there’s no need for designers to spend the time and money cutting and sewing real ones.
Cutting-edge digital design tools that integrate seamlessly with smart machines will help garment manufacturers cut costs by millions of dollars, increase throughput, reduce waste and – most importantly – stay competitive.
While the fashion industry is known for setting trends, challenging cultural norms and pushing boundaries, it has also been relatively slow to adapt to the changes brought about by social media, a savvier consumer base and the advent of fast fashion. But there is a growing body of evidence that this adoption curve is about to shift. Today, everyone in the industry – from major players to small startup labels – is talking about the industry’s digital transformation and how it can revolutionize the way garments are designed, created and purchased.
Luxury women’s wear brand Mother of Pearl has been commissioned to design this season’s London Fashion Week Festival limited edition tote bag.
The fashion week will be held September 21 to 24, 2017.
The bag’s design draws inspiration from Dutch florals and the use of darkness and light in the paintings of artists such as Caravaggio and Jan Van Huysum. Mother of Pearl’s brand mantra is “Serious fashion, not to be worn too seriously,” so the striped sporty handles are the perfect partnership to the beautiful botanical print.
Each collection of Mother of Pearl’s is a fusion between quality and design, with a focus on print, sportswear inspired detailing and luxe fabrications. Mother of Pearl takes an innovative and often humorous approach to print and embellishment to strike a balance between easy daywear that can be dressed up for any occasion.
London Fashion Week Festival is the ultimate fashion experience, with curated shopping galleries from over 150 international and British brands including Alfie Douglas, French Sole, Jamie Wei Huang, Jane Carr, Linda Farrow, Paper London, Tada & Toy and Taylor Morris and autumn/winter ’17 catwalk shows from London Fashion Week designers.
The festival allows consumers to experience the atmosphere of London Fashion Week and gain insight into the industry through industry talks and style presentations.
Dignity DTRT (Do The Right Thing) is a business entity that exports apparel manufactured in Ghana. The DTRT Group is West Africa’s largest apparel manufacturer and exporter and currently Dignity DTRT employs more than 1600 skilled workers with about 75 per cent of them being women mainly from the streets and low income households.
Dignity DTRT is set to export 30 million dollars worth of clothing to the United States of America by 2018 under AGOA.
Ghana wants to take full advantage of the US market through the AGOA initiative. The aim is to increase export volumes under AGOA to 500 million dollars by 2020. Of this Dignity’s share is expected to be some 82 million dollars.
The US clothing market is worth a 100 billion dollars a year. The countries of east and south Africa currently export several billion dollars’ worth of clothing every year to that market. And Ghana and West Africa want to match them. The textile and garment industry will be made a strategic anchor industry for Ghana.
Dignity DTRT produces in excess of 25,000 shirts daily and has exported more than six million garments in the past 24 months to the US under AGOA.
According to the data recently released by Raw Material Association of CNTAC about the operation of textile and garment wholesale markets in the first half of this year, January - June, the gross turnover of 46 main wholesale markets monitored by the association was CNY 478.81 billion. Among them, the gross turnover of 41 comparable sample markets reached CNY 451.38 billion, seeing year-on-year rises of 5.16 per cent. There into, 25 markets' turnovers saw year-on-year growth, with an average increase of 8.44 per cent, 13 markets' turnover fell year-on-year, with an average decline of 14.07 per cent 3 markets' turnover kept unchanged with the same period last year.
According to the data, in recent years, the sales model of markets close to production areas has transformed from large-quantity wholesale into small-lot and multi-batch wholesale, the time-to-market speed has accelerated, thereby raising the industry chain's efficiency; in the first half of 2017, the turnover of the monitored markets achieved CNY 379.31 billion, edged up 7.76 per centage year-on-year, keeping a growth rate above 7 percentage points in three straight years. These markets have maintained a higher growth momentum.
By the number of new markets, 34 new markets were added in the first half of 2013, 31 in the first half of 2014, 20 in the first half of 2015, 22 in the first half of 2016 and 16 in the first half of 2017. From the last five years' data, the number of new market reduced significantly. The investment overheat in the past few years is cooling down and the number of newly-commenced and newly-opened markets is back to a rational range.
The Hong Kong Trade Development Council's (HKTDC) signature international fashion event, CENTRESTAGE, will be held from 6-9 September at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC). More than 200 international fashion brands and multiple fashion shows will be featured at the fair. The shows staged will include highlights such as the FASHIONALLY Collection FASHION HONG KONG RUNWAY SHOW, which will spotlight the latest collections from local fashion designers.
On opening day, online fashion hub FASHIONALLY will present the FASHIONALLY collection #10 fashion parade, featuring 10 up-and-coming local designers collaborating to showcase Hong Kong's creativity and design prowess. Participating brands include: DEMO. (designer: Derek Chan), From Clothing Of (designer: Shirley Wong), HANG (designer: MimMak), KA WA KEY (designer: Key Chow and Jarno Leppanen), KENSON (designer: Kenson Tam), KEVIN HO, KURT HO, Lapeewee (designer: Yannes Wong), NECRO POON and NELSONBLACKLE (designer: Nelson Leung). The 10 brands will also unveil their 2018 Spring/Summer collections at the show.
In addition to fashion shows, the designers of FASHIONALLY Collection #10 will team up with other winning and finalist designers from past Hong Kong Young Fashion Designers' Contests (YDC) and showcase their brands and latest designs to global buyers at CENTRESTAGE.
HKTDC has been organizing Hong Kong participation at international fashion weeks since 2015, the under the theme of "Fashion Hong Kong," including in fashion weeks and major fashion fairs in Tokyo, Copenhagen, New York and Shanghai. Six local designers and their brands featured in past Fashion Hong Kong events will join this fashion parade and launch their 2018.
American Apparel announced they'd be closing all 110 stores by April in January 2017. The made-in-America brand had announced bankruptcy in 2015, and been acquired by Canadian brand Gildan Activewear for $88 million early in 2017. It seemed, in April, that even that changing of the guards wasn't enough to pull AA back from the brink.
American Apparel website secretly reopened for business. Recently Gildan reportedly assembled a team of former AA employees to relaunch the brand, although not entirely reimagine it. The t-shirts are still simple, jersey knit, and available in seventeen shades, the cross back bra still has no underwires. There are currently 37 offerings on the women's site. It started to become everything for everyone a bit, and really diluted, so we wanted to go back and have a strong message.
There's one other interesting change. It used to be that American Apparel was all, uh, made in America. While ethical and altruistic, that proved problematic for profits. A new Made in the USA Capsule allows consumers to choose. A woman's hoodie made stateside is $48; the very same garment made overseas is $38. The brand plans to watch the numbers very carefully, allowing buyers to demonstrate with their wallets the importance of at-home manufacturing.
Trybus will set up a manufacturing center in Ethiopia. It will make a substantial financial investment to equip the manufacturing facility with state of the art garment technology. Trybus will also bring its technical and tailoring expertise by providing staffing and staff training in the facility.
Trybus is an American men’s wear clothing company. It will create employment for more than 1000 Ethiopians during the first phase of operation. The company aims to hire more than 3000 workers when operations are in full swing.
The Ethiopian textile sector is attracting top international firms amid the nation’s bid to industrialize. The sector is expected to facilitate technology transfer and capacity development through training and experience sharing.
Ethiopia has launched a strategy to make the most of its potential in the textile sector. The industry has advantages like power abundance and a growing human and material capital. It is witnessing rapid growth as a number of domestic and multinational firms are engaged in production of textiles, garments and apparel for domestic and global markets.
The country has Africa's largest industrial park. This flagship industrial park is capable of hosting gigantic multinational firms. It has a state-of-the-art waste treatment plant, the first of its kind in Africa.
Top Value Fabrics has expanded its textiles for latex printing with a new line of latex performance textiles, specifically engineered to create durable, high-quality production graphics utilizing HP latex technology.
Working closely in partnership with HP, Top Value Fabrics has developed a proprietary coating for its top-selling digitally printable textile products to enhance the durability of HP latex inks. Printing on Top Value’s coated textiles with HP latex print systems and inks provides finished graphic products with rich, brilliant colors with exceptional durability and fastness properties.
The new line of latex coated products covers a broad spectrum of end use needs including backlit, front lit, stretch, banner and sheer fabric applications. These fabrics can be utilized for SEG frame systems, high-end retail, POP, banner stands, backdrops, roll-up displays, tradeshow exhibits and interior decor.
After imaging, these fabrics are designed to provide outstanding color consistency, excellent image sharpness and a wide color range. Several of the fabrics are built on similar constructions of best-selling fabrics in Top Value’s direct print textile line. The new fabrics are called Latex Performance as they feature a proprietary coating for HP latex inks.
Top Value Fabrics is a leading international textile supplier with a wide selection of stock and custom fabrics that help customers succeed in the industrial, print media, active wear and recreational markets.
