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"A recently released report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., highlighted that the global market for sports and fitness clothing is projected to reach $231.7 billion by 2024. Growth in the market is driven by a growing portion of the population living healthier life styles and stronger participation in sports and fitness activities. Technological developments designed to improve comfort and performance has also led to the growth in sales of sports apparel."
A recently released report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., highlighted that the global market for sports and fitness clothing is projected to reach $231.7 billion by 2024. Growth in the market is driven by a growing portion of the population living healthier life styles and stronger participation in sports and fitness activities. Technological developments designed to improve comfort and performance has also led to the growth in sales of sports apparel. As a result, sportswear is turning into a highly popular style statement and fashion trend. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to be fastest-growing region, with a CAGR of 6.9 percent over the forecast period, states the report.
Euromonitor International report also reflects that the sales of sportswear, which includes items such as yoga pants and activewear, performed stronger than other categories for three years straight. Bernadette Kissane, Euromonitor's apparel and footwear analyst, explained that although performance sportswear takes the lead in terms of market size, valued at $78 billion in 2016, sports-inspired is the category driving growth. Both sports-inspired footwear and apparel is growing at a rapid pace, registering 10 percent and 6 percent growth in 2016, respectively. In addition to emerging markets such as India and Thailand, core markets such as the United States are also producing significant sports-inspired growth, despite its reputation as a performance-orientated market.
In line with this, RYU Apparel Inc.,an urban athletic apparel brand has been focussing on striking a balanced ratio of apparel sales between men and women at 46 percent and 54 percent respectively. By identifying an under-served gap in the industry for men, and developing the Beautiful Tough™ brand positioning that's resonating with women, RYU has achieved an enviable gender balance that is rare in the industry. As an omnichannel retailer, RYU currently has 17 percent of revenue from e-commerce with a target of reaching 30 percent by the end of 2018.
Companies attaining growth
To cash in on the opportunities, Lululemon Athletica and 7mesh Industries Inc., an emerging global brand in high performance cycling apparel, announced a strategic partnership to co-create and push the boundaries in advanced technical apparel. For Nike, Inc. one of the most innovative sports apparel company, international geographies and the direct-to-consumer businesses globally led strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter and full year.
Under Armour, Inc., is utilising 2017 to ensure that operations across its diverse portfolio of sport categories, distribution channels and geographies are optimised as it is building a stronger, faster and smarter company. Under Armour is among the originators of performance footwear, apparel and equipment. Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc., an omnichannel sporting goods retailer offering an extensive assortment of authentic, high-quality sports equipment, apparel, footwear and accessories, will be opening two new Dick's Sporting Goods stores and three new Field & Stream stores very soon.
Korea and Taiwan are accused of dumping low melt polyester staple fiber in the US.The allegation is that the US industry is hurt by such dumping and that these products are allegedly sold in the US at less than fair value.
Fine denier polyester staple fiber is a synthetic staple fiber of polyesters measuring less than 3 denier in diameter. It is generally cut in lengths of less than five inches and is similar in appearance to cotton or wool.
It is typically converted either to yarn for weaving or knitting into fabric or to a non-woven textile prior to the end-use application. Woven applications include the production of textiles such as clothing and bedding linens. Non-woven applications include the production of household and hygiene products such as cleaning wipes, baby wipes and diapers.
The US will conduct antidumping duty investigations.
Anti-dumping duties are intended to offset the amount by which a product is sold at less than fair value, or dumped, in the US. The margin of dumping is calculated and estimated duties in the amount of the dumping are collected from importers. Countervailing duties are intended to offset unfair subsidies that are provided by foreign governments and benefit the production of a particular good.
The United States has assured sub-Sahara African countries that the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) will continue and that the US is committed to a stronger and more sustainable relationship with Africa through free, fair and reciprocal trade.
US AGOA imports from Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda totaled 43 million dollars in 2016, up from 33 million dollars in 2015. US exports to Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda were 281 million dollars in 2016, up from 257 million dollars the year before.
One of the major reasons for the booming garment exports from the African nations is investment by Bangladeshi garment makers to avail of duty privilege under the AGOA. In recent years, nearly a dozen Bangladeshi garment makers have invested either in joint ventures or individually in different African countries, especially Ethiopia and Kenya.
Enacted in 2000, the act allows 39 eligible sub-Saharan Africa countries to export certain goods to the US market duty-free. It was renewed in September 2015 and will expire in 2025.
Nevertheless East African countries are embroiled in trade disputes with the US over the imports of secondhand clothes.
While the East African Community member states had agreed to ban such imports by 2019, Kenya reneged on the agreement to safeguard its privileged access to the US market.
Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda however maintained the import ban to protect their textile industries.
Texhong Textile, based in China, is one of the largest yarn producers in the world. Net profit grew roughly nine per cent as the overall gross profit margin narrowed to 15.4 per cent from 19.8 per cent a year ago on increased costs of raw materials. Net profit for the first half has risen 41.2 per cent from a year ago.
Fearing a trade war with the US, Texhong has shifted assembly lines to regional countries for lower production costs. The company has substantial investments in Vietnam and its main customers are in Japan and South Korea. It is looking to diversify into denim wear. Its assets in Vietnam represent 11 per cent of the company’s total assets.
The company has also continued to add new capacity in China, investing 500 million yuan in a new yarn spinning factory in Xuzhou that is expected to compete in the second quarter of 2018. It now has 12 manufacturing plants in China's Yangtze river delta.
The target is to produce 14 million pairs of jeans this year, which will be translated into 700 million yuan in revenue. The target for next year will be more than 20 million pairs of jeans, which would represent a high-single digit of its total revenue.
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.
