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Cherokee the global brand marketing platform with a portfolio of fashion and lifestyle brands, says it has entered into license agreements for its Hi-Tec and 50 Peaks brands in several key growth categories. The new licensing agreements with the Tharanco Group for men's and women's apparel and Interbrand for accessories including socks, gloves, and hats, mark a significant step toward broadening the Hi-Tec and 50 Peaks brands beyond footwear leveraging the brands' existing strong position in the outdoor and active markets.
Tharanco specializes in providing fashionable clothing that utilizes the latest trends and fabric technologies. The company is a name in the apparel and retail industry through its broad distribution of men’s and women’s brands in all retail tiers throughout North America and internationally.
Interbrand is a global accessories company with specific expertise in socks, headwear, gloves, scarves, and leather goods. Interbrand designs, markets and distributes products in over 35 countries through department stores, regional specialty, national athletic, big box outdoor, mass retailers and wholesale clubs in over 8,000 doors nationally. Hi-Tec is a sports and outdoor footwear brand.
Cherokee is partnering with industry-leading footwear, apparel and accessories specialists to ensure that the full potential of its Hi-Tec portfolio is realized. Partners like Carolina Footwear, Tharanco and Interbrand will allow Cherokee to quickly scale its newest outdoor and active lifestyle brands across multiple channels and categories.
The new collections will be available in national department stores and specialty and outdoor retailers throughout North America beginning early 2018. Cherokee, founded in 1973, is an American family brand offering classic and California casual comfort.
The sudden closure of a garment factory linked to UK and Canadian brands has left 208 workers in Cambodia without jobs, salaries or compensation. A year later these workers, largely women, are still fighting for justice and are in a desperate situation. Since they worked for UK brands Marks & Spencer and Bonmarche and Canadian brand Nygard, the workers are demanding these companies take responsibility and make due payments as their supplier failed compensate them.
One year ago, on July 1, 2016, 208 workers of Chung Fai Knitwear Factory suddenly found themselves unemployed, without notice, without severance pay and without receiving their salaries for the previous month. Well over half of these workers, 126, had been employed at the factory for 10+ years. The workers claim $$550,000 is needed to cover their final month’s salaries and lawful severance pay.
After their sudden dismissal, the workers –majority of them women – were left to fend for themselves and in retaliation they prevented the owners from selling the remaining assets of the factory and further took legal measures which resulted in a local court issuing an injunction order which temporarily froze the factory’s assets. The workers continued to urge the brands sourcing from their factory to intervene.
The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) clearly stipulates the responsibility of companies to ‘avoid causing or contributing to’ as well as ‘seek to prevent, or mitigate adverse human rights impacts’ linked to their business relations. That covers all workers in their supply chain
Bangladesh can meet only three per cent of its garment industry’s demand for cotton. The rest needs to be imported that makes Bangladesh one of the largest cotton importers in the world. To meet the growing demand of the garment industry, currently the country has to spend some $4.5 billion a year on import of cotton.
Now, the country has taken an initiative to increase raw cotton production specifically Genetically Modified Organism cotton or BT cotton. As the harmful pest bollworm is the main impediment in raising cotton production in the conventional method, Bangladesh has initiated biotechnology based BT cultivation to boost cotton production. But this has to be done in such a way that food production is not hampered.
Training has been provided to 60,000 farmers on modern cotton cultivation and 3,050 demonstration plots have been set up under a project for increasing cotton production in the country. Bangladesh hopes to produce a million bales of cotton on 2,00,000 hectares of land and save on some 15 per cent of import costs.
Cotton is the main raw material for textile industries. The country has 5000 garment factories and 450 spinning mills. Bangladesh produced 0.16 million bales of cotton in 2016-17 fiscal.
European garment buyers feel Bangladesh should focus more on value added, high-end apparel items rather than basic, traditional products to make business sustainable amidst fierce competition in global garment trade. The European fashion market is rebounding as retail sales of garment items have been increasing by 3-4 per cent year-on-year over the last few years.
Sale of denim products is especially on the rise. Bangladesh's performance with denim has been strong having already overtaken China and capturing 21.8 per cent of the market share, so this is a new opportunity. Bangladesh exports over $1 billion-worth denim products to European markets in a year and one out of every three jeans being worn is from Bangladesh.
The cost of production in Bangladesh has been increasing and the price of basic garment items is not so high. So, value added items can make the business more sustainable for Bangladesh. Bangladesh's opportunity has been increasing in European markets as China, the world's largest apparel supplier, is losing its global market share due to a dearth of skilled manpower and higher cost of production.
The end customers do not want to see these kinds of explosions, collapse of buildings and death of workers. The customers want to know about the environmental impact of industrial production in Bangladesh.
India is one of the fastest-growing economies and is expected to surpass Germany and Japan to become the third-largest economy by 2025. India represents a $1 trillion retail market and has quickly become the Mecca for Western retailers setting up base to stake claim. With the government relaxing FDI norms, it became easier for MNCs to grab a major share. The Gap Inc, Aéropostale Inc, Desigual, Levi Strauss, Rider, Ipanema and Adidas AG, are some of the companies who have aggressively forayed into Indian territory.
Growth triggers for retail
Around 86 per cent of Indian respondents in a recent study said they were likely to make online transactions with their phones. This is good news for retailers both local and foreign as India’s consumers place a priority on fashion and apparel when it comes to online spending. Many of India’s consumers are technologically savvy, and mobile has become the leading Internet-enabled device for both urban (73 per cent) and rural (87 per cent) users in India. With a steadily growing middle class, and the vast majority of their population below the age of 35 (65 per cent), India is sitting on a mountain of unrealised growth potential for the mobile market.
Growing western influence
According to CLSA, India’s fashion market is a $17 billion industry and is growing 25 per cent year over year. There is a growing trend among India’s population in embracing Western culture and style. Indo-Western wear, a fashion trend that fuses influences from both cultures, is on the rise among pre-teens. And in a recent survey of workforce populations in top cities in India, 64 per cent said they prefer to wear jeans or denim every day. Levi Strauss, one of the original denim brands in the US was the first to explore India as an emerging market and now boasts 185 retail points country-wide. Brands like Aéropostale, Lee and Wrangler have taken measures to regain their share of market by entering India. Zara opened its first flagship in New Delhi in 2010, followed by Mango and H&M.
Due diligence is needed
However, before a company decides to stake a claim of your own in India, one needs to consider the following aspects: Conduct research to better understand how India’s regulatory environment works; familiarise with Make in India; the secret to securing customer loyalty will be in conquering the language barrier, etc.
Textile traders in Ahmedabad have gone on an indefinite strike from Monday to mount pressure on the government to roll back 5 per cent GST on cloth. The decision was taken by Maskati Cloth Market Association, New Cloth Market and Panchkuva Cloth Market. As per the statement 5 per cent GST on cloth is not acceptable to anyone who is in the textile business. To raise the voice against this tax, from tomorrow all the textile markets in the city will go on indefinite strike, as traders will refrain from any kind of transaction.
Textile traders in Surat are already on an indefinite strike for last one week. On Saturday, thousands of traders took part in a massive rally to protest against the 5 per cent GST rate. Union minister Parshottam Rupala on Sunday asked traders to engage in talks with the Centre to resolve the issue instead of staging protests. Rupala says that the reporters that the intention behind rolling out GST was to give a boost to trade and business, not to harass people.
Ethical Fashion Show and Greenshowroom were held in Germany from July 4 to 6, 2017. This time the location was changed. The new space with its open hall with raw walls and huge ceilings and innumerable skylights, provided pleasant brightness, and offered a great backdrop to exhibitors. Compared to the former location, the new one had a clearer layout and structure.
In addition, the lounge-like furniture allowed visitors to rest and relax. Ethical Fashion Show is an international fair for sustainable fashion. Here exhibitors show clothing for men, women and children from different areas such as sportswear, street wear and much more. Also, jewelry, shoes, bags and accessories are on display at the fair. In addition to the exhibition conferences and fashion shows take place.
Ethical Fashion Show presents international casual wear and street wear brands-- supplemented by an extensive program with a knowledge lounge, lectures, catwalk show and get- together events. The focus is on fashion and sustainability in the apparel, clothing, lifestyle and fashion industries.
Greenshowroom stands for elegant designs and sustainable high-grade materials. Exclusive ambience, personal atmosphere and that certain extra something distinguish the extraordinary profile of the fair. Visitors can look forward to fashion, beauty and lifestyle products of the highest standard.
The government is set to reduce tax at source on export of readymade garment following demands of apparel exporters, the government high-ups had already agreed to a proposal of RMG sector leaders to lower the rate to 0.70 per cent from the existing rate of 1 per cent.
The National Board of Revenue is likely to issue a statutory regulatory order in this regard. They were working on reducing the source tax and a summary would soon be sent to the finance ministry for approval. The government increased the tax rate to 1 per cent in the budget for the current fiscal year 2017-2018 from the last year’s 0.70 per cent.
Corporate income tax rate for garment factory owners was cut to 12 per cent in the budget from the previous year’s 20 per cent. The rate of corporate tax, however, was reduced to 10 per cent for green factories. Leaders of the apparel sector says that they placed their demand before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for cutting the export tax at the post-budget dinner of finance ministry on June 29. She instructed finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith to take steps to reduce the tax rate. Exporters Association of Bangladesh president Abdus Salam Murshedy says they are hopeful that a SRO would be issued by this month after completion of all legal procedures.
NBR initially set the source tax rate at 1 per cent for garment export in FY 2016-2017 but later cut the rate to 0.7 per cent for the year following exporters demand.
While some stores in the UK are prospering, others are finding this spring and summer a struggle. Recreation and culture spending has fallen for the first time in almost four years.
Consumers are clearly starting to feel nervous about the implications of Brexit, the rise in inflation and political uncertainty after last month’s general election. Spending at physical locations fell 2.4 per cent during June, the second drop in succession. While online spending continued to rise, the 2.9 per cent increase couldn’t make up for the physical store dip. And besides it was still well below the 6.8 per cent increase that had been seen during May.
One bright spot was spending on miscellaneous goods, which includes hairdressing salon visits and jewelry purchases. It rose 5.7 per cent. Consumers are diverting their discretionary cash to essentials. Spending on food and drink rose two per cent in June while the household goods figure dropped as shoppers cut back on expensive items like furniture and non-necessities like home ware. There has been a sharp drop-off of people investing in replacing their old sofas.
The marked deterioration in household expenditure trends since last year comes at a time when households are facing an increasingly challenging scenario of rising living costs and weaker wage growth.
Americans are buying fewer pairs of jeans these days and not spending as much on them as they once did due to the leggings and the yoga pants in fashion. True Religion, which after years of declining sales, filed for bankruptcy protection and announced that it would be closing at least 27 stores. A decade ago, the brand was riding high, commanding hundreds of dollars a pair for jeans with the company's signature horseshoes embroidered onto the back pockets.
But growth has reversed in recent years. Sales of super-premium jeans brands like 7 For All Mankind, True Religion, Joe's Jeans and Hudson fell 8 per cent last year, according to market research firm Euromonitor International. Overall, jeans sales grew slightly in 2016 after two years of declines, as Americans traded down to lower-priced brands like Levi's, H&M and Forever 21.
Designer denim took off in the early 2000s, during an era marked by large, flashy logos. True Religion, founded in 2002 in Manhattan Beach, Calif., was among the first to cash in on the wave of premium jeans, with its lineup of funky designs and washes. True Religion continued to grow during the recession, thanks in part to such celebrities as Britney Spears, Kanye West and Mariah Carey, who were routinely photographed wearing the brand's jeans.
True Religion put itself up for sale and found a buyer in TowerBrook Capital Partners, a private-equity firm that paid $835 million for the company. Sales have continued to slip. Competition was up, and demand was down. Shoppers are more likely to favor low- or moderately priced jeans without large logos and decals, according to Euromonitor. A move away from obvious logos also means it's becoming more difficult to distinguish between the high-end jeans and inexpensive ones.
