Courtesy: Pexels India’s annual rate of inflation, based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI), stood at 5.28 per cent for the month of October 2018 over same month of the last year. The index for apparel was up by 0.7 per cent to 139.6 in October, according to the provisional data released by the Office of the Economic Adviser, ministry of commerce and industry. The official WPI for all commodities (Base: 2011-12 = 100) for the month of October 2018 rose by 0.7 per cent to 121.7 from the p

The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) has released version 2.0 of the software tool GOTS Monitor (Water/Energy). The tool was developed by Sustainable Solutions to support the evaluation of factories’ compliance with the GOTS’ “Environmental management criteria”. GOTS comprises OTA (USA), IVN (Germany), Soil Association (UK), and JOCA (Japan). GOTS Chapter 2.4.10 requires that operators need to have available and provide data on energy and water consumption per kg of textile output and

Courtesy: SAC The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) has released the 2018 Higg Facility Modules on Higg.org. The SAC is an industry-wide group of leading apparel, footwear, and textile, brands, retailers, suppliers, service providers, trade associations, nonprofits/NGOs, and academic institutions working to reduce the environmental impacts of products around the world. The Higg Facility Modules are part of the Higg Index, a suite of sustainability assessment tools to address value chain i

Courtesy: Asahi Kasei/Roica Asahi Kasei’s Roica functional stretch yarn has announced that it has invested in a new warping machine for premium stretch warp knit innovations. The Roica marketing, communication, and innovations investment strategy, launched in 2016 has already created a new, positive and dynamic market growth position for the Roica premium stretch fibre. Created by Asahi Kasei to meet modern consumer needs, these unique Roica advanced families of functional stretch yarns hav

Courtesy: Performance Days Performance Days has announced the two winners of the ECO Performance awards for outstanding new developments in the areas of function and sustainability. The tradefair for innovations, trends, and sourcing of fabrics and accessories in functional sportswear, athleisure, safety, and durability, will be held on November 28 and 29, 2018, in Germany. The jury is highly enthusiastic about the nomination of the ECO Performance award winner and described the award-winni

A delegation of chief executive officers (CEOs) led by Rakesh Bharti Mittal, president of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), will visit the United States from November 14 to 16 to reinforce the Indian industry’s commitment to US-India business ties. The business leaders will meet senior US Government representatives, industry bodies and think tanks. With the US midterm elections just concluded, the delegation will aim to strengthen US Government, Congressional and US corporate ties

Zara, a Spanish fast fashion retailer and the first Inditex brand, has launched online sales through a dedicated worldwide platform to bring its fashion collections to 106 new markets. With this, Zara’s global women’s, men’s and kids’ collection will be available now in a total of 202 markets, underpinned by the integrated store and online platform. Zara currently has stores in 96 markets with an online presence in 49 of those markets. Thanks to store and online integration, orders placed onl

Foreign direct investments (FDI) in Myanmar will be hit if the European Union (EU) withdraws its generalised scheme of preferences (GSP), under which the country enjoys easy trade access to the world’s largest trading block, according to U Aung Naing Oo, director general of the country’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA). Three-fourths of workers employed by the garment manufacturing industry could lose their jobs if the EU blocks Myanmar’s access to its market, the

The Environmental Audit Committee in the United Kingdom has called on five leading online-only fashion retailers to offer evidence as part of its inquiry into sustainability of the fashion industry. In letters written to Amazon, Asos, Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing and Misguided, the committee chair asked some of them to give evidence in parliament. The committee has asked for information on areas including staff wages, garment life-cycle and steps to reduce environmental and social impact of the

Courtesy: STOLL STOLL, a leading manufacturer of flat knitting machines, displayed latest innovations and developments at the ITMA Asia + CITME 2018 expo, which was held from October 15-19, 2018, in Shanghai, China. The booth was entirely dedicated to knitelligence, STOLL’s new software solution and a highlight from the ever-growing field of Stoll software solutions. Stoll’s knitelligence is a modular system that combines all of Stoll’s software solutions under one platform that covers the