Fashion

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...

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...

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...

You have taken over as ED of SAC at a very critical juncture. How do you assess the responsibility that comes with the new job? What would be your immediate priorities? I am honoured to be in this new role. It’s an exciting time at the SAC. The path we started on ten years ago was unchartered for any industry. The kind of collaboration the SAC has achieved in bringing the industry together to standardise social and environmental sustainability is groundbreaking. We hope it’s an example of how...

If the fashion industry has to go truly circular, it will need to pick up the thread from where the longwinding value chain of the industry currently trails off--in the humongous piles of post-consumer textile waste, an estimated 92 million tonnes generated annually at the last count. It would need a colossal effort on part of industry to turn that waste back into acceptable fashion. And, it would need to be done in a creative and stylish manner. Or else, how could that be fashion? The world...

A shoe that is too large is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet. So it is with those whose fortune does not suit them. — Horace The earliest known shoes are said to be a pair of sagebrush bark sandals that date from 8000 BC—found in a cave in the US state of Oregon in 1938. The world's oldest leather shoe, on the other hand, that was possibly handcrafted from a single piece of cowhide laced with a leather cord along seams at the front and back, was unearthed from another cave...

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...

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...

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...

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...