Features

Away from petroleum-based fabrics, comes an innovation — a fibre made from polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable plastic made from corn, under the brand name Highlact. Could it be the best material to replace polyester in terms of quality, cost and supply? texfash.com explores.

The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel's (HKRITA) novel Garment-to-Garment (G2G) Recycle System shows that integral and closed-loop garment recycling can indeed be done, and sans any water and chemicals, but no big-time manufacturer or brand has been able to use this innovation at the industrial or mass scale. A texfash.com Special.

The Innovative Business Practices and Economic Models in the Textile Value Chain (InTex) project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is helping to improve resource efficiency and promote circularity in textiles in regions far from the glare of Big Media. The underlying idea is simple: empower local stakeholders.

Vietnamese manufacturer Fashion Enterprise could do well during the COVID-19 pandemic—its main buyer Cue not only did not cancel orders, but even paid deposits in advance. Chief Executive Officer Rodney Thanh tells the story of a company where 98% of the workers returned after lockdown.

I have been working from home for six years now. I had done this WFH (work from home) routine earlier too, but for one reason or the other it was always the situation that would be in control of me. I have now turned the situation on its head—by streamlining things and being fair to myself. Attitude-related Professionalism: The bottomlines are two: deadlines and deliverables. You should be able to do your job, and that too in time. Working from home is a privilege—a luxury that most don’t have...

For a long time, with the end of the quota regime in January 2005, the global fashion industry seemed to follow a singular model of sourcing. Broadly speaking, of course. At some point, the cost factor started giving way to the speed element. The jobs lost to the offshoring strategy of fashion companies were sought to be bought back home (i.e the West) through a reshoring drive. Even as things were beginning to coalesce and new realignments in the sourcing world were taking form, the discourse...

On October 21, 2015, when the European Clothing Action Plan (ECAP) was launched, it seemed to be quite an ambitious project. The €3.6 million pilot project funded by EU LIFE was meant to increase environmental and economic benefits by reducing the carbon, water and waste footprints of clothing in the EU. On December 31, 2019, the project drew to a close, and is likely to serve as a benchmark in the next few years, at least. The project involved UK charity WRAP, working in partnership with MADE...

The volume of world trade has not seen a healthy outlook for a few years now, and the dynamics are being dictated by trade wars more than ever. All this would mean that a small country like Bangladesh should stand extremely worried. Yet, it is not. Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018 fiscal year expanded by 7.9 per cent over the previous year. Industry grew by 12 per cent (10.2 per cent in 2017) and manufacturing 13.4 per cent...

There is such a term called a “creeping normality”. The expression was coined by American scientist Jared Diamond in his 2005 bestseller, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. He had touched upon the subject earlier too “while attempting to explain why, in the course of long-term environmental degradation, Easter Island natives would, seemingly irrationally, chop down the last tree.” The concept is put succinctly in the Wikipedia entry on the subject: Creeping normality (also called...

Business processes in every industry sector are unique. Technology is changing the way these business processes crystallise, mutate and are reborn again to keep pace with everything else in that industry sector. But each industry has its own singularities and needs. This demonstrably poses challenges to tackle which the textiles-apparel-fashion industry needs to look outwards. Challenges Galore The biggest challenge, according to Kate Munro, vice-president for marketing at Bamboo Rose, is the...