Courtesy: Van de Velde Marleen Vaesen has been named, with immediate effect, as the new CEO of Van de Velde, replacing Erwin Van Laethem, who will leave the firm in mutual agreement. As a leading player in the luxury and fashionable women’s lingerie, swimwear and sportswear sector, Van de Velde bases its long-term strategy on developing and expanding brands upon lingerie styling. Erwin became CEO of Van de Velde two years ago and launched a number of digital transformation projects during t

French fashion retailer Chanel recently announced it will stop using fur and exotic animal skin in its collection. Skin of crocodile, lizard, snake and stingray and fur will no more be used, although the company claims it only uses a small amount of fur now. The decision follows similar moves by other luxury fashion houses like Burberry, Gucci, and Versace. It is becoming increasingly difficult to source exotic skins, European media reports quoted Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel fashion

Welcoming the new duty drawback rates, the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) said the revision will boost the exports of cotton textiles. The government of India has increased the duty for cotton yarn from 1.2 per cent to 1.7 per cent, from 1.3 per cent to 1.6 per cent for cotton fabric and from 2 per cent to 2.6 per cent for made-ups. "The revised drawback rates will lead to increase in the exports of cotton textiles. There is a significant increase in the drawback rates f

Apparel and footwear firms are failing to tackle exploitation of workers in their supply chains, according to a report by KnowTheChain, a benchmark that measures companies' efforts to address forced labour. KnowTheChain's analysis gives the apparel and footwear sector an average overall score of 37 out of 100. More than two-thirds of firms scored below 50. Eighteen companies scored 0 out of 100 on recruitment, which measures a company's approach to reducing the risk of exploitation of worker

Several Japanese companies, including Itochu and Sakai Amiori, are investing in expanding their stake in the Vietnamese textile and garments sector. In the first 11 months of this year, the sector’s export value was $30 billion and trade surplus surpassed $13 billion, according to Vu Duc Giang, chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association. The influx of such foreign direct investment is boosting the sector as well as turning Vietnam into a global manufacturing base. Itochu bou

Courtesy: Eurojersey Eurojersey has launched the Spring/Summer 2020 season sensitive fabrics collection, which is focussed on technical performance, expressed in two macro themes centred on the Ecoprint and Digital Printing process. Eurojersey manufactures warp-knitted fabrics. The company offers fabrics to manufacture underwear, swimwear, sportswear, and ready to wear clothes. Within the two theme areas, four effects are diversely interpreted on soft sensual fabrics for creating flowing ga

The Tiruppur Exporters’ Association (TEA) is dismayed on the reduction of duty drawback rates on apparel items. In this revised list, government has reduced rates for value added readymade garments while improving rates for raw materials like cotton, yarn and fabrics. The rates have been lowered from 2 to 1.8 per cent for few and 1.9 per cent for others. The new list has totally disappointed the knitwear garment sector in Tiruppur when they were expecting hike in the rates, said TEA in a r

Courtesy: IDTInstitute of Design & Technology (IDT), a Surat, India-based fashion design institute, organised the first round of mega audition of its upcoming designer kids fashion show, the Gujarat Kids Fashion Week 2019 (GKFW 2019), at La Terranza, Surat. The finale of GKFW 2019 is scheduled for January 2019. IDT students will design the dresses for all participants. For the event, IDT has collaborated with almost 500 schools of Gujarat. Kids in the age group of 3 to 10 walked on the ra

Courtesy: UKFTThe UK Fashion and Textile association (UKFT) has announced its decision to take over the management of Textiles Scotland (STLA) effective January 1, 2019, following a unanimous vote by STLA members and lengthy discussions between the two organisations. From January 1, existing STLA members will be transferred to a new company called UKFT Scotland.The STLA branding will be continued, as will the Scottish focus of the activities, support and government lobbying. UKFT Scotland will j

Courtesy: Kai Pilger from PexelsIndia's overall textile and apparel exports in H1 FY19 stood at $18.4 billion, showing a decline of 1 per cent from the previous year, according to the latest Wazir Textiles Index (WTI). During the same period, textile and clothing imports increased by 4 per cent compared to the previous year, said the findings on the market performance of textile sector. Export of all the categories except apparel have grown in H1 FY19 as compared to H1 FY18. Apparel exports s