Interviews

Cotton is still the preferred fabric for t-shirts. Is it the same for your brand too? Or, do you see linen, lycra, polyester, rayon or blends taking over? Cotton remains the fibre of choice for our customers, across almost all our brands, but we are certainly seeing a rise in demand for blended fabrics and also purely synthetic fabrics. There are several reasons for these shifts with the biggest being the increasing popularity of the athleisure category where consumers are looking for the...

The subject of sizing is much-discussed nowadays. Why has this topic suddenly gained currency? Discovering clothes and shoes that you love and that fit you has always been a fundamental hurdle for purchasing digitally. There’s an increased urgency to solve for both style discovery and sizing because of the rapid increase of digital consumption where try-on happens at home and people have to place their bets prior to the real moment of truth, when they finally unbox an item, try it on, and find...

The RealReal, a leading luxury consignment company, launched a Sustainability Calculator for consignment on the occasion of National Consignment Day on October 1 in the US. The objective of this calculator is to create a sound, science-based, tool to quantify the positive impact of consignment on the planet. This first-generation calculator focuses solely on women's apparel. The initial calculation measured the impact of 2.5 million women's clothing items consigned to the RealReal, with the...

GHCL Limited, with headquarters at NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh, is a well-diversified group with footprints in the chemicals, textiles and consumer products segments. The textiles division at GHCL is an integrated setup commencing from spinning of yarn to weaving, dyeing, printing and processing till the finished products like sheets and duvets take shape and are primarily exported worldwide. It is one of India’s leading manufacturers of home textiles with an in-house spinning unit at Madurai, Tamil...

Little Yellow Bird, a company based in New Zealand that produces ethical and sustainable workwear and basics, recently raised $1.2 million to develop a technology platform which will verify the origins of apparel in the garment industry in a quest to end modern-day slavery. The tech platform, called Origins, will use NEM blockchain technology to trace garments from origin to sale. Founder-CEO Samantha Jones became the first woman globally to have a project funded via the NEM community fund...

Luxury as Ethics Designer: Amilani Perera Launched: 2013 Website: amilaniperera.com With a doctor as mother and an engineer as father, for Amilani Perera fashion almost didn't happen. The parents gave in to the daughter's flair and passion to paint and draw, but not before she had studied statistics and economics. Yet, even after she had done fashion design from Singapore's Lasalle College, Amilani's parents were wary about her jumping into the industry straight away and launching her own brand...

The Clean Fibre Initiative was created by Earth Alive Clean Technologies to support fibre crop growers in North America, Africa, and Latin America. What was the reason for focusing on these three regions, and leaving out Asia? Earth Alive currently has operations in North America, Africa and Latin America and our established business network in these regions facilitated the development of the Clean Fibre Initiative. Our company intends to expand into the Asian market, bringing the Clean Fibre...

The innerwear/intimate wear sector has changed drastically over the last one decade. What factors according to have contributed to this? Karan Behal: Over the past decade, the average woman in India has gained exposure from social media, the ways of the West and similar sources. This has led innerwear and intimatewear to no longer remaining a hush-hush discussion, but rather one wherein women openly have a say in their choice and preferences. Women no longer accept lingerie as casual innerwear...

Is digital textile printing defining the industry today? Be it 'yes' or 'no', could you explain your assessment? Why is it so? Kamal Kulshreshth: No, the textiles industry is too huge to be defined by digital printing. Printing is only one way of adding value to fabric. Besides printing, fabrics are dyed, jacquard patterned, dobby patterned or imparted special finishes to add value. Even within the printed variety, less than 5 per cent of the total printed fabric production is digital, but...

What, according to you, has been the growth story of the FESPA Global Print Expo since it was organised for the first time? On that count, could you also share some numbers in terms of participants, visitors, etc? Roz Guarnori: FESPA has certainly come a long way since the launch of its first exhibition in Paris in 1963. Originally formed as an exhibition for European screen printers, by 1973 the event started to grow its audience outside Europe, welcoming visitors from further afield including...