A combination of factors — US ban on Chinese cotton, a sudden surge in orders for garments, additional stocking up, increased exports to Tirupur’s competitors including Vietnam and Bangladesh — have resulted in yarn shortage for garments exporters.

The situation is so grim for exporters that Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) has alleged that mills were withholding yarn supplies impacting the export business.The current decision of mills will certainly impact the garment units, exports will largely be affected and more number of workers will incur job losses, said Raja M Shanmugham, President, TEA.

Mills have rejected that they were channelizing yarn for exports. Due to supply disruptions, companies across the value chain, both in exports and domestic markets in the textile sector, started building inventory of apparels, home textiles , yarn and fabrics to manage the business continuity. This sudden inventory build up is causing shortages, said Prabhu Dhamodharan, convenor, Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF).

Yarn prices are rising. Over the past three months, a kilogram of cotton yarn has risen from Rs 205 to Rs 223.

As per Siddharth Rajgopal, Executive Director, Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council (CTEPC) cotton textile exports are expected to grow by 10 per cent in the next few months to complete the year with exports matching last year’s level.

Rajgopal said, according to the quick estimates released by the Ministry of Commerce, cotton textile exports grew 8.54 per cent to $869 million in November from a year earlier. Readymade garment exports stood at $1,043 million compared with $1,056 million last November. Exports of cotton textiles in the April- November period declined 12.7 per cent. Rajagopal attributed this to the slump in exports in April and May this year.

A Sakthivel, Chairman, AEPC, said garment exports in September and October were good and in November, they were almost equal to the level seen in the year earlier period. Exporters are getting orders for medical textiles from regular markets, he added.

Reliance Brands’multi-brand concept store, The White Crow has opened its third store in the country at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad. According to the Hindu Business Line, the retailer already has two stores in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh.

The multi-brand store in Hyderabad is spread across 10,600 sqft on two levels, with 9,500 sqft of retail space with 1,100 sq. ft. of cafe space. The store offers a unique curation of brands such as ErmenegildoZegna, Salvatore Ferragamo, Canali, Paul Smith, Brooks Brothers, Steve Madden, Armani Exchange, Coach, Kate Spade, Scotch & Soda, SuperDry, etc.

The products are further divided under the fashion and lifestyle categories, including casual wear, formal wear, customisation section, fragrance library, handbags and shoes, collectibles, luggage and tableware. The space is complete with a stunning lounge area to encourage engagement and interaction amongst visitors, according to a statement.

Reliance Brands (RBL) is part of Reliance Industries that began operations in 2007 to develop the premium to luxury segment. RBL today operates 784 doors, split into 438 mono-brand stores and 346 shop-in-shops in India.

The Delhi High Court has ruled that US e-commerce giant Amazon's attempt to control Future Retail through a conflation of agreements it has with an unlisted unit of the Indian company violates FEMA FDI rules. Kishore Biyani, Managing Director, Future Retail said, the court has approved Future Rs 24,713 crore deal to sell assets to Reliance Retail.

The entire legal basis of the emergency arbitration award that Amazon secured to halt the Rs 24,713 crore deal has been vitiated by the court, Biyani added. The High Court had earlier upheld Amazon's right to make representations to statutory authorities against the Future Group-Reliance Retail deal.

It however made several observations in its order that could potentially upend the US giant's 2019 investment in Future Coupons (FCPL) - Future Retail's parent. The High Court analyzed the clauses of three agreements - Future Retail's shareholder's agreement with FCPL (FRL SHA), FCPL's shareholder's agreement with Amazon (FCPL SHA) and FCPL's share subscription agreement with Amazon (FCPL SSA).

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has benchmarked Greek AGRO-2 Integrated Management Standards as being equivalent to the Better Cotton Standard System.

The recognition will promote more sustainable Greek cotton farming. Greece is the largest cotton-producing country in Europe, with more than 45,000 registered cotton farmers. Cotton is planted on approximately 270,000 hectares – 10% of the total agricultural land.

Farmers certified under the AGRO-2 standards who elect to participate in the BCI Program will now be eligible to sell their cotton as Better Cotton from the 2020-21 cotton season. By the end of 2022, it is estimated that 5,000 farmers will be growing AGRO-2 licensed cotton (equivalent to Better Cotton), on 40,000 hectares, producing around 185,000 bales.

The AGRO-2 Integrated Management Standards were developed by the national Hellenic Agricultural Organization, ELGO-DEMETER, a statutory body under the Ministry of Rural Development and Food. ELGO-DEMETER and the Inter-Branch Organization of Greek Cotton (DOV) – jointly ELGO-DOV – partnered to promote and implement the AGRO-2 standards for Greek cotton production.

Homegrown, youth-centric open footwear brand Solethreads aims to become a Rs 300-crore fast fashion ‘open footwear’ brand in the next three years, says a Financial Express report. The brand has revamped its own D2C (direct to customer) website. On its own website, the brand touched a revenue of Rs 50,000 per day, within 10 days of launching its D2C marketing campaigns, says Sumant Kakaria, Co-founder and CEO. Its design aesthetic and product innovation ensuring that customers turning to it for out-of-home use, and occasion led buying.

In the offline retail space, Solethreads plans to expand across the latter’s network of stores. Based on its recent pilot tests across various international platforms, the brand aims to soon go global.

Founded in November 2018, Solethreads offers phylon molded technology, squishy technology and its patented Synturf technology under its umbrella. It has more than 30 design patents and has some new-age innovation in the pipeline, both in the product such as DIY designs, as well as its business model such as personalized footwear. The company has an in-house designing and R&D team that focuses on innovation and global trend spotting that connect with the youth.

Being a tech-savvy brand, Solethreads has also partnered with tech solution partners that have helped it achieve its current scale and prepare for future growth, says Kakaria. These include Glaucus for smart inventory management, Paxcom for e-commerce analytics and channel intelligence, Shoptimize for AI-based performance marketing and Vinculum for omni-channel integration. It also has strategic alignments with leading platforms Amazon, Myntra and Flipkart.

KIIKII Retail, a company founded by four college friends during the lockdown, aims to become India’s largest and most affordable fast fashion brand.

To drive this mission, it introduces new products every two weeks, so customers have new choices every time they visit the website. Apart from apparel, the website also caters to the beauty and accessories market, making it a one-stop shop for an affordable closet.

And given an overwhelming response over the last few months, they now plan to add bags, footwear and ethnic wear to their portfolio. In addition, they also want to establish their footprint in the US and UAE by 2021-end.

However, it’s not just in its business model that KIIKII Retail is different; it’s also opting for a more environment- friendly production line. They use excess fabric generated by export houses to create products. They procure top quality, defect-free fabric generated by the industry, and turn them into the trendiest affordable apparel. Using this technique, they try to maximize outputs and minimize the fabric waste generated.

The recently passed Delhi High Court order related to Future Group’s proposed asset sale to Reliance Retail will end Amazon’s ‘manipulative, coercive, arbitrary and dictatorial policies’ to dominate India’s retail trade, said traders body CAIT. The court rejected Future Retail’s (FRL) plea for an interim injunction to restrain Amazon from writing to Sebi, the Competition Commission and other authorities about the SIAC arbitral order against the proposed Rs 24,713 croredeal with Reliance Retail.

Justice Mukta Gupta said while FRL has made out a prima facie case of interim injunction, the relief cannot be granted as the balance of convenience lies in favour of both FRL and Amazon, and whether any irreparable loss would be caused to either side, has to be determined during the trial of the suit or by a competent forum. Another reason why it did not grant an interim injunction was that both FRL and Amazon have already made their representations and counter representations to the statutory authorities or regulators and “now it is for the statutory authorities/ regulators to take a decision thereon”, the court said.

Known for its chic yet modish collection of shoes for women, Singapore’s fashionable and premium shoe-label Pazzion has been launched on the e-commerce giant Amazon India.

Pazzion’s online store on Amazon India has currently 14 styles of shoes live from its newest collection and the brand is planning to introduce 203 SKUs in the upcoming days.

Known for its finest leather shoes, Pazzion emphasizes a lot on quality, comfort mixed with great craftsmanship. With the launch on Amazon India, the brand reinforces its omnichannel strategy by being available online as well as offline.

Established in 2002, Pazzioncaters to the needs of today’s modern women, sophisticated trend-setter with an uncompromising standard for taste and quality. Perfect for the modern, contemporary women, Pazzion places the utmost emphasis on high-caliber craftsmanship and unwavering attention to detail; using only high quality leather for all of their products to ensure it fits well and remains a trusted wardrobe staple.

Pazzion’s design team continually scours the globe, seeking inspiration from anything and everything - art, architecture, culture, and history have all been a springboard for some of their past creations. It is very important for the brand to consistently understand and remain at the forefront of trends. The design of each collection is carefully considered and laboriously debated to both reflect and push the boundaries of the style.