Sanjay Garg’s clothing brand Raw Mango will participate in the online Selvedge World Fair from September 3 to 5. The fair will feature over 100 artisans and display craft techniques from over 60 countries. On September 5, brand founder Garg will participate in a seminar on contemporary crafts with Amy Revier, Ana de Prado, and Chinar Farooqui.

The brand recently launched a new ‘Botanical’ line of floral print garments and accessories on its new e-commerce store. The collection features Indian flora and fauna with each design first hand painted then digitally rendered onto silks and sheer organza.

Raw Mango also launched a limited edition collection of silver brooches, ‘Taslees’. The three designs, an acrobat, a tiger, and an angel, launched online as part of Raw Mango’s ongoing limited edition objects line.

Despite demand from the major export markets of the United States and the European Union, the industry is not in a position to cash in on the opportunity due to a acute shortage of laborers, mainly tailors. Some units are running with 25 to 30 per cent of the total workforce, and many are coping with even smaller percentage of laborers.

According to data, India exported garments worth $1.45 billion (10,955 crore in rupees) in the quarter ending June 2020, against $4.17 billion (29,008 crore in rupees) in the corresponding period last year.

The exporters maintain there is no dearth of orders from countries like the US, European and Middle East countries. However, they are not taking fresh orders, as they fear their execution won’t be carried out within the stipulated time in the absence of laborers and adherence to the COVID-19 norms. For tailors, the industry is dependent on migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa.

The Indian exporters had started getting many queries from overseas buyers, who were keen to place the orders. However, since the laborers have returned to their native places, the industry is wary of accepting fresh orders. Besides, the workers seem to be in no mood to return in near future because of the Covid-19 scare, thus affecting the production, said Narinder Chugh, Managing Director, Million Exporter.

Neeraj Arya, Managing Director, Different Garments said he was coping with 33 per cent of the total workforce. Similarly, Rohan Dheer, Partner, Puneet Knitwear, said he was working on an export consignment with a 30 per cent workforce.

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TCNS is in the process of closing its export business. With around 2,000 sewing machines and an annual turnover of Rs. 150 crore, the Noida-based company is working with prestigious brands and retailers like Next, Walmart and Monoprix, among others.

The company recently declared that its reported Q4 revenues had declined to Rs 219 crore from Rs 291 crore for Q4 last year. From the second week of March, the company’s partners stopped taking deliveries due to COVID disruptions. Between B2B and B2C, it lost an estimated Rs. 103 crore in revenue. The company has also closed its Bangladesh operations too.

Clothing brand Lovebirds and streetwear label Smokewear have jointly launched a collection of upcycled, gender-neutral basics. The collaborative collection was launched on both Lovebirds’ and Smokewear’s dedicated e-commerce stores this week.

The capsule collection mixes Smokewear’s streetwear style with Lovebirds’ minimal yet sharp tailoring.

ALSO READ Lovebirds, Smokewear launch new upcycled collection

The collection features a cotton shirt, shorts, bucket hat, and tote bag made by gathering scrap textiles from Lovebirds’ studio and weaving them on a hand-loom to create a new textile, with help from Paiwand Studio.

This checkered collection is made from fabric developed from waste scrap fabric from the brand’s studio and then handwoven into this intricate, delicate, and purely upcycled fabric.

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Based in New Delhi, Lovebirds is run by Gursi Singh and Amrita Khanna. The brand retails across India through multi-brand outlets as well as in countries including Russia, Japan, and Italy among others.

Launched as a collaboration between Varun Jain’s Smoke Vodka and Delhi-based Design label Khanijo, Smokewear retails gender-neutral, monochrome streetwear from its dedicated e-commerce store.

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The 3rd Survey conducted by CMAI amongst its members reflects the crisis the domestic garment industry is going through, with 74 per cent of its respondents seeing a 90 per cent drop in sales for the quarter ending June 2020.

An additional 13 per cent indicated a drop of more than 75 per cent. This indicates that 87 per cent of the industry saw a more than 75 per cent drop in their revenues in the 1st quarter of 2020-21.

The projection for the coming quarter (July to September) is equally grim. 95 per cent of respondents expect to operate at less than 50 per cent of their production capacity. Of these, as many as 68 per cent of the respondents anticipate using less than 25 per cent of their production capacities in the next 3 months.

The respondents do not see much improvement in the next 12 months either. 21 per cent of the respondents expect to operate at less than 25 per cent of their capacity in the coming 12 months, and 46 per cent expect to operate at between 25 per cent and 50 per cent. Which means almost half of the Industry expects to operate at less than 50% of capacity in the coming 12 months.

What is obviously adding to the worries of this largely MSME dominated sector, is the drying up of working capital funds, with Manufacturers not receiving payments from the equally stressed retail sector.

Ninety-one per cent of the respondents have received less than 25 per cent of their dues in the last quarter – and close to 85 per cent are not expecting their dues to be cleared in the next 3 months. In fact, 44 per cent of the respondents fear that 20-50 per cent of their dues will turn in to Bad Debts, and another 10 per cent expect even a higher percentage of bad debts.

Top fashion brands including H&M, Adidas, Calvin Klein, Biba and Marks and Spencer have partnered with Flipkart-owned fashion marketplace Myntra to go on discount of 50-80 per cent in the first online sale post Covid-19 lockdown.

The End of Reason Sale (EORS), scheduled to take place between June 19-22, is being looked upon by brands to bring the first wave of normalcy and to win back shoppers with value offers.

Last year, discounting by brands were more in line with industry trends. This year, it is more in line with consumer trends. Participating brands are giving 50-80 per cent value offers, said Amar Nagaram, Chief Executive Officer, Myntra.

The retailer’s average basket size rose 2X since retail reopened. It expects many first-time online fashion shoppers and bullish about Tier II and III markets as their access to fashion reduced considerably due to the lockdown

About 50 new brands including Charles & Keith, La Senza, Gant, Globus and Chicco have partnered with Myntra to stay relevant and capitalise on its wide distribution network. Even offline stores of brands such as Mango and Gap, and kiranas have been engaged for quicker and last mile delivery during the sale. The marketplace, which claimed to have made its biggest investment on safety and protocols in the last two months, expects to fulfill 15-20 per cent of the deliveries during the event.

The Cambodian government is preparing five-year development strategies for the garment, footwear and bags sector (2020-2025) to promote their competiveness and added-value, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Aun Pornmoniroth, MEF minister. said during a discussion on draft strategies that the Kingdom’s garment, footwear and bag sectors have played an important role in contributing to economic development by creating jobs, increasing people’s incomes amd, in turn, reducing poverty.

However, he said with its strong progressing in competitiveness, the sector is now facing some challenges that require more development and more competitiveness by the end of 2025.

To achieve this goal and vision, the strategy will continue to strengthen human resources, increase productivity and create business lines for workers. It will continue to improve working conditions and the welfare of workers, promote direct domestic and international investment in value-added products, attract investment in industries that support the sector and promote export market diversification, according to the brief draft.

E-commerce giant Amazon is focused on digitising micro, small and medium-sized businesses in India and is working on getting more sellers on board and hiring more people.

Recently, Amazon infused fresh capital to the tune of Rs 2,310 crore into one of its India units, Amazon Seller Services, as per regulatory documents. Amazon Seller Services had received another tranche of Rs 2,208 crore earlier in the year.

Earlier this year, the online retail giant had announced plans to help digitally enable micro, small, and medium businesses across the country as part of a $1 billion investment pledge.

India is also the biggest recipient of investments in Prime, Amazon's membership programme under which it offers various features including fast shipping, music and video services, among others.

The company has launched Local Shops on Amazon.in, offering shopkeepers and retailers with physical stores the ability to register to serve more customers from their local areas. Since launch, more than 11,000 sellers have enrolled in the program.

In addition, Amazon has introduced seller registration and account management services in Hindi to help businesses overcome language barriers.

Since launch, more than 10,000 sellers have used Hindi to register on Amazon.in, the statement said.

Century Textiles & Industries reported consolidated net loss of Rs 36 crore in Q1 June 2020 compared with net profit of Rs 69 crore in Q1 June 2019.

On a consolidated basis, net sales slumped 54 per cent to Rs 393.86 crore in Q1 June 2020 over Q1 June 2019. Pre-tax loss stood at Rs 48.43 crore in Q1 June 2020 as against pre-tax profit of Rs 114.59 crore in Q1 June 2019. EBITDA tanked 84.29 per cent to Rs 30 crore in Q1 June 2020 as against Rs 191 crore in Q4 March 2020.

However, the company expects to see clear signs of revival from the second half of this financial year across businesses. All businesses have taken decisive steps to re-calibrate to the new normal. The textiles business achieved capacity utilisation of 50 per cent, mainly due to fulfillment of US export orders.