FW
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.
Cotton cultivation this kharif in Telangana is up by over 26.5 per cent compared to last year.
The extent of cotton crop cultivation is 17.84 lakh hectares, more than half of 34.42 lakh hectares covered by all crops. Last year cotton was cultivated on 14.10 lakh hectares.
Farmers took to cotton cultivation on a large scale this season because of the poor market price for alternative crops such as pulses, maize and soyabean and the favorable seasonal conditions.
Another major reason that has driven farmers to go for cotton this year is the good price commanded by the crop last year — better than the minimum support price of Rs 4160 per quintal.
There will be an increase in the number of procurement centers in the wake of the increase in production this year.
The Cotton Corporation of India operated 84 procurement centers in the state last year.
Cotton arrivals this year are likely to happen from October.
Last year the failure of the crop in the northern and western parts of the country due to drought conditions, and the pest attack in Pakistan, had jacked up the prices of the fiber crop in the national markets and for exports.
Exports of readymade garments (including those made of cotton, manmade and other fibers) from India in July fell 15 per cent compared to exports in the same month last year.
During the month, exports of manmade fibers, including yarn, fabrics, and made-ups, fell four per cent compared to exports in July 2016. However, exports of cotton textiles increased one per cent.
Imports of all textiles, including cotton and manmade yarn, fabrics and made-ups, rose eight per cent in July 2017 compared to imports in July 2016. Imports of textiles have not increased much after GST.
India has a great chance to capture the market for manmade fibers that’s been vacated by China.
Synthetic textiles made from manmade fibers account for 70 per cent of the world textile supply and the rest is cotton. Given the scale of exports from China, even a one per cent shift means a ten per cent increase in India’s exports of manmade fibers and synthetic textiles.
Cotton still commands more than 50 per cent of India’s textile production. However the synthetic textile segment is gradually growing. The world is shifting toward manmade fibers.
However, there is a need to go in for innovation in fabrics, integrate the value chain and invest in skill development to boost textile exports from the country.
India has clocked top position in exports of men’s and boys’ knitwear shirts to the US.
India’s share in knitwear shirts imports by the US stood at 8.7 per cent in June. After a dip in 2014, India’s market share has been growing steadily. In 2013, India’s market share was 6.4 per cent and dropped to 6.2 per cent in 2014. From then it has been steadily increasing, and in 2016 it stood at 7.8 per cent.
Heavy investments increased India’s share in exports.
Compared to that, China’s market share, which was 11 per cent in 2012, dropped to 9.6 per cent in 2016 and is now 8.5 per cent. While China’s loss is India’s gain, Vietnam is running India close. Bangladesh is also increasing its market share.
What can really go against India is the recent appreciation of the rupee against the dollar. The country is losing its edge because of rising production costs. This makes competing with Vietnam or other countries difficult. Exporters are quoting prices three to five per cent higher after the rupee appreciated, while the hike should be of around seven per cent to compensate them for the losses on account of currency fluctuations. On the other hand, competitors' currencies have depreciated and they are bringing down their prices.
