Fibre2Fashion

There are many who believe, not wrongly, that the best and safest bet to start an apparel business is with t-shirts. It is a product category that has hardly seen a perceptible dip in sales—right from the 1950s when Marlon Brando and James Dean made them popular, hip and chic. There are far too many angles to look at, and most of them still ring true—some truer then before. T-shirts remain fashion essentials and timeless. They are still a medium of expression, as they were when Disney-character...

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...

If it is readymade, it is quite likely that it is not perfect; not for the body at least. And since the fashion industry virtually stands with a backbone made of readymade garments, the age-old problem suddenly appears to be one of imperfection (in the fashion industry). The apparel sector is seized of the issue, and professionals across the value chain are grappling with a worn-out issue that has found a new fabric. Take two relatively recent developments. In June last year, six major British...

Right from the summer of 2018 when the draft ecommerce policy was being debated by stakeholders and experts, it was almost a given that the Indian government would sooner or later make that much-needed distinction between online marketplaces and inventory-based platforms. Yet, the modified rules for foreign direct investment (FDI) in ecommerce that were announced by the ministry of commerce & industry on December 26, 2018 took many by surprise. Most had expected any such rule / guideline to be...

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...

In mid-November came the heartening news that textiles and apparel exports had jumped—by as much as an impressive 38 per cent in October because of higher overseas demand. According to the ministry of commerce and industry, textiles and apparel exports had reached Rs 203.53 billion for October 2018 as against Rs 147.79 billion in the corresponding month last year. Textiles exports increased by 28 per cent, and that of apparel rose by 54 per cent that month. Sounded like good news. The reasons...

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...

What is obvious and in plain sight often escapes attention—if you are not looking for it. Home textiles, or home fashion to put it broadly, is something like that. Most of what constitutes home textiles—like bed linen, kitchen linen and bath linen—are used by most people, though the amounts spent on them vary drastically and depend on the means that people have. The “fashion” element, as it were, is a relatively new angle to the concept. After all, human beings have used such textile items since...

Just talking about trends is one thing; seeing them implemented is quite another. The most far-reaching, yet possibly one of the least talked about, was the crackdown of the Chinese government on polluting factories. Numbers do not easily trickle out of China, but whatever did about a year back ought to have had the global textiles and apparel industry discussing it furiously. In October 2017, many international news establishments reported that over 80,000 polluting units across 30 provinces...

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...