Specials

There’s an urgent need for Ethiopia to yank off from a never-ending cycle of low productivity and high labour turnover if the country wants to remain an attractive location for the global textile industry in spite of rising labour costs.

Solidaridad has just published a paper on the interplay between cotton and climate change, which shows that in the near future almost every cotton producing country will be negatively affected by climate change. The paper’s author, Tamar Hoek, Senior Policy Director (Sustainable Fashion), responds to questions related to the paper.

The unique opportunity presented by the availability of high-quality local fibres, the rich array of handwoven, hand-processed or industrial textiles produced on the continent, and the strength of the demand for African designs means that the sector is ripe for new investments and policies. Unless, the West reads “ripe for investment” as “ripe for plunder.”

The Germany-based Hohenstein Group is a leading independent and accredited testing and research institute supporting the textiles sector. Vinod Kumar, Global Business Director at Oeko-Tex Eco Passport & Oeko-Tex Organic Cotton and also Managing Director of the Hohenstein Group for India, Sri Lanka and Middle East, touches on a host of topics in this tete-a-tete with texfash.com.

As the Regenerative Agriculture & Textiles Summit 2023 gets going today at Washington DC to discuss ways and means to accelerate regenerative agriculture practices through collaborative efforts, Inka Sachse, Project Manager, Standards & Outreach at Aid by Trade Foundation, talks about how these two days will try to understand stakeholder challenges, drive solutions and build partnerships across industries.

One of the greatest untapped opportunities lies in large companies partnering with social entrepreneurs who have already created strong sustainability practices. The challenges and solutions to a regenerative model that affect a food crop may be similar to those for a fashion crop, and there can be many wonderful forms for these partnerships, says Rebecca Ballard, Sustainable Fashion Advisor at Rebecca Ballard Advisory.

The Sewn Products Equipment & Suppliers of the Americas (SPESA) played host to the 38th World Fashion Convention of the International Apparel Federation (IAF). The President of the SPESA, Michael McDonald, takes time out to tell texfash.com how the event went by, and the context in which it was held in the US.

The just-concluded 38th World Fashion Convention at Philadelphia delved deep into issues plaguing the textile-apparel-fashion industry. Matthijs Crietee, Secretary-General, International Apparel Federation (IAF), sheds light on the roadmap chalked out to help industry achieve its Net Zero goals.

A new research shows that washing clothing by hand can shed just as many microfibres as laundry washed in a machine and resolving this pollution problem requires changes in how textiles are designed, manufactured and traded on a global scale.

When founders of a startup super specialised in spectrometry, electronics design, programming, come together to build devices and scientific instruments that can identify plastic, textile and textile blends, it is indeed time for industry to take notice. texfash.com talks to Lieve Vanrusselt, an early invester and currently Head of Business Development at Matoha Instrumentation Ltd to know about the product, the journey and the road ahead.