texfash

The VDMA or Verband Deutscher Maschinen-und Anlagenbau or the German Engineering Federation, representing more than 3,600 German and European mechanical and plant engineering companies, employs around 3 million people in the EU-27 with more than 1.2 million in Germany alone. Focused on innovation, exports and SMEs, around 80% of the machinery sold in the EU comes from manufacturing plants in the domestic market. texfash.com in conversation with Dr Harald Weber, who has been the Managing Director of the VDMA Textile Machinery Association since January 2023.

Cradle to Cradle Certified is the leading multi-attribute standard used globally for more than a decade for designing and making products that enable a healthy, equitable and sustainable future, according to the world’s most advanced science-based measures. texfash.com in conversation with Nienke Steen, Global Lead—Apparel, Textile and Footwear, Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

The Bangladesh textiles industry before and after the Rana Plaza disaster is a different story. While earlier the focus was on capacity building of management teams on productivity, quality, and HR systems aimed at worker welfare, after the mishap the highlight was that the responsibility of making a factory safe does not rest with only the safety or compliance officer. Dr Rajesh Bheda, CEO and Managing Director, Rajesh Bheda Consulting, shares with texfash.com his observations.

The times they are a changing and Bangladesh continues to adopt advanced apparel manufacturing technology. Undoubtedly, if this country wishes to remain competitive at this critical juncture of its journey, the apparel sector needs to take the lead in innovation, exhorts Abdullah Hil Rakib, Director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

As the textile-apparel-fashion industry oscillates from greenwashing to greenhushing and greenblushing, a critical component of the backend is the dye. While it is becoming increasingly critical for manufacturers to shift to natural dyes, what also needs to be done is make them as popular as their synthetic counterparts and educate the customer about their basic goodness, mechanise dyeing and grow more raw materials so as to reduce the cost of the dyed product.

While the world scours for makers of natural dyes, here’s someone in India quietly greening the planet one step at a time in a low volume, high value business. The textile-apparel-fashion industry may stand up and take note, not just to source earth-friendly dyes but also pitch in with funding to help them do more for the people and the environment. texfash.com talks to the Co-Founder-Director of BioDye India Pvt Ltd, Dr Bosco MA Henriques, to bring you his voice from the Konkan region of the Western Ghats.

Sustainability and circularity will have to increasingly become a part of the textile-apparel industry, especially in India. The pre- and post-consumer waste, the missing economies at the drawing board, in design and across the supply chain — all these and more are imperatives that need to be taken up with urgency. The process that led to the recent CITI Sustainability Awards underscored that and more. A texfash.com report. 

Primal Soles, a Netherlands-based start-up, makes insoles from natural Mediterranean cork, claiming it to be the planet's first 100% circular, recyclable and sustainable shoe insole brand.

With emerging risks, the demands for functionality and performance from clothing will evolve continuously and spontaneously, and both technology-forward and market-back innovations will come up. Besides, the requirements of consumers are getting more and more diversified. All these issues will drive advances in R&D. Three renowned academicians at the ongoing International Conference on Functional Textiles and Clothing in New Delhi discuss at length.

When aesthetics were coming at a price too dear, a techie-packaging pair of friends seized the gap in the market to launch a “reasonably priced” home fashion brand — Vaaree. A year on, it has had one seed round, and in the last few months the 50% month-on-month growth, brings hope for greater things in the future. A texfash.com exclusive.