26 August 2022, Mumbai:

Greenwashing

As per the KPMG report," As part of the Green Deal, the EU is expected to introduce a quota for minimum usage of recycled content in new plastic products, which will break through this vicious circle".

The global IP landscape has seen a significant transition in recent years as companies work to develop and put into action measures to aid in the fight against climate change. The usage of sustainability labels like "sustainable," "bio," and "natural" has significantly increased in response to efforts to show products' environmental friendliness.

Greenwashing sustainability

One Lexology study indicates," The Commission is proposing several amendments to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) to help consumers make more sustainable choices."

Customers are also significant in supporting green practices, and many want to ensure their consumption is more sustainably done. When environmental advertising is inaccurate, lacking, or overstated, customers are less likely to commit to sustainability, and businesses run the danger of being accused of greenwashing.

Greenwashing techniques

The European Commission recently proposed new regulations that would outlaw "greenwashing" and address early product obsolescence related to its Circular Economy Action Plan and New Consumer Agenda, which aim to help consumers in the green transition. New consumer rights were also proposed to improve the longevity and reparability of goods.

Here, we go over the main points of the recommendations about "greenwashing" and its possible effects on businesses. To assist consumers in making more environmentally friendly decisions, the Commission is recommending a number of changes to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive.

Under these revisions, environmental and social implications would be added to the list of product qualities that traders cannot mislead customers about.

Associated Risks

The Commission asserts that a lack of adequate and clear product information, notably about the environmental features, durability, and reparability of items at the point of sale, frequently prevents customers from making environmentally beneficial purchases. The Commission wants to make it mandatory for businesses to provide customers with more accurate information to choose more sustainably.

Greenwashing term

As per Lexology observation," As of now, the UCPD does not prohibit the use of green claims unless they are unfair".

The UCPD does not currently forbid the use of green claims unless they are deceptive. In order to prevent customers from being duped, such green claims must be valid, not contain incorrect information, and be presented in a clear and accurate manner. Even if the information presented is technically precise, green statements might be problematic if they deceive or are likely to fool the ordinary customer.

Additionally, some practices that are pertinent to green claims (such as using an eco-label without authorization or claiming to be a signatory of a code of conduct on the product's environmental performance when the trader is not a signatory to a code of conduct) are already blacklisted under the UCPD, making them illegal regardless of whether they would influence a consumer's choice.

Greenwashing solution

The process is a time-drawn agreement likely to take up to the end of 2023 given that the Commission’s proposals are poised to be discussed by legislators in both the Council and the European Parliament.

Traders must advise customers about their legal warranty rights and other business guarantees under the present Consumer Rights Directive. However, they are free to tell customers that there are no commercial durability guarantees. According to the Commission, this eliminates any motivation for producers to offer such guarantees to customers.

The proposal mandates that if a manufacturer of consumer products gives this information, merchants must notify customers if the maker offers commercial durability guarantees of more than two years.

For products requiring energy, merchants must warn customers if the producer has not done so. Traders must disclose if and how long software upgrades are offered for items with digital components, digital content, and digital services

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22 August 2022, Mumbai:

The fashion retail industry is currently confronted with multiple macro-economic headwinds amid significant economic and geopolitical uncertainties.

On the international fashion business board, nations make their bets on emerging winners and established losers. Reports anecdotally indicate India will be where fashion sales increase the most from 2018 to 2022, while Venezuela will be the market where they decline the most, at least relative to other countries. 

According to Euromonitor, the vast Indian market would have the highest relative growth in fashion sales, at 40% throughout this time. A 21.8 billion dollar increase will be made to the sector's national revenue, which will rise from 54.8 billion to 76.6 billion.

Oversight of Geopolitical Risks

We are living in a VUCA world & are in a period of elevated geopolitical uncertainty. The impending Geopolitical Risks & their unintended business disruption have a vicious impact on businesses and the odds it is stacked up to. Given Russia-Ukraine war has no sight of the end. Political uncertainty will only remain given recent China economic & military coercion and intimidation of Taiwan visibly will only vitiate the world’s peace & tranquility and could potentially generate shocks that will have a negative impact on global trade & commerce.

Fashion Retail’s Bird’s View

Globally Fashion and accessories brands are at last waking up to the buying power of the aspirational Indian consumer. India will beat the other nations in relative development, but it won't be the key factor driving a rise in global fashion sales. 

China's sales will climb by 10.2% from 2018 to 2022. However, this increase will result in an increase in revenue of 30.2 billion dollars. China will be the world's largest market for fashion in 2022. 

Up to 2022, Ukraine's fashion industry will develop at the world's second-fastest rate. Between 2018 and 2022, the country's fashion industry will grow by 35%, reaching 4.8 billion dollars. The increase will be 1.2 billion dollars in total.

Argentina will boost its fashion sales the highest among third-world markets between 2018 and 2022, despite the country's unpredictability. The industry will conclude 2022 with 13 billion dollars in sales, a 27.9% rise. 

Despite being in the center, the United States will be the third biggest market where the fashion industry will gain sales in absolute terms through 2022, with a growth of 4.8%. The United States will end 2022 with 283.6 billion dollars in sales, an increase of 12.9 billion dollars in revenue.

Larger brands, according to Ford, were particularly exposed. He told Tania Bryer, presenter of "The CNBC Conversation with Tom Ford," "I believe you're going to really feel that hit considering you're quite a mature brand."

Given that she assisted in turning around the fortunes of Gucci's fashion business & the designer in question is no stranger to significant corporations. What is noticeable is that during his 10 years as its creative director, the brand's sales soared from $320 million in 1994 to approximately $3 billion in 2003.

Eventually, Ford departed the label in 2004 and founded a film production firm and his namesake fashion line due to what he described as "creative control conflicts."

What are the current geopolitical issues?

Principal threats include

Russian Aggression for Ukraine and Beyond

Inflation + Central Bank monetary policies

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31 August 2022, Mumbai

3D printing opens all new avenues & vistas for the fashion industry supporting, adding hack technology to the hitherto adopted conventional techniques. Today various sectors, including aerospace, automotive, medical & dentistry, use 3D printing. It is also ideal for use on Merino wool apparel/garments and presents the new potential for fiber.

A case in point is designers can combine the creative flexibility of 3D printing with the comfort, lovely drape, and organic performance to help create relentlessly a line emphasizing graceful, florid shapes of Merino wool & its blend materials. While the fiber's exceptional comfort, wearability, and performance are also maintained offering many new aesthetic options, dynamism & movement all thanks to 3D printing, according to AWI's Research & Development Manager for Europe, Birgit Gahlen.

As per one parametric-architecture report," The efficiency of parametric and generative designs, computational design can be enhanced with the aid of 3D printing tech".

With this technology microscopic precision is produced leading designers to create any intricate forms and textures they wish to choose, curating delicate ornamental elements and intricate detailing using distinctive gradient colors, base fabric can provide novel aesthetic effects such as cryptic shimmer effects & transparency.

Historically when 3D printing initially entered the fashion industry, the procedure took a while the uptake & one of the initial attempts to produce a piece of clothes using 3D printing required the printer to run continuously for 7 whole days as flexible printing materials were also not available at that time for 3D printers. But technology has advanced since then. Flexible printing material is also now available, and no longer it takes as long. Today More & more 3D printed clothing became available to the general public.

The world is well on its way to consolidating introducing it by Stratasys FDM TPU 92A - an elastomer 3D printing material engineered for prototyping, which it can be cleaned and ironed exactly like regular clothing & another flexible material been used to create 3D-printed apparel is FilaFlex. Selective laser sintering is also been used to produce the majority of 3D-printed clothes.

Furthermore, reinforcing the capacity to create elaborate patterns and achieve a high level of intricacy with 3D printing is absolutely critical for the fashion and textile industries of the day.

The smoothness & flexibility of 3D-printed clothes still somehow lag behind that of cotton or Lycra, As a result, accessories make up the majority of 3D-printed clothing and visible use cases are in products including footwear, jewelry, and eyeglasses & early users of 3D printed dresses are shifting their focus toward accessories.

Since designer pricey clothing is tailored to match your figure implying that couture or designer clothing is uncommon, distinctive, and somewhat challenging. All of those equations may be altered by 3D printing enabling the broad adoption of the notion of customized apparel.

The domain of wealthy elite homes is now accessible to the typical homeowner. Additionally, 3D-printed clothes promise to save waste and be eco-friendly. As it is immensely known that many textile scraps are been used in traditional design resulting in destruction & process is also prone to generating significant water contamination from the kind of dyes being used to color apparel/garments.

In the global backdrop of the water crisis & considering the immense water need for the production of textiles and its allied materials. Notwithstanding the innate reality that air pollution is also a significant issue in countries that produce a lot of fabrics, like China. Thus the importance of 3d printing cannot be overemphasized.

The upside of 3D cutting edge is well anchored today & already showing up its good side e.g. imaginative innovation is now possible for designers, faster turnaround & few geometrical restrictions are necessary to create wearable apparel besides eliminating several constraints designers had to deal with in the real world e.g. small batch sizes, etc.

3D Printing & Fashion Space Exploration

On the back of it any fine apparel/garment or fashion firm typically these days can execute orders for anything like a 40-foot container of clothing or shoes, especially in Bangladesh, Vietnam, or China.

Fashionable objects can also be expected to be produced on demand or in small lots thanks to 3D printing as in natural outcome in the journey. With such inherent developments, budgeting & the need for working capital may shift dramatically enhancing business efficiency & productivity.

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29 August 2022, Mumbai

"Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way." - PETA.

The concept of veganism has become popular worldwide, not just in the much-discussed food industry but also in the fashion world, suggesting the aware consumer's emergence. Even while vegan eating habits have been made fun of in the media, incorporating that idea into the design is more than simply a fad to win popularity among peers. 

The term "vegan fashion" refers to producing apparel and accessories without inflicting cruelty on animals during production, testing, or product creation. It is essential to highlight that this market, despite catering to a specific demographic, is welcomed with open arms in industrialized countries where market growth is out of this world.

The vegan market is receiving significant investment from nations including the US, UK, Germany, and France. By the end of January 2019, the UK saw a 5% increase in items labeled as "vegan," according to the London-based retail technology company Edited. With just an 11% increase yearly, the US may have lagged behind other economies in displaying such strong growth, but it already offers a much more comprehensive range of vegan goods. 

The French economy grew by 12%, but Paris, the world's fashion capital, has pledged to become the center of sustainable fashion by 2024, which will inevitably lead to a rise in the availability of vegan goods on the market. Denmark, which has experienced a 320 percent growth in items labeled as vegan, is another nation keeping an eye on this rapidly growing market.

The luxury market has not been the only one attempting to usher in the transition. One of the first high street businesses to register items with The Vegan Society's Vegan Trademark, New Look debuted a collection of 500 shoes, bags, and accessories. All components that could be present in textiles, threads, glues, dyes, and treatments are excluded from New Look's registered goods. They have also ensured that no animal experimentation was done during the production of the items and their components. According to reports, the corporation has also pledged to change details and lessen its dependency on substances produced from animals to register as many of its non-leather products as they can.

Marks & Spencer has been honored by PETA with the title of "Vegan-Friendly High Street Retailer" in recognition of its efforts to promote veganism. For clients who adhere to the vegan lifestyle, M&S has expanded its product selection to include vegan-friendly alternatives in food and clothes. Over 50 vegan recipes are available in the retailer's Plant Kitchen brand, while M&S debuted an accessible collection of 350 different types of vegan shoes in early March 2020.

These days, wearing items made from animals harms the wearer and the animals. To transform animal skin into completed leather, several more hazardous compounds, such as mineral salts, formaldehyde, derivatives of coal tar, and numerous oils, dyes, and finishes—some of which are cyanide-based—are used. Leather is one of the worst materials for the environment. As a healthier alternative, several companies, like Zara, Stella McCartney, and Bebe, have shifted to high-quality animal-free leather created from various materials, including non-animal microfibres, recycled nylon, polyurethane, and even plants, like mushrooms and fruit. 

Owing to more & more talks around vegan/alternate meat, sustained moral pressure & successive sensitization by animal rights groups, many fashion designers and brands have either stopped or started to shy away from using fur, arguably it is no exaggeration that still it is an all-too-common sight in the apparel/fashion sector. 

Fast-changing attitudes toward consumerism, especially among young people, resulting from increased concern over the environmental issue and the role fast fashion plays in society. As per surveys, 2/3 of 16 to 24-year-olds claimed that they were attempting to make more ethical fashion choices than before & the underlying aspiration is that ''Animal cruelty has to be opposed & resisted and shouldn't exist anymore/anywhere in our modern and civilized society''. 

Animal cruelty essay

The shifting mindset of the consumer creates a massive potential for merchants to tap into this vein quickly.

As per one news18 report on World Vegan Day on November 1, 2021,” World Vegan Day is the day to remember that animals want to live free from suffering, just like us, and do not want to be turned into burgers or shoes,” expresses Sachin Bangera, director of celebrity and public Relations, PETA India”.

As per Panaprium's report," Many well-known fashion brands and designers have stopped using real fur completely. Some of them are Versace, Furla, Armani, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Shrimps, and Vivienne Westwood".

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22 August 2022, Mumbai:

Winter fashion trends 2022

The humble beginnings of winter apparel in India as a functional sector have seen significant growth.

An inevitable transition from need-based to aspiration-based apparel/clothing manifested in the last few years as the modern consumer base's financial stability and purchasing power started to pick up speed. This revealed the true potential of the Indian winter wear industry to the fashion retail fraternity.

Winter season features

"A robust and narrowly targeted fashion revolution is just getting started in the Indian winter wear market and historically sold as functional clothes for the cold, winter apparel now mixes fashion and utility. According to Harkirat Singh, Managing Director of Aero Club, "the winter wear market in India has created a wide range of materials, styles, and models in keeping with the changing habits and tastes of modern consumers.

Winter season forecast

The winter apparel market in India has seen significant growth over the last 10 years due to various factors, including more significant disposable income, increased fashion awareness, and increased media penetration. "Social media and advertising have significantly changed both the market and the customer.

Before social media, consumers would only buy one or two pieces of winterwear clothing/apparel, but now that everyone wants to stay up to date on the latest trends, purchasing power has increased. Today's purchasing patterns are genuinely dependent on occasions. As a result, consumption has increased over the past ten years, according to Sandeep Jain, Executive Director of Monte Carlo Fashions Ltd.

Winter best season

He claims that the rising trend of fitness consciousness is another essential aspect boosting the development of this industry. As people are more worried about their health, thinner sizes are becoming more popular.

Everyone aspires to have a great physique. He continues that the "slim fit" category of winter clothing is currently in high demand. The ease of use, accessibility, and affordability of e-commerce, just as in other apparel industries, has successfully ignited the Indian winter wear market. The thriving e-commerce industry and high expenditure on high-quality clothing are significant drivers of the Indian winter wear market.

To fit their evolving lifestyles, consumers are spending more money on a variety of garment materials like wool, leather, silk, and linen, according to Singh.

Cautious Optimism

India has long been the leader in the textile and garment sector, but the industry temporarily suffered from the worldwide pandemic between 2020 and the beginning of 2021. India made sure to seize the positive and healthy demand in domestic and international markets with only a little push amid the world economy's recovery.

The same is evident in the most recent statistics by prestigious textile and garment businesses and official channels. Apparel Resources has been reporting on the performance of the Indian textile and apparel industry for the past several months, and the growth narrative will continue through the conclusion of FY 2022.

Winter 2022 fashion trends

According to MCI, India's textile and garment sector experienced the highest-ever rise in exports, rising by 40.55 percent to US$43.44 billion in FY'22 from US$30.90 billion in FY'21. In terms of overall numbers, ready-made clothing exports in FY 22 totaled US $ 16 billion, up 30.40% from FY 21.

In reality, the fourth quarter of 22 proved to be a catalyst for the expansion of Indian garment factories. They recorded the US $ 4.81 billion in export revenues, representing an 18.11% Y-o-Y increase. If the clothing and textile sectors are combined, the rise is even more significant due to boosted domestic demand for textile raw materials.

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