Features

In the fashion industry, they warn you, every new day brings in a new set of problems /challenges. Some of these are new in nature, others are newly-discovered, so to speak. One of the latest, arguably the biggest of them all, is one that of microfibre contamination. The subject had been known for a while, but it is only now that the magnitude of the issue has become a topic of debate and, yes, a major concern. The textiles-apparel-fashion industry has had the dubious honour of being the biggest...

It’s tricky—many would even say fallacious—trying to club together all the five states and one union territory in what is referred to as South India. For geopolitical purposes, maybe one can, and one often does too. But presenting an overview of the textiles industry of South India is fraught to be specious. So, let’s say this is only one way of presenting the voices of industry from a geographical region that otherwise would get drowned in the din and clamour of the Indian textiles industry...

Those were once perceived as only functional elementary necessities that no one needed to talk about or give second thoughts to. But today, they are used to assert style statements. That's how much the sheer concept of intimatewear itself has changed. These days, the term ‘intimatewear’ connotes one of those handful of product ranges that are both a necessity and luxury. The once-traditional intimatewear market that was underlined by abysmal production quality and desultory promotions is now...

Whenever the discussion hovers around India's relatively modest apparel exports and how the country has been losing ground to smaller countries in the great apparel supply war, Turkey invariably figures among those though to be stealing a march over India. But then, the cherry-picking of Turkey in the context is misleading—for it is like no other. Its textiles are steeped in history, its cotton is part of lore, and its flamboyance cannot be matched. It is a country that compares more to China...

Certain events serve as weathercocks—they tell you which way the wind is blowing, or, at times, beginning to blow. Textile machinery fairs are something like that. Since textile machineries call for huge investments that need to be planned years ahead—and given that no company would want to pump in monies unless they were sure those would not blow away in the wind—the interest generated in these events can vouchsafe be taken as indicators of the shape that industry may take. The ITM Istanbul is...

Not always do big-ticket events or headline-grabbing incidents dominate the developments over a calendar year; more so in the textiles and apparel industry where the throwing of a stone into a pond creates ripples years later. On the other hand, quite often in fact, there are silent developments that tend to have a bigger long-term impact on the fashion scheme of things. The year gone by was one such phase, with many key developments of 2017 not causing a stir. # 1) Digitalise, or be done with...

Sometime in the early 1990s, a well-known designer in Delhi spotted a person at an upmarket shopping complex wearing a stunning outfit in cream and red. But when he took a closer look he was in for a shock, for the woman was wearing one of his own designs. Worse still, the design had not yet left his studio. The designer, obviously, queried her and discovered that she had purchased it from an upscale boutique. This creation was in a different shade, but the material was ordinary. The designer...

About a year and a half back, the showcasing of an innovation at the Shanghai Fashion Week took the world by storm. The surprise and awe with which the technology was received both there at the event as well as later in the fashion media was evident in one aspect: that the fashion world had not seen it coming. The tech world, on the other hand, had only been waiting for it to finally happen. Independent label Babyghost was showcasing its 2017 Spring and Summer collection at Shanghai in April...

Scouring through old journals and magazines can throw up fascinating snippets about the past, and many of those can catch you by surprise, and set you thinking all over again. Scraping websites for cotton alternatives, at some point, can well take one to a particular report from the proceedings of a textiles-related event would make for interesting reading. It goes thus: Speaking at the annual meeting of the Bradford Dyers’ Association, recently, Sir Milton Sharp, observed that the deplorable...

Many segments of the textiles and apparel industry are not as dynamic or happening as certain others. Also, many sectors remain under the radar, far away from public gaze, simply because of the back-end nature of their work. The testing, inspection and certification (TIC) segment is one such segment that has been increasingly gaining significance in a very trying and demanding world. The demand for quality, and therefore standards and benchmarks, are increasingly becoming strident and...