The fashion industry is responding to the tragedy in Turkey and Syria.

Large areas in Turkey and Syria have been hit by multiple earthquakes. The death toll is rising and the images of the disaster area are moving around the world.

Turkey is one of the major production countries for clothing and textiles, with many factories located in the country.Marketplace giant Amazon has activated disaster relief capabilities and is responding by assisting Red Cross and other relief organisations with their urgent needs. Donated items will be sent by Amazon to its distribution center in Istanbul and then distributed further.

This action is just the beginning of the help Amazon intends to provide. In the coming days, it will work with local organisations and aid groups to identify needs and deploy Amazon's logistics and delivery system to assist with these needs. Amazon has over 2,000 employees in Turkey but has no locations in the disaster areas.

Various clothing and textile organisations from Turkey have launched relief campaigns and collection drives for items such as clothes, nappies, stoves and food. Turkey and Syria are prone to earthquakes. An example is the earthquake of 1999. Due to a combination of the disaster, economic problems and exchange rates at the time, the Turkish clothing and textile industry saw exports decline for the first time in thirty years. However, the industry recovered from the impact between 2000 and 2007.

Amann’s factory in Tamil Nadu, India is state-of-the-art in terms of resource conservation and sustainable processes and the first Amann production site worldwide equipped with a zero liquid discharge wastewater treatment plant.

This is the group’s first production site in India and it will begin operations in 2023. Zero liquid discharge is a wastewater management system that ensures that there will be no discharge of industrial wastewater into the environment. This will allow the entire production water to be recycled and reused completely.

Moreover, the plant will also have a green electricity profile as photovoltaic systems will cover the electricity demand of the whole plant. The investment into this green, state-of-the-art production site follows the highest demands in terms of sustainability.

Amann, founded in 1854 in Germany, is one of the leading manufacturers of high-quality sewing threads, embroidery threads for garments and shoes and smart yarns. The sewing and embroidery threads are manufactured exclusively in its own production facilities in Europe and Asia. Amann’s bonded sewing thread Outdoor-Pro was developed especially for extreme weather conditions. The bonded sewing thread made from high-strength polyester continuous filament is equipped with an environmentally friendly, PFC-free, water-repellent finish as standard. Outdoor-Pro has excellent resistance to UV radiation and allows for very good light fastness results.

The University of Michigan has developed garment labels woven directly into the fabric.

This is a barcode. The photonic properties of the fibers can be cusomised to make them visible to the naked eye, readable only under near-infrared light or any combination.

Ordinary tags often don’t make it to the end of a garment’s life—they may be cut away or washed until illegible and tagless information can wear off.

Recycling could be more effective if a tag was woven into the fabric, invisible until it needs to be read. This is what the new fiber does.The team developed the technology to incorporate the photonic properties into a process that would be compatible with large-scale production.They accomplished the task by starting with a preform—a plastic feedstock that comprises dozens of alternating layers. In this case, they used acrylic and polycarbonate. While each individual layer is clear, the combination of two materials bends and refracts light to create optical effects that can look like color.The preform was heated and then mechanically pulled into a hair-thin strand of fiber.

While the manufacturing process method differs from the extrusion technique used to make conventional synthetic fibers like polyester, it can produce the same miles-long strands of fiber. Those strands can then be processed with the same equipment already used by textile makers.

Less than 15 per cent of the 92 million tons of clothing and other textiles discarded annually are recycled—in part because they are so difficult to sort. These woven-in labels could change that.

Vietnam’s earnings from textile and garment exports fell 30 per cent in January 2023.

The main factors affecting the country’s garment and textile sector this year include high interest rates and inflationary pressures and the difficulties are likely to linger until mid-2023. So Vietnam’s enterprises are investing in material supply chain and automation technology while relying less on international markets and further exploiting the domestic market.

Vietnam’s largest export markets include China, Japan, the European Union, South Korea and the United States.Vietnam’s garment, textile and footwear sector was able to achieve double-digit growth in 2022. High inflation in the majority of major Vietnamese markets such as the United States and the EU will have an impact on the furniture, garment and textile, footwear, electronics, and plastics sectors, moving forward.

With a decline in the number of orders, the export market for the textile, garment and footwear industry is therefore forecast to remain quiet until the end of the first quarter of the year.As the major export industries of the national economy, the textile and footwear industry has decided to retain skilled workers, promote investment in the production of raw materials and auxiliary materials, focus on producing artificial fabrics, as well as encourage the production of domestic yarns.