texfash

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.

A rainforest nut that falls off a huge palm tree provides an organic alternative to the ubiquitous button required by the fashion industry as a necessary accessory and at times even an embellishment. Ecuador-based Trafino SA is one of the largest enterprises in the business of exporting these ‘blanks’ made from the tagua nut. texfash.com talks to its Executive President Ignacio Maya to know more. 

The $3 million Dhaka-based Recycle-Raw claims to be the only compliant textile-garment waste-sorting company in Bangladesh and on mission to change the garbage sector into gold.

With the market for functional clothing forecast to reach $244.6 billion by 2025, driven to a large extent by the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming International Conference on Functional Textiles and Clothing (FTC) scheduled for 10 February 2023 is expected to see presentation of some pathbreaking research. This edition of the meet will focus on recycling and circularity challenges in design, manufacturing and supply chain in this category. Prof Sanjay Gupta, Vice-Chancellor of the World University of Design (WUD), under the aegis of which the conference is being held, talks to texfash.com.