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Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics will be held from October 11 to 13, 2017. This edition will see sustainable fibers on display. Buyers will be offered sustainable products, solutions and resources. For example, Japanese firm Yagi will display recycolor cotton made from old clothing and scraps from garment factories, which are sorted by color and fed into stripping machines that break the fabric down into their original fibers. As these fibers are usually too short to spin, they are then mixed with virgin cotton and undergo a special spinning technique to create a yarn up to commercial standards.
Chinese company Newtech Textile will showcase Cool Trans transfer printing and dyeing technology, an eco-friendly alternative to digital inkjet printing. Compared to conventional printing technologies, Cool Trans reduces water and dye consumption by 40 per cent and 67 per cent while 92 per cent of water can be reused. It also reduces energy use by up to 65 per cent thanks to a cooler transfer temperature and features rates of 95 per cent for dye transfer and 95 per cent for dye-fixing. In addition to the environmental aspects of the technology, it also offers higher color yields and more delicate printing on the transfer paper or file than direct textile inkjet printing.
Brexit will provide Indian companies the opportunity to capture a substantial market share in the UK. The playing field will eventually even out among all major exporter nations.
For India, the UK is a key market for textile and apparel products. Out of India’s total textile and apparel exports to the EU, the UK had a 23 per cent share in 2016. India is the fourth largest supplier of textile and apparel products to the UK. However India’s share declined from 6.8 per cent in 2012 to 6.6 per cent in 2016.
Apparel is the largest category with a share of 75 per cent in India’s textile and apparel exports to the UK. This is followed by cotton textiles and manmade textiles having shares of 12 per cent and five per cent respectively. The UK is a major consumption center of a variety of textile and apparel products from around the world. Apparel is the largest imported category by the UK, representing 76 per cent of total textile and apparel imports. This is followed by manmade textiles, cotton textiles, and carpets with a share of nine per cent, seven per cent and four per cent. China is the largest supplier, followed by Bangladesh, Turkey and India.
For 17 years, Archroma has been pioneering change in the formulation, standardization and management of custom colors along the entire textile supply chain. Archroma color management helps fashion designers, brands, retailers and their suppliers achieve accurate colors and accelerate their time to market with color management services, unique software tools and support systems.
Archroma’s new color atlas is a system that includes a physical library of 4,320 color swatches, in six volumes. The accordion-fold design of the library volumes allows for quick, intuitive browsing of the cotton poplin samples. Colorful book covers indicate the shades that lie within each volume. Secure tabs help keep the swatches neat and ordered while allowing them to be easily removed.
The atlas is a color library created to easily bring color creativity and manageability to an entire new level for all in the supply chain. Archroma is a leader in color and specialty chemicals known for pioneering custom color engineering in textile and fashion.
Earlier this year, Archroma introduced the compact version of its color atlas system, which includes all the same color options, but is slimmed down from six to two volumes for increased portability.
A mobile-friendly color atlas online offers features such as color on the go, which allows users to capture an image using a smart phone, and identify the closest color atlas shades with the possibility to purchase a color sample instantly.
Ludhiana’s textiles sector is bearing the brunt of GST. The textile sector in the northern state of Punjab comprises a fair share of micro, small and medium enterprises. While big industrial players continue to be unaffected, micro and small enterprises are feeling the pinch as they are not able to survive the competition because of pending tax credits.
The entire value chain system is reeling under the impact of the GST regime. It is feared, exports of garments from Ludhiana’s micro, small and medium enterprises can drop by 30 to 40 per cent. Garment exporters are faced with canceled orders due to delays in production and drop in orders from local or multinational brands. Leading brands have cut down their orders.
Before GST it was demonetization. Due to the cash crunch it became difficult for garment units in Ludhiana to buy raw material, pay bills and make payments to laborers. Apart from the labor crisis, supply of raw material from vendors was hit due to the cash problem.
Ludhiana is a leading producer of woolen and acrylic knitwear although it also uses extensively cotton and other blended fibers to produce a wide range of fabrics, hosiery, knitwear and readymade garments.
Abercrombie & Fitch has nine stores in the Middle East. The brand has six of these in Dubai, two in Kuwait, and one in Saudi Arabia. It now plans to open more stores and eventually expand into Bahrain and Oman. The company is present in the region with its brands Abercrombie & Fitch, abercrombie kids, and Hollister.
While Hollister appeals primarily to teenagers, the Abercrombie & Fitch brand has been trying to make a push into a slightly older segment. Currently the company generates over a third of its revenues from outside the US, with Europe being its largest international market. Even in terms of sales per square foot, the company is far more productive internationally than it is in the US.
The company has opened 10 stores in China, where there is an expanding middle class, and a growing appetite for western brands. Abercrombie & Fitch has partnered with Zalora, an online fashion website, which has a presence in 11 markets, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and a customer base of over 600 million users. Such moves may provide a boost to the company’s revenues as it tries to deal with the soft state of the apparel market in the US.
With over 100 well known players, menswear in Italy is highly fragmented. Vertical integration strategies are being developed by every company in Italy and they all offer a wide range of items for men in their company-owned retail stores for all ages.
There was an overall decline in sales of menswear in 2016. There were challenges for both vendors and manufacturers. There were continuous changes in the behavior of people. Innovations and developments in technology have led to a fast paced lifestyle and changed expectations with regards to demand and considering the possibilities of purchasing in specific categories.
It is estimated that Italian men will focus more on their appearance and will spend more money on their apparel and footwear. Also they will be influenced by celebrity culture and will pay more attention to fashion icons, style and extensive media coverage on fashion.
However, rising cost of living will dampen the effect on spending patterns during future years. So bargaining will be a feature of shopping expeditions. Like women in Italy, men usually don’t wait for several days or weeks to get the items by ordering them online. Italian men shop or purchase the product when they need or want them.
The market for stain protective apparel has grown significantly in recent years. Stain repellent garments have proliferated the casual wear market due partly to the fact that they provide better protection against spills than conventional clothing. However, an additional benefit is that stain protection reduces the frequency with which garments need to be laundered and dry cleaned – thereby saving time as well as reducing energy use, water consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
These garments are essential in applications such as medical clothing and industrial work wear where there is a need to prevent spills from penetrating a garment and reaching the wearer – especially in cases where such spills have the potential to cause harm to human health.
Manufacturers of stain repellent technologies are therefore stepping up efforts to develop products which are more environment-friendly. As part of those efforts, many are focusing on the use of fluorocarbons with shorter fluorinated chains based on C6 chemistry.
Researchers are exploring the potential of garments which are capable of cleaning themselves – or even of repairing themselves if they become damaged. Many will use biomimicry and seek inspiration from the natural world in their quest for materials and treatments which combine effectiveness, safety and eco-friendliness.
A partnership between H&M Foundation and The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA) has found a way of chemically recycling polyester and cotton blended textiles into new polyester fabrics and yarns without any quality loss. The new fiber-to-fiber recycling process is seen as a major step towards closed-loop textile processing. It is expected to have no negative impact on fiber quality.
The aim of the four-year partnership was to find at least one ready technology to recycle clothes made from blended textiles. It has developed a hydrothermal process to fully separate and recycle cotton and polyester blends. The recovered polyester material can be reused directly without any quality loss.
The hydrothermal process uses only heat, water and less than five per cent of a biodegradable green chemical to self-separate cotton and polyester blends. This fiber-to-fiber recycling method is said to be cost effective and there’s no secondary pollution to the environment.
By being able to upcycle used textiles into new high value textiles, there is no need to solely rely on virgin materials to dress a growing world population. For too long the fashion industry has not been able to properly recycle its products. This encouraging breakthrough on separation and recycling of textile blends has the potential to change that.
Spinning units in India have decided to curtail yarn production and minimise losses. They have decided to move up the value chain by making value-added products instead of making only yarn.
The disparity between cotton and yarn prices has put the spinning sector in a tight spot especially due to the steep decline in price of yarn compared with the fiber cost. The spinning sector has to do this as in the textile manufacturing chain all others such as weaving, processing, apparels and home textiles optimise their utilisation levels based on demand, supply and order trends.
Reduced yarn supply will help match the demand. But if yarn supply needs to be curtailed, mills will have to go slow in consumption of cotton and this, in turn, will help bring down the cost of the fiber as well. This method is expected to help the mill sector reduce losses, besides bringing about a balance in cotton and yarn prices.
A number of standalone spinning units are cash-starved, considering that many varieties of yarn are now selling at levels well below the manufacturing cost. Mills have to formulate a sustainable and long-term formula instead of resorting to interventions every now and then.
Oman is building its textile and garment sector. The country has some advantages like land, labor, capital and organization and a logistical cutting edge due to its strategic positioning. Other advantages are an ample supply of power and energy and proximity to strategic ports.
Textiles can be one of the major non-oil exports of the Sultanate. A young population can be trained in automatic machines, robotic machines and other technologies of garment manufacturing to help the nation mark its presence in the global textile map. In 2006, there were about 25 garment factories in and around the capital but today this number has shrunk.
Oman has a free trade agreement with the US. There’s no garment manufacturing or trading between these two countries however, there is a clause for yarn and fabric movement, which Oman wants to activate. The country hopes to produce cotton, develop yarn spinning mills, and from that initiate an automatic spinning industry. Technology can reduce the cost of production.
The present clause is that any yarn or fabric bought from another country cannot be exported to the US. But if duty concessions can be secured under the FTA, Omani-made products can be exported to the US.
