texfash

The Rana Plaza disaster of March 2013 exposed many faultlines in the fashion ecosystem. That tectonic day threw up a whole lot of issues that were furiously debated the world over. One critical issue was the seemingly confrontational interface between business and human rights. In this freewheeling conversation, Salil Tripathi, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) and Sanchita Banerjee Saxena, IHRB Research Fellow and Director at the Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, talk about the lessons for business and human rights.

In a landmark victory for the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), the Delhi High Court has passed an interim order restraining two private entities from using the ‘khadi’ mark.

How a government-led movement against second-hand clothing in Indonesia will eventually pan out, time will tell, what cannot be negated is that this practice of thrifting could well emerge as a way of life to deal with economic challenges, or even a means to express issues of identity and social responsibility toward the environment.

As the third edition of the International Conference on Functional Clothing and Textiles gets under way in New Delhi today, texfash.com analyses the operating environment. It's a look beyond numbers.

As a leading international trade fair with participants from 129 nations, Heimtextil 2023 was a global stage where textile sustainability was holistically mapped — with products and innovations that have shown that scalable and sustainable innovations are not a contradiction in terms. Olaf Schmidt, Vice-President (Textiles & Textile Technologies) at Messe Frankfurt talks to texfash.com

Inspiring new products, innovative content and future-oriented themes is what Munich Fabric Start promises, even in these times of uncertainty. Frank Junker, Creative Director & Partner, Munich Fabric Start Exhibitions GmbH elaborates in this one-on-one with texfash.com.

Fifteen years ago, when Fashion Takes Action (FTA) was established as a non-profit, ‘sustainability’ as a term wasn’t in vogue. Now while some brands are clearly leaders and taking big risks and others are much slower to engage, what has worsened is that there are brands not genuinely invested in making change and are marketing to consumers as if they are. This increased level of greenwashing ultimately affects those who are on the right track. Kelly Drennan, Founding Executive Director of FTA, talks to texfash.com on their agenda for sustainability.

The Swiss textile recycling project Texcircle, which ended a month ago, showed exactly how a group of organisations can make it work together by contributing their own know-how, efforts, finances and materials. Tina Tomovic, Senior Research Associate of the project at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, which helmed the project, and Prof Brigitt Egloff tell texfash.com how the project worked, and what should be the way forward for textile recycling.

If the just-concluded COP27 at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt is anything to go by, the fashion industry has cut a sorry figure. The industry has made progress in recent years, but all that pales into insignificance given the goal that shifts farther by the day. Add to that the rampant greenwashing, the constant self-adulation, and the abject failure in not letting the Global South into the entire process. A texfash.com take on the Conference.

The much-awaited VORN – The Berlin Fashion Hub kicked off last month. The Hub intends to become just that—a hub—for positive change in the fashion industry. The Hub would be a physical and digital space to create, communicate and teach collaboratively. Marte Hentschel, Co-CEO (Operations & Business Development), tells texfash.com what the Hub will look like.