Specials

Recycled polyester has become a default sustainability claim across activewear, swimwear and outerwear, but its supply chain is less circular than its labelling suggests. Most of the material still comes from PET drink bottles, not discarded textiles, raising difficult questions about whether fashion is solving waste or diverting it from better-functioning recycling systems globally instead.

The global apparel industry's sustainability reporting expanded substantially in the years following the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster. A new study examining 322 reports from 69 companies over seven years jhas found that the expansion was real and the accountability was not. Environmental content consistently outranked labour conditions, and the sector's reporting tone became progressively more optimistic regardless of what was happening in the supply chains those reports described.

Fashion retail is moving into a sharper phase of algorithmic pricing as AI shopping tools connect consumer preferences, inventory pressures and automated purchasing. Dynamic pricing, virtual try-ons and agentic commerce could make shopping easier, but may also deepen discount chasing, impulse buying and overconsumption in already high-volume markets shaped by markdowns.

As industries seek bio-based materials with lower environmental impact, alternative plant fibres are drawing new policy and commercial attention. Yet output remains marginal and forecast to contract, constrained by fragmented chains, weak processing capacity and uncertain offtake. A FIBRAL report argues diversification will depend on standards, investment and market architecture, not fibre discovery alone at scale.

The global sportswear market is entering a slower, more demanding phase. HSBC's decision to cut Nike from Buy to Hold, slashing its price target from US$90 to US$48, has focused investor attention on a sector where modest growth, rising tariff costs and intensifying competition are making inherited scale a less reliable advantage than it once was.

Exhibition exposure can open doors for textile start-ups, but industrial adoption remains the harder test. After ITMA 2023, companies working in cleaner dyeing, laundry automation and fibre traceability converted visibility into trials, funding and partnerships. Their progress shows how sector-specific platforms can shorten the route from early recognition to commercial deployment across global textile manufacturing.

Global fashion visibility still favours money, geography and entrenched networks, leaving many designers outside the main circuit. Olga IF, Founder, Modavision, argues that fashion needs more open systems of representation, participation and access. Her platform combines national identity, public voting and cultural exchange in one international format, while questioning how legitimacy is still allocated across the industry.

Textile circularity in Europe is entering a more demanding phase, as policy ambition collides with weak infrastructure and commercial uncertainty. At Antwerp’s SMART gathering, the discussion turns less on whether circular systems are needed than on whether reuse, sorting, recycling and trade can be made to function together under mounting regulatory and market pressure across the continent.

Blended textile waste is no longer being discussed as a marginal recycling problem but as an industrial systems challenge shaped by regulation, cost and infrastructure. In that debate, Peter Mangnus, Business Director Dawn Technology at Avantium, argues that progress will depend less on scientific novelty alone than on aligning feedstock, offtake, finance and policy support.

Global textile trade is moving through a more complex sourcing cycle, with buyers weighing cost, reliability, material performance, and sustainability together. Wilmet Shea, General Manager, Messe Frankfurt (HK), discusses how Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics reflected those pressures, from Southeast Asian buyer flows and China’s upstream strength to AI-led workflows, traceability platforms, eco-performance fabrics, and knowledge programming.