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WGSN Sustainability in Apparel Packaging

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WGSN Sustainability in Apparel Packaging

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S/S 22

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Level 4 GT Diploma Business Plan INP 2020

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Struggling to Decide Which Types of Hems Are Best for Garments?

Then You've Come to the Right Place!

Even if you're new to the sample-making process, you're probably aware of all the nitty-gritty details that make up a stellar garment. Seams and hem finishes are the most overlooked, yet fundamental parts of your design. The best designers are knowledgeable of different types of hems and finishes and they aren't overly dependent on sample-makers to execute their intended vision.

What is a hem exactly. . .?

Hems are located at the end of a piece of cloth- usually a sleeve or pant leg. A hem is where the fabric has been finished or manipulated in such a way as to prevent the material from fraying or losing its shape. Hemming can be done by hand or done on a machine. Hem length, stitching, and technique can define your garment's aesthetic and silhouette, so choosing a hem should never be an afterthought decision.

Consider the following as you decide the best types of hems for your design.

Which hem will allow this garment to hang most gracefully and evenly?

Does this fabric or price point call for delicate hand-stitching? Or can a machine-stitched hem work?

Should the hem be hidden or seen?

Will this technique result in a smooth, even finish without lumps and puckers?

Most Common Types of Hems

Turn Back / Bend Back Hem

This is the simplest type of hem. This hem is created by turning or folding the hem allowance under the fabric one time - wrong sides together. Since the raw edges are seen on the interior side, the edge must be either serged or concealed with seam binding. The width of the amount of fabric turned back can vary from ¾" to 1" or even 1 ½". It's quick and easy, but only neat when the raw edges are finished somehow. This hem can either be top-stitched with a machine or slip/blind-stitched by hand. It's most commonly seen in trouser pants and keep in mind this hem can typically not be used on curved edges. When requesting this type of hem it is best to say, "1 bend back with single needle topstitch" for example.

Double Fold Hem:

The double fold hem is similar to the turn back hem listed above, but the fabric is folded twice concealing the raw edges inside. It can then be top-stitched on the machine or blind/ slip-stitched by hand for an ultra-clean finish. This hem is quick and easy like the turn back hem, but its double fold adds extra body and structure.

Baby Hem:

A baby hem is a narrow, double fold hem used primarily on light-weight fabrics like chiffon, voile, or organza. Baby hems are great for ruffles, silk blouses/skirts, silk scarves, ruffles, or sheer curtains. The width of this hem is typically 1/8" - 1/4" and so this hem is not recommended for thick fabrics because the fabric is too bulky to execute such small folds.

Rolled Hem:

A rolled hem is simply a very fine (less than 1/8") baby hem done by hand instead of machine. It is the most expensive hem and so it is only used for the most high-end garments. You'll typically see this type of hem on the edge of a Hermes scarf for example.

Blind Hem:

As you can tell by the name, a blind hem is the most inconspicuous type of hem. A blind hem can be done by hand or machine; but the hand-method yields a more invisible, elevated finish. A blind hem is great for garments that need a deep, weighted hem like a skirt, jacket, coat or pants. They give a clean, tailored look and they are used most often in luxury lines with higher price-points since they are so delicate and time-consuming. A blind hem is NOT recommended for casual pieces that undergo a lot of wear and tear.

Bias Bound Hem:

A bias bound hem is an easy way to add color contrast and structure to a hem. They're also useful for hems with a slight curve. Instead of turning the fabric, a strip of bias tape or fabric tape is attached to the raw edge and stitched down flat. Bias tape can either be bought or made custom with a fabric of your choice.

Faced Hem:

A faced hem, also known as a false hem, is simply a facing piece sewn to the edge of the hemline. A faced hem uses either interfacing or a hem facing pattern piece to neatly enclose a bottom edge of a garment. A hem facing pattern piece is drafted from mirroring the bottom edge of the garment. There are many advantages of using a faced hem. It's great for deeply curved or oddly-shaped hems that are difficult to turn under. These hems allow you to add a unique edge to your garment like a scalloped edge or a zig-zag edge while maintaining structure and durability.

Banded Hem:

A banded hem is exactly what it sounds like. It's a band of external fabri that's used to finish a hem instead of using a traditional fold. This is a great finish if you'd like to add length or weight to a garment in a fun, creative way. This is also typically used when adding a rib knit band to the cuff or hem of a bomber jacket for instance.

Trimmed Hem:

A few options are fringe, embroidered tapes, piping, ricrac, ribbon, or lace! When constructing a trimmed hem, the trim is placed on top of the garment (right sides together) and stitched down along the raw edge. After sewing, the trim is flipped over right side-up, pressed, and stitched into place.

Frayed Hem:

No turning or folding is needed for this hem. A frayed hem is achieved when the horizontal weft threads are removed from the bottom edge of a garment-leaving a frayed bottom edge. The frayed edges are then stay-stitched. Staystitching is simply a row of stitches on a single layer of fabric that prevents a fabric from unraveling or distorting. This finish is often used on denims and tweeds. Frayed hems are great if you're going for an edgy distressed look.

Laser Cut Hem

A laser cut hem is constructed when the raw edges of a fabric are intricately cut on a laser cutting machine. This is an exquisite detail that makes any garment cool and innovative!

This is a highly-functional hem stitch that maintains stretch while achieving a clean finish all at once. It is always done on a cover-stitch machine. The hem is folded once while the top side is finished with two rows of topstitching and the backside is finished with an overlock stitch. It's commonly used in knits such as sweatshirts, athleisure, and t-shirts.

This technique is not turned or folded like the others. Instead, 3-5 separate threads are wound around the fabric edge to keep it from fraying. This technique is achieved on either a serger or overlock machine and simply left at that.

Purl Edge Hem:

This is a tiny, decorative finish done on a purl machine. Unlike a serged edge, the stitches are extremely close together and much tighter. This stitch is typically done with a matching thread but sometimes a contrast color is used as a fun design detail. Purl edge hems are best executed on delicate, fine fabrics like organza, gossamer, or tulle. They provide a nice accent on lingerie and sleepwear pieces.

Lettuce Edge Hem:

This hem leaves your garment with a wavy, rippled edge. It's constructed with a tight purl stitch and the fabric is stretched as it's being sewn- resulting in a wavy, "lettuce" edge finish. This technique must be done on knits or bias-cut fabrics for proper execution. Lettuce edge hems are always a dainty option, most commonly seen on girl's skirts and dresses.

Cuffed Hem:

A cuffed hem is a turned-back hem, often seen on sleeves or pants, that is turned towards the front instead of the back. Cuffed hems are turned at least twice to conceal raw edges and prevent fraying. Cuffed hems are pressed but not stitched completely down like other hems. Instead they are stitched or tacked at side seams and at front and back. Cuffed hems are extremely convenient for pants and sleeves as they can be let out and lengthened very easily.

Which types of hems do you like the most? Having knowledge of the different types of hems will not only elevate your designs, but shape the function, aesthetic, and durability of your garment. For more sample-making knowledge, check out our Source, Design, Create Online course!

And for FREE weekly fashion business insights, check out our Fearless Fashionpreneur Facebook Group and don't forget to share this info with your designer friends! 🙂

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Which Types of Hems Will Work Best for My Designs? - Fashion Angel Warrior

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Then You've Come to the Right Place! Even if you're new to the sample-making process, you're probably aware of all the nitty-gritty details that make up a stellar garment. Seams and hem finishes are the most overlooked, yet fundamental parts of your design.

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A Generation's Buying Decisions Have a Major Impact

Each generation brings new outlooks and demands to the consumer market when making purchase decisions. Generation Z is no exception to this rule as more start to enter adulthood and ultimately influence the business landscape through their purchase decisions. Businesses now face a significant hurdle in defining what the key drivers are that affect Gen Z's buying decisions, as they are poised to become the largest consumer market by 2020.

This infographic created by GreenMatch seeks to explore the importance of sustainability to generation Z and how they choose to support sustainable causes through their purchase decisions.

How consumers choose to spend their money will have a significant impact on the behaviour of companies as they strive to meet changing consumer demands or expectations. Generation Z is continuing the trend set by millennials in choosing to spend more money on goods from sustainable or ethical companies.

If you would like to use this infographic use the embed code below:

Generation Z differs from millennials concerning brand loyalty. Gen Z is not as receptive to loyalty programmes as the previous generations. However, companies can still garner loyalty from Gen Z through sustainable actions. Gen Z actively seeks out sustainably produced goods and companies when making purchases, with 25% always seeking out sustainable products and 67% doing so some of the time.

Millennials displayed a strong preference towards switching to companies that are more ethical, as 9 out of 10 surveyed said they would switch to a brand that aligns with their values. This trend is being continued by Gen Z, as they show less brand loyalty overall and are more willing to switch to brands that align with their values.

Gen Z goes past merely looking at a label when shopping and strives to understand the company they are purchasing from. If the company does not match Gen z's values, they are more then willing to switch to a brand that better aligns with their values. In contrast, if they find a brand that better matches their values regarding sustainability, then they are more likely to switch to that brand, even if it means paying a price premium.

Generation Z is more prepared than past generations not to purchase or even boycott companies that do not meet their expectations. 40% of Gen Z that were surveyed have boycotted a company in the past, with an additional 49% considering it in the future. This is a powerful implication that will shape the business landscape to come as Gen Z will shortly become the largest consumer market globally.

The buying habits of Gen Z have yet to be fully discovered, but it is clear that the next generation will change the business landscape through greater consumer activism than past generations.

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4 Ways Gen Z Supports Green Companies | GreenMatch

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Each generation brings new outlooks and demands to the consumer market when making purchase decisions. Generation Z is no exception to this rule as more start to enter adulthood and ultimately influence the business landscape through their purchase decisions.

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Analysis of the factors affecting the lead time for export of readymade apparel from Bangladesh: Proposals for strategic reduction of lead time

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Analysis of the factors affecting the lead time for export of readymade apparel from Bangladesh: Proposals for strategic reduction of lead time

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Potential for US manufacturing as an alternative to Asia

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Potential for US manufacturing as an alternative to Asia

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When glimpses of coronavirus' impact on fashion manufacturing became evident, brands around the world had to get ahead of factory closures, striking a complicated balance between ordering enough inventory to survive but not so much that it became a big financial burden.

For many brands in the U.S., that process was made easier by the flexibility and agility provided by manufacturing locally. But not every brand was afforded that luxury. For the last several decades, American fashion manufacturing has declined greatly, due to the availability of lower cost and better quality of manufacturing elsewhere.

"You cannot produce clothing in the United States, and that's a problem," said Amy Smilovic, founder of Tibi. "When I started in Hong Kong some years ago, my factory looked like IBM's headquarters. It was clean, it was modern, every floor had a different stage of the production process, and it all looked amazing. I couldn't believe when I moved back to New York and looked at manufacturing here. There's no high-end manufacturing here like there is in China or Italy or Turkey. There are some places that can do it well, but you can count them on one hand. In Italy, it's an entire section of the phonebook."

Jens Grede, founder of Frame, said on the Glossy podcast that bringing manufacturing back to America is crucial for brands to avoid the inventory problems that many are facing now. But manufacturing employment in the U.S. went from 28% in 1960 to 8% in 2017. China, on the other hand, has seen massive growth in apparel manufacturing, growing 5% per year from 2014 to 2019. Today, Chinese factories bring in more than $380 billion in annual revenue.

With more brands questioning past reliance on a single country like China for manufacturing, and a growing belief that shorter lead times and less inventory are the key to avoiding big losses during a crisis, a resurgence of American manufacturing is in demand.

"One of the advantages of American manufacturing is that you can pivot so much faster," said Kristen Fanarakis, founder of contemporary brand Senza Tempo. "I had planned [to roll out] all these separates for around this time, things for wearing to the office - which is obviously a no-go now. But thankfully, my atelier in Los Angeles was able to switch gears really fast, and we pivoted over to sundresses and some comfortable stuff in a matter of weeks. It's not always easy manufacturing here, but it's paid off now."

Manufacturing lead times, from initial product development to a shipped product, can be up to three months in China. Fanarakis said her factory has reduced production due to the coronavirus, reducing employee capacity by about a third and cutting their hours so that no one is traveling during rush hour. But the resulting delays have been worth it, due to the comparatively quick access to products.

Haverhill Leach, founder of jewelry brand Haverhill Collection, said that when she first heard her Rhode Island factory was closing, she spent more than $20,000 on a giant order of finished components, including silver chains and thousands of stones. She brought them to her home, which is also in Rhode Island, along with some manufacturing equipment for welding and cutting the pieces. She and her husband were able to assemble and finish ordered pieces from home. Leach said sales of custom items have tripled in the last two months, due to being able to offer much shorter turnaround times just in time for Mother's Day, one of the brand's biggest days for sales.

"We could not have done that otherwise, if our factory was in China," Leach said.

But manufacturing in America has a price. Without the robust infrastructure of manufacturing hubs like China and Italy, there's a cap on how much brands dedicated to manufacturing in the U.S. can actually produce. Fanarakis said if you want to manufacture at a small scale or are making something simple like T-shirts, you can probably find someone in the U.S. who can do it for you. But there aren't apparel factories that can offer the kind of volume or intricacy of product that massive Chinese factories can.

"Brands that are more niche and only ship a few thousand things per month are a perfect fit for American-made," said Ari Jogiel, founder of his eponymous manufacturing company that produces clothing for brands in Los Angeles.

"I will never move [manufacturing from] the U.S., for personal reasons," Fanarakis added. "But the amount that I can scale is dependent on what I can make here. Especially if you want to make a huge amount of stuff, the U.S. just doesn't have the infrastructure."

Both Fanarakis and Smilovic said, for manufacturing in the U.S. to take off, more needs to be done than just a few brands making small batches of product in the states and the CFDA putting out noncommittal statements about the importance of manufacturing locally.

"You really have to have everybody on board," Fanarakis said. "The government needs to incentivize it. Right now, there is no cost or tax incentive to manufacture in the U.S., as opposed to China or somewhere else. And if you want people to manufacture here, you have to incentivize it. That's Econ 101."

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Why demand for U.S. fashion manufacturing is on the rise - Glossy

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With more brands questioning past reliance on a single country like China for manufacturing, and a growing belief that shorter lead times and less inventory are the key to avoiding big losses during a crisis, a resurgence of American manufacturing is in demand.

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Click Here to Get the
Asia Import Platform: General Products
Lead times, when outsourcing production to Asia, involves much more than assembly, packing and shipment. Yet, many importers are far too optimistic about the time it actually takes to get from deposit payment to delivered produce.

In this blog post, we guide you through the four phases of production, quality assurance and delivery. We also explain how you by simple measures can reduce the risks for serious delays, and why you need to consider the risk of quality issues.

1. Tooling Production

Custom designed products, and components, often require additional tooling, such as injection molds. Prints, for example logos, may also require additional tooling, which by most manufacturers must be ordered from a subcontractor. Making, and adjusting, a new mold may take anything between 14 to 60 days, depending on its complexity. However, the tooling is usually good for more than one order, sometimes hundreds of thousands of units. In other words, this lead time can be deducted from all future orders.

2. General Production Time

When a manufacturer states a certain production time, they are not only referring to the time it takes to assemble the items. For some products, the assembly process is very brief, and is counted in days, sometimes even hours, for small quantities. However, production cannot begin the day after you've paid the initial deposit.

As Chinese manufacturers maintain a minimum amount of materials and components, purchases must be made from the subcontractors - which in turn may need to start production on their end. This is why manufacturers in most industries hesitate to set a production time shorter than 30 days. Then again, the production time varies greatly depending on the industry, and the volume ordered. However, in most cases, the production time is set somewhere between 30 to 60 days.

3. Quality Assurance and Compliance Testing

Upon completion of mass production, a wise importer assigns a Quality Inspector to check up on the goods, prior to delivery. While an inspection can be scheduled with short notice, often within 72 hours, the QC report and its photos may not be available until a day or two after the occasion. Delivery of reference samples, if required, may take up to a week, sometimes more, to arrive. All in all, it adds up.

Buyers in the United States, Europe and Australia may also be required to submit product samples for compliance testing, which is even more time consuming. In my experience, it can take days before testing companies even issue their invoice, and then another 10 to 14 days before the results are back.

4. Shipping and Logistics

This is the part is what most importers worry about. However, this is the only lead time where you can actually be quite certain to avoid delays. First, the cargo must be transported from the factory to the nearest Port of Loading. This doesn't take much longer than a few hours, but include scheduling and waiting time, and you're looking at one to three days.

Upon arrival in the Port of Loading, the cargo is then placed in temporary storage in a warehouse. Depending on the arrival timing, the cargo can usually be loaded on the next container vessel within 2 to 4 days. Obviously, the transit time varies entirely depending on location. Below follows an overview for a a few routes:

Shenzhen - London: 29 days

Shenzhen - Hamburg: 30 days

Shenzhen - Los Angeles: 19 days

Shenzhen - New York: 33 days

Shenzhen - Vancouver: 17 days

Shenzhen - Sydney: 13 days

Shenzhen - Melbourne: 15 days

Shenzhen - Singapore: 7 days

As the cargo lands in the Port of Destination, the cargo must first be unloaded and go through customs clearance, all of which adds on another two to three days, before the cargo can be forwarded to the final destination.

Lead Time Summary

Managing Delays

As if what you just read wasn't bad enough, it does get worse. Many Chinese manufacturers are all but masters of time management. Delays during the production is anything but unheard of. Yet, it is possible to at least make sure that its not your order that's put on hold.

Chinese suppliers rarely hesitate to take accept new orders, even if their production plan is already filled to the brim. After all, once a buyer has wired the deposit payment, they are stuck, and will think twice before taking their business elsewhere. Yet, what you can do is to make sure that it's the other sucker that gets his or hers patio furniture delivered in late October, rather than you. The solution is something as simple as a late delivery clause in the sales contract, written as follows:
If the entire batch of products is not completely manufactured, packed and made ready for inspection, within XX days (counting from the date of the deposit payment), a deduction of US$XXX shall be made from the balance payment, for each consecutive day, until this requirement is fulfilled.
In all honesty, it is still not an easy task to enforce a breach of the late delivery clause. That said, this has saved our clients from delays for years, and I cannot remember a serious reported delay for at least the last 3 years. Considering the number of clients, and orders, we've managed since then, I dare to say that it works quite well. Still, it does make sense, even from the supplier's perspective.

Imagine that you, as a factory owner, can't keep your production schedule and must choose between two buyers. The first has no late delivery clause, perhaps not even a sales contract, while the other requires a daily deduction of US$500. I dare to bet you'd prioritize the latter.

Quality Issues

A Late delivery clause is likely to make the supplier think a few times before putting your order on hold. However, the more serious delays are often caused by factors, outside of the suppliers (direct) control. A statement I often make while writing for Chinaimportal.com, is that quality issues are certain. The question is not if, but how severe they'll be.

Serious quality issues, both cosmetic and functional, may sometimes not be discovered until the later stages of production, or even after the entire batch is packed. In a situation where a high number of defects are discovered during the pre-shipment quality inspection, the only wise decision is to start over from scratch and order a remake. Same goes for compliance issues, in case your product fails such testing.

Do you want to launch your own private label or custom designed product?

We know how hard it can be to go from an idea, to a mass produced and profitable product. The Starter Package is the only all-in-one solution that includes everything you need to get through every step of the process:

a. Private Label & OEM Product Manufacturer Lists

b. Product Specification Templates

c. Product Label Samples

d. Compliance Document Samples

e. Tutorials, Video Walkthroughs and Task Lists that guide you step-by-step through the entire process

In addition, you can also book quality inspections, lab testing and shipping directly from the platform. Click here to learn more.

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Production & Lead Time in Asia: A Complete Guide

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Click Here to Get the Asia Import Platform: General Products Lead times, when outsourcing production to Asia, involves much more than assembly, packing and shipment. Yet, many importers are far too optimistic about the time it actually takes to get from deposit payment to delivered produce.

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Mainly based in China

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Why is it so common for garment factory workers to be paid less than a living wage? Part of the answer is the West's appetite for cheap clothing. In short, if consumers are not paying for it, somebody else is. But Keren Pybus, co-founder of Ethical Apparel Africa (EAA), doesn't think ethical production and cost-competitiveness are mutually exclusive.

Half sourcing agent, half capacity building trainer, the company founded in 2015 works with factories in Ghana and Benin connecting them with international clients that order in high volumes while training them on how to comply with international standards and invest in continuous improvement so that even more orders will come in the future -- and, eventually, top fashion brands will want to move to West Africa as well.

FashionUnited spoke with Pybus to learn more about EAA's trajectory, work and mission.

First, I'd like to ask you to introduce yourself to our readers. Tell us a bit about your career and the journey that led you to found EAA.

I have always had a passion for clothing and textiles. The most significant role in my career was moving to Bangladesh to start a sourcing office for George Clothing. Living in such an interesting country, working directly in and with factories everyday, taught me about the challenges faced in running a manufacturing unit. Through this I was always searching for programmes, tools and processes that could ensure the workers' pay was fair and their working environments were safe.

However, I always had a yearning to return to Africa, having lived in Tanzania when I was 18. When work took me to South Africa, I thought that was my dream job. But, once there, I still wanted to be part of something that would change the industry for the better. To cut a long story short, I was made redundant pretty soon after that which gave me the shove I needed to start looking at the industry in Africa. I met my co-founder and business partner Paloma Schackert when we were both consulting in West Africa and discovered a joint vision. Together we pitched for a USAID training contract in Ghana and Ethical Apparel Africa was born.

How did you find out that Ghana and Benin would be the ideal place to start an ethical manufacturing business?

Ghana has a rich heritage of textile and clothing production for the local market but in recent years has been really affected by the influx of imported second hand clothing. The country has some great factories but they lack experience of producing for export.

Both Ghana and Benin are well positioned to be competitive exporting countries due to the low cost of living, fast shipping times to the USA and Europe, and duty free agreements with Europe and the USA under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Combine this with African-owned factories where the CEOs are passionate about creating sustainable and worthwhile jobs. This gave us a perfect landscape to shape an industry from the start and create best ethical practices rather than trying to fix what had been broken previously.

What challenges did you encounter when first starting EAA? What challenges do you face now, four years later?

Same challenges as any startup: cashflow and making sure you hire the right people. Paloma and I didn't take a salary for the first 2 years of the business and instead invested it in building the right team. The main challenge now is persuading brands to be the first movers into a new territory. Despite all the advantages I just mentioned, brands are often nervous or want to consolidate their supply bases rather than expand. However, once they visit and see the potential, generally they are ready to go on the journey.

How many brands work with EAA at the moment? The website mentions three: Blake Mill, Paw5 and Hurleys. Can you mention any others?

es, we are working with other brands but not all of them want it to be publicized. They are generally in the uniform, shirt or accessory businesses. A couple of others include the UK-based Butler & Butler and The Dutch workwear company Groenendijk.

Please tell us a bit more about the capacity building work EAA does. What does EAA help factories with and how? Is this work still backed by USAID?

We work on capacity building programmes with USAID and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). Each programme has different strands to it that include training local factories on technical aspects such as production planning, lean production and quality reporting systems, specialized skill training in areas such as mechanics and digital pattern creation, supply chain development working on unlocking the cotton to garment potential in the region, and supporting factories in attracting investments to expand.

Would it be possible for another company to replicate EAA's work in another region? Say, if somebody would try to start something similar in Bangladesh, would it be possible?

We believe in our operating model. If you invest in operational excellence in the factory and remove excess waste in time, WIP, overheads etc, then there is enough money in the system to invest into worker empowerment programmes and benefits. Every country is different so challenges could be similar or different - for example how supportive is the government? Change for me is two-pronged. The brands need to understand more deeply the costings and what is reasonable to pay to deliver living wages. The factories need to work on ensuring their efficiencies are the best they can be. Then, together, the profits need to be invested into the workers and not into company or owners pockets.

If so many brands say they're committed to becoming more ethical and sustainable, and manufacturing in West Africa is economically advantageous, why don't we see more fashion brands moving their production to West Africa?

Fashion (meaning styles that change constantly) is hard to manufacture and large brands are not easy to work with. They expect short lead times and flexible production lines. West Africa is still at the beginning of its journey and is developing by producing core product in volume such as uniforms and accessories so they can build their capacities. West Africa also needs to be fully vertical which is not an impossibility given it is the 6th largest cotton growing region in the world.

How are your partner factories doing in terms of internal sales? Are they more able to compete with the influx of secondhand clothing from the USA and Europe now?

They are getting there, the local market is growing again especially in the T-shirt and polo business, but it is still a huge challenge and won't be going away anytime soon.

What are EAA's plans for the future?

EAA is establishing a Center of Excellence for Technical Training worth 2.4 million US dollars (1.9 million pounds) and set to launch later this year. By 2023 we want to create 2500 sustainable jobs in our partner factories, enabling their workers, of whom 70 percent are women, to support their families and uplift their communities. We want to help catalyze the growth of the Ghana apparel industry to employ over 10,000 individuals by 2023.

Photo: courtesy of EAA

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Will Ghana be the new sourcing hub? Q&A with Keren Pybus of Ethical Apparel Africa

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Why is it so common for garment factory workers to be paid less than a living wage? Part of the answer is the West's appetite for cheap clothing. In short, if consumers are not paying for it, somebody else is. But Keren Pybus, co-founder of Ethical Apparel Africa (EAA), doesn't think ethical production and cost-competitiveness are mutually exclusive.

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Ghana as an emerging source country for manufacturing clothes

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Ghana as an emerging source country for manufacturing clothes

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Biopolishing is an environmentally-friendly process that uses enzymes to extend the lifetime of cotton knits and soon, additional fabrics.

In biopolishing, the enzymes remove protruding fibers from the surface of the fabric, leaving a clean surface. This improves dyeability, and it creates better-quality, longer lasting, more sustainable textiles. The biopolish effect is permanent - even after 30 washes.

Surveys show that consumers want clothes that last longer. This presents an opportunity for brands to differentiate their products toward consumers. It gives mills and laundries the chance to differentiate their products towards brands.

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Biopolishing is an environmentally-friendly process that extends the lifetime of cotton knits and other fabrics. Using enzymes instead of chemicals gives mills and laundries an effective tool to save water, time and energy. It creates better-quality, longer lasting, more sustainable textiles.

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Styled by you

We love to see how you style your favourites from H&M and H&M HOME: Keep sharing your personal style with @HM and #HMxME for a chance to be featured at hm.com, in our marketing materials and in our stores.

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Poster - White/Washing instructions - Home All | H&M GB

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We love to see how you style your favourites from H&M and H&M HOME: Keep sharing your personal style with @HM and #HMxME for a chance to be featured at hm.com, in our marketing materials and in our stores.

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Journal of Textile Engineering & Fashion Technology

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Research Article Volume 5 Issue 6

Mafzal Ahmed,¹ Tarikul Islam,² Md Sujan Ali³

¹Department of Textile Engineering, Port City International University, Bangladesh
²Department of Textile Engineering, Jashore University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh
³Department of Textile Engineering, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Bangladesh

Correspondence: Dr. Mafzal Ahmed, Professor, Department of Textile Engineering, Port City International University, Chittagong-4225, Bangladesh, Tel +8801714289982

Received: November 05, 2019 | Published: November 28, 2019

Citation: Ahmed M, Islam T, Ali MDS. Study on different types of defects and their causes and remedies in garments industry. J Textile Eng Fashion Technol. 2019;5(6):300-304. DOI: 10.15406/jyeft.2019.05.00217
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Now a days Garments defect is one of the most important factors of the apparel manufacturing industry because it creates a negative effect on actual productivity. This paper aims with Different types of Defects which are the common term in the garment industry. In this research we have found that it is very essential to know about different types of Garments Defects. In garments industry these defects are dependent upon the classification of defects and an inspector's ability to make decisions. If there is no idea of garments defects identification then it will be a tough job, but if it is known properly then it is an easy task to identify defects. So must know all types of Garments defects if we are involved with the apparel industry. It is the responsibility of the garments manufacturers to maintain a required Garments quality standard for each and every product they are offering or delivering to the buyers. After reading this project we have found that the idea about all types of garments defects like fabric defects, cutting & spreading defects, sewing defects and finishing defects.

Keywords: garments defects, defects name, defects causes, defects remedies, fabric defects, cutting & spreading defects, sewing defects, finishing defects

In present the ready-made Garments is one of the parts of parcel of Garments sector. On the other hand the ready-made garment is totally incomplete without sewing process. But it is true that, sometimes we do not get the expected result in this section.It is because of lack of proper skill, machine disturbance and improper machine adjustment. Due to these obscurities fault occurred and effects quality, productivity, expense and also efficiency. So Quality standards are part of a firm standard operating procedure, product development and production planning. Standards reflect the overall intrinsic quality level the firm seeks to achieve. The fundamental purpose of using quality standard is to provide consistency between products and products line.

Defect in the garments industry is a common phenomenon that hampers the smooth production rate and focus on poor quality products having an impact on overall factory economy. Minimization of defects is a must in quality and productivity improvement. Rework is a vital issue for poor quality product and low production rate. Reworks are the nonproductive activities focusing on any activity that customers are not willing to pay for. Non productive activities describe that the customers does not consider as adding value to his product. By reacting quicker in minimization of reworks to make a product as per customer demand with expected quality, the company can invest less money and more costs savings.

Because of maintaining standard or quality of product it is mandatory to detect the fault and find out the best solution to diminish the error. Among the process control list, product control chart was used in the study. "Defect Detection", has the objective of identifying defect cause and impending real-time means of uncovering of faults.

The defect of sewing section has a great relationship between quality and productivity. If more defects are found after sewing, then negative impact on costs of the product. There is different plus to identifying an imperfection before other operations hinder seam removal and re sewing. This observation is based upon the current system in which the operator serves as the first line of quality control implementation. And other sewing stations have no operator to serve in the first line quality control position. Then finally assessment procedure of defect was done and find out the best suggestion.

Controlling defects is the key factor for garments quality control. As mentioned in this article, these 6 areas have quality checkpoints to find out all types of defects found in the apparel industry. Cutting, sewing, washing and finishing all section have specific defect which effect on whole garments quality. So it is clear that if we don't control these defects in every section we will not able to much profit. Here we will discuss and give a list of every section wise defects to understand easily. And we will also show the causes of the defects and what their remedies.

The main object of this project is to minimize these defects. That's why the production is increased because without minimize the defects it is not possible to increase productivity. So our aim is to promote indigenous manufacturing of high quality trims and accessories and to produce defect free garments.
Materials

1. Fabric inspection machine

2. Cutting machine

3. Sewing machine

4. Inspection table

5. Light source

6. Paper

7. Pencil

8. Hard board

9. Calculator etc.

Methods
Different types of defects which are found in garments industry and their remedies.
Seam Puckering
Seam puckering refers to the gathering of a seam either just after sewing or after laundering causing an unacceptable seam appearance ( Figure 1).
Causes:

1. Uneven stretching on to plies of fabric during sewing.

2. Improper thread tension.

Remedies:

1. Feed dog, eyelets and thread guides should be checked periodically for damages.

2. Machine feed mechanism must be better quality.

3. Tension, SPI and presser foot pressure should not be fiddled with.

Open seam or broken seam
Portion of the garment that has not been covered by sewing thread ( Figure 2).
Causes:

1. Improper handling of the parts of garments.

2. Improper setting and timing between needle and looper or hook etc.

Remedies:

1. Clear markings for stitch line.

2. Proper setting and timing between needle and looper or hook.

3. Tension should be quantifiable.

Broken Stitch
Non-continuous sewing thread ( Figure 3).

Causes: It appears due to improper trimming or machine usage.
Remedies:

1. Needle plate, presser foot and feed dog should be checked periodically for damages.

2. Tension and threading should not be fiddled with much.

3. Proper trimming.

Drop stitch/Skipped stitch
Irregular stitching along the seam ( Figure 4).

Causes: It appears due to improper handling of cut pieces or machine usage.
Remedies:

1. Placing of needle properly.

2. Needle size & thread size must be adjusted.

3. The pressure of pressure foot must be adjusted accurately.

Uncut/ loose thread
Extra threads or loose threads on seam line ( Figure 5).

Causes: It appears due to improper trimming or finishing.
Remedies:

1. UBT/thread trimmer should be used

2. Operator training.

3. Garments finishing should be checked properly.

Distorted knitting
Causes: These defects can be identified by looking at the surface area; they usually appear as irregular on the fabric ( Figure 6).
Remedies:

1. Better inspection of fabric and cut piece.

2. Ensure that fabric and cut pieces that are not up to standard are not put into line and production is wasted.

Seam slippage
Causes: This happens when the yarns in the fabric are pulled out of the seam and are more frequent in fabrics made from continuous filament yarns ( Figure 7).
Remedies:

1. French seam type can be tried.

2. Seam width can be increased.

Needle threads breakage Causes:

1. Thread gets trapped at the thread guide.

2. Irregularities or damages in needle guard, throat plate, bobbin case and needle eye (Figure 8).

Remedies:

1. Use a foam pad or a similar device to prevent the package from tilting.

2. Ensure that the re-threading is done correctly.

3. Replace the needle with one of better quality.

Analysis the cutting and spreading defects
From Figure 9, It shows that the cutting and spreading defects percentage before rejection and after rejection. This inspection has done in JMS Garments Ltd. which is satin based woven fabric industry but here twill also be made. It is found that the defect percentage and the rejection rate was more than average 4% at the preliminary stages. And after solving the findings, the rejection percentage was less than 4% for all defects which ultimately reduced the defects and increased productivity.

Analysis the sewing defects
From Figure 10, it illustrates different types of defect in sewing section in before and after. From our survey we can clearly say that most of the garment faults occurred in sewing section. So the sewing section is more responsible for fabric faults. To produce excellent quality of garments the sewing section must be improved.

Figure 10 Sewing defects.
Analysis the finishing defects
From Figure 11, It is shown that different types of defect in finishing section. And it's also shown the percentage of rejection before and after. In before the rejection rate was more but after analysis we able to decrease about 50% rejection of all defects. That plays a vital role to improve productivity.

Figure 11 Finishing defects.

At last we have completed our thesis after a long time and lots of inspection, experiment & discussion. From this project, we have gathered a large experience. We have also increased our knowledge and learn how to Garments process is done, defects of Garments & how those problems are minimized. That's why it has to be sold at lower prices, which creates a huge value loss to the company. To minimize the value loss due to variety of defects occurring in the fabric, a manufacturer should try to minimize fabric defect from every processing steps. An automated defect detection and identification system can enhance the product quality and results in improved productivity to meet both customer demands and to reduce the costs associated with off quality.

From our project work, we can say that, all the processing steps from cutting and spreading to finishing are responsible for different kinds of fabric defects. We have done project work is very careful with successfully. We found in the industry every person is very helpful and positive attitude. Finally, we can recommend that this project will be very helpful in our job life.

None.

None.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

1. Jadhav SS, Sharma GS, Daberao AM, et al. Improve productivity in garments industry with time study. International Journal on Textile Engineering and Processes. 2017;3(4):1-6.

2. Rahman M, Baral LM, Chodhury AM, et al. Quality management in garments industry of Bangladesh. Journal of Management of sustainable Development. 2009;1:29-35.

3. Hashi MR. Different types of defects identification and controlling method for quality and productivity improvement. IOSR Journal of Polymer and Textile Engineering. 2016;3:1-18.

4. Uddin SM, Rahman CML. Minimization of defects in the sewing section of a garment factory through DMAIC methodology of six sigma. Research Journal of Engineering Sciences. 2014;3(9):21-26.

5. Islam MM, Khan MA, Khan MMR. Minimization of reworks in quality and productivity improvement in apparel industry. International Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 2013;1(4):147-164.

6. Islam T, Khan SA, Sakib MH, et al. Analysis of major defects position and percentage in sewing lines of a garments factory with the help of pareto chart, cause effect diagram and sigma level. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research. 2017;8(7):1885-1890.

7. Munirathinam S, Ramadoss B. Predictive models for equipment fault detection in the semiconductor manufacturing process. International Journal of Engineering and Technology. 2016;8:273-277.

8. Gopalakrishnan D, Nayak A. Defects in garments. 2008.

9. Kiron MS. Seam defects and common seam quality. 2014.

10. Karthik T, Ganesan P, Gopalakrishnan. Apparel manufacturing technology. 2018.

11. Fashion 2 Apparel. Garments defects causes and remedies. 2016.

12. Clothing Industry. Major sewing defects garments. 2018.

©2019 Ahmed, et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.

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Study on different types of defects and their causes and remedies in garments industry

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Now a days Garments defect is one of the most important factors of the apparel manufacturing industry because it creates a negative effect on actual productivity. This paper aims with Different types of Defects which are the common term in the garment industry.

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Warp way Defects

The warp way defects are:

A crack seen along the length of the fabric between the stripes woven with different weaves.

Differences in warp release due to uneven beam surface.

Differences in crimp relationship of ends grouped in separate dents in the reed and in weaves.

Avoid uneven build of beam surface by proper system of denting at the sizing machine.

Ensure that denting at weaving is such that ends of the two weaves are not separated by a reed dent.

More than one end working in a heald eye without the adjacent end missing.

Sticky ends on weavers beam

Wrong drawing-in of ends through heald eyes.

Defect in a woven fabric where warp and weft threads do not interlace as desired.

Broken end getting entangled with the adjacent warp ends. The breaks between reed and healds are more prone to form floats, especially when the warp loses its elasticity due to over stretching or over-backing during sizing.

Knots with long tail ends leading to entanglement of ends.

Fluff with long tail ends leading to entanglement of ends.

Fluff or foreign matter trapped in the shed.

Broken heald unable to lift or lower the thread.

Lighter type of warp stop motion pins used on the loom.

Attend to broken ends without delay on looms equipped with warp stop motion; ensure proper functioning of the same.

Avoid long tail ends in knots in weaving preparatory and weaving.

Ensure cleanliness of loom.

Take maximum possible care while blowing the looms.

Use screens to avoid fluff flying to adjacent looms.

Inspect the healds for wear before putting on a new beam.

Ensure proper selection of drop pins.

Incorrect positions of ends in the fabric causing considerable damage in fabrics with woven design or stripes.

Faulty drawing-in of beam.

Faulty drawing-in of broken ends by the weaver.

Bring the defect to the notice of the drawing-in operator.

Ensure periodic inspection of the fabric on loom by the supervisory stuff.

Void caused by a missing warp thread in the fabric.

Failure of weaver in attending to warp breaks immediately.

Warp stop motion not acting properly.

Missing the incidence of lappers during sizing.

Use spare ends on loom as a substitute for the missing ends.

Instruct the weaver to attend to warp breaks immediately.

Discourage the weaver's habit of waiting for the broken end on the beam to advance sufficiently for knotting.

Inspect the drop pins while putting on a new beam and weed out the defective ones.

Check the warp stop motion assembly.

Fine cracks appearing across the fabric between groups of warp ends, matching with the pattern of denting in the reed.

Individual warp thread floating over a group of weft threads. Defect is more prominent in synthetic blended warps due to static electricity generation and hairiness of these yarns.

Ensure proper sizing.

Ensure proper size recipe.

Prefer slightly higher tension on warp.

If necessary, introduce lease rods between the healds and the drop pins.

A warp end having diameter larger than normal.

Stripes running in warp way direction characterized by apparent differences in shade from the adjoining portions, arising mainly as a result of variation in the amount of light transmitted and reflected from groups of threads.

Short, medium and long-term variations in warp and/or uneven spacing of dents in the reed. Coarser count and closer spacing of ends appear lighter while finer count and wider spacing appear darker in shade than the normal portion of the finished fabric.

Mix-up of yarns of different luster, count or blend proportion.

Faulty drawing-in ends, e.g. double ends, missing ends etc.

Variations in package and beam dyeing.

Improve the quality of warp since normal control exercised on count variation proves inadequate to prevent streakiness.

Check the condition of reed.

Use all metal reeds which give better results compared to pitch-bound reeds.

Ensure early shed timing and lower warp tension to help lessen the prominence of streaks in the fabric.

Adopt good materials handling system with proper storage and identification of materials to avoid mix-up of yarns.

Bring the defect to the notice of operators.

Take care to match the shade when mixing a freshly dyed lot with the old stock, especially in the case of synthetic and blend materials.

The weft way defects are as follow:

Restricted to fabric woven with patterns on drop box looms. It occurs either when the sequence of weft colors to be put is disturbed or when the width of color band is affected.

Weft is inserted only for a portion of a pick.

Check the shuttle for loose fitting of pirn or roughness of surfaces as these cause more weft breaks.

Check also the shuttle boxes for settings and surface condition to prevent cutting of weft.

Check the shuttle and shuttle boxes.

Ensure proper size of bunch on auto-pirns.

Maintain the weft-fork mechanism in good working condition.

Resort to pirn change by weft feeler mechanism.

Resort also to pick finding before restarting the loom.

A defect generally randomly distributed over the fabric, not clearly visible in the grey stage, but becomes pronounced in the finished fabric.

Two or more picks inserted in the same shed where only one is desired.

Foreign matters like lint or waste or pieces of harness strapping and leather accessories woven into the fabric.

Thick bunches of yarn are woven into the fabric in the weft direction due to slipping off of coils of yarn from the pirn during weaving.

An abnormally thick place in the yarn finally appearing in the fabric.

Undrafted portion in the yarn.

It is a short length of yarn, mostly weft, which has spontaneously doubled back on itself. The snarling tendency is latent in highly twisted yarns. In some fabrics, the snarls are found to be randomly spread over the width of the fabric, while in some other cases, they are restricted to a region at a fixed distance from one of the selvedges.

A thick or thin place is produced in the fabric due to variation in pick density while starting the loom.

A higher pick density than the normal is referred to as starting mark while a lower pick density is referred to as crack.

Weft bars differing in appearance and repeating several times along the fabric.

Set the let-off and/or take-up motion properly.

Weft way bands which are clearly distinguished from the rest of the portion of the fabric. The bars may be restricted for a particular length of fabric or may repeat at fixed intervals.

Ensure strict supervision on pick density at the start of a beam.

Take precautionary measures.

Other fabric Defects

Hole or tear in fabric

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woven fabric defects with their causes and remedies

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textile apex: woven fabric defects with their causes and remedies

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Woven Fabric Defects with their Causes and Remedies

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Warp way Defects The warp way defects are: A crack seen along the length of the fabric between the stripes woven with different weaves. Differences in warp release due to uneven beam surface. Differences in crimp relationship of ends grouped in separate dents in the reed and in weaves.

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Defects spoil the aesthetics of the fabric and hence causes a gigantic quality issue. In this series of articles, we are going to discuss various defects that can occur in knit and woven fabrics, the embroidery defects encountered and also the dyeing and printing ones.

Defects in knits are caused due to the faulty raw material, faulty knitting elements, wrong machine settings or faulty dyeing and finishing processes.
Raw Material (yarn) Related defects:
There is a simple way to idntify yarn related defects: these defects mostly appear in the horizontal direction in the fabric.
Some of the major yarn related knit fabric defects are:

* Barriness: Horizontal Stripes or streaks of uniform or uneven width, visible in the fabric.
*Feeder: helps to feed the yarn through the machine
* Imperfections: Imperfections are the occurrence of knots, slubs, thick or thin yarns, and neps in the fabric.

* Contaminations: When foreign matter like dead or dyed fibres or husk, etc appear in the fabric.

* Snarling: Snarls are big twisted yarn loops on the fabric surface.

* Spirality: Spirality is when after washing garment gets twisted, and the seams of the garment get displaced from the sides of front and back of the garment.

Knitting Elements Related Defects
These defects appear vertically in the fabric. There are two main defects that come under this categorization:

* Needle and Sinker Lines: Prominent or feeble vertical lines across the fabric.

* Drop Stitches (or holes): Appearance of small or big random holes in the fabric.

Knitting Machine Settings Related Defects
The defects that appear due to wrong machine settings or faulty machine parts come under this category:

* Yarn streaks: Thin horizontal lines that appear at irregularly spaced intervals and are of various sizes.

* Fabric Press off: Appearance of holes in the fabric due to an interruption in a loop formation.

* Broken Ends: a bunch of ends knitted at a point.

Unlike woven fabric, yarn strength in knit fabric is of secondary importance in the quality management of the fabric, as the load that the yarn undergoes during knitting is lower than that in weaving. But knit fabric yarn must have elasticity and should be even with no thick and thin places to ensure quality and prevent frequent needle breaks. Yarns with low friction and even moisture content are hence the preferred choices. When using knit fabrics or when involved in knitting process, keep in mind the above-described defects with their causes and remedies to ensure required parameters are being met, and the fabric thus obtained is of the demanded quality.

Image sources:

* http://www.slideshare.net/OliyadEbba/faults-remediespreventive-measures-in-knitted-fabric-dyeing
http://www.slideshare.net/88azmir/fault-of-knitted-fabrics
* http://www.slideshare.net/sheshir/an-investigation-on-the-inspection-of-grey-finished-knit-fabric-in-wet-processinge
* http://textilecollection.blogspot.in/
* https://shosh101.files.wordpress.com/

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Classify The Fault: Defects In Knit Fabric

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Defects spoil the aesthetics of the fabric and hence causes a gigantic quality issue. In this series of articles, we are going to discuss various defects that can occur in knit and woven fabrics, the embroidery defects encountered and also the dyeing and printing ones.

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For every industry or business, to get increased sales and better name amongst consumers and fellow companies it is important to maintain a level of quality. In the garment industry quality control is practiced right from the initial stage of sourcing raw materials to the stage of final finished garment. For textile and apparel industry product quality is calculated in terms of quality and standard of fibres, yarns, fabric construction, colour fastness, surface designs and the final finished garment products. However quality expectations for export are related to the type of customer segments and the retail outlets. There are a number of factors on which quality fitness of garment industry is based such as performance, reliability, durability, visual and perceived quality of the garment. Quality needs to be defined in terms of a particular framework of cost.

The national regulatory quality certification and international quality Programmes like ISO 9000 series lay down the broad quality parameters based on which companies maintain the export quality in the garment and apparel industry. Here some of main fabric properties that are taken into consideration for garment manufacturing for export basis:

Overall look of the garment.

Right formation of the garment.

Feel and fall of the garment.

Physical properties.

Colour fastness of the garment.

Finishing properties

Presentation of the final produced garment.

There are certain quality related problems in garment manufacturing that should not be over looked:

Like open seams, wrong stitching techniques used, same colour garment, but usage of different colour threads on the garment, miss out of stitches in between, creasing of the garment, erroneous thread tension and raw edges are some sewing defects that could occur so should be taken care of.

Colour defects that could occur are difference of the colour of final produced garment to the sample shown, accessories used are of wrong colour combination and mismatching of dye amongst the pieces.

Wrong gradation of sizes, difference in measurement of a garment part from other, for example- sleeves of XL size but body of L size. Such defects do not occur has to be seen too.

During manufacturing process defects could occur like faulty zippers, irregular hemming, loose buttons, raw edges, improper button holes, uneven parts, inappropriate trimming, and difference in fabric colours.

Garment defects, classified according to the various manufacturing stages are:

Some parts of pattern are missing, probably because the marker did not include the correct number of parts. Mixed parts, probably because the marker is not correctly labeled, resulting in a marriage of wrong sized parts. Patterns not facing in correct direction on napped fabrics. Not all patterns facing in same direction (either way) on a one-way fabric. Patterns not aligned with respect to the fabric grain. Poor line definition (e.g. too thick chalk; indistinctly printed line, perforated lay not powdered) leading to inaccurate cutting. Skimpy marking, caused by either the marker did not use the outside edge of the pattern; or the pattern was moved or swung after partial marking to squeeze the pattern into a smaller space for economizing the fabric. Marking back from miniature markers also can cause trouble unless the miniature marker making is in the hands of experienced operators. Alternatively the full size pattern may be having worn out edges.

Generous marking, especially in combination with skimpy marking results in components being sewn together with puckering and pleating. When the marker is too wide, the garment parts at the edges of the lay get cut with bits missing. Not enough knife clearance freedom. Wrong check matching, i.e. lines across the seam are not matching.

Wrong check boxing, i.e. checks are not showing a full or partial box across the seam.
Notches and drill marks omitted, indistinct or misplaced.

Not enough plies to cover quantity of garments required. Plies misaligned, resulting in garment parts getting cut with bits missing in some plies at the edge of the spread. Narrow fabric, causes garment parts at the edge of the lay getting cut with bits missing. Incorrect tension of plies, i.e. fabric spread too tight or too loose. This will result in parts not fitting in sewing, and finished garments not meeting size tolerances. Not all plies facing in correct direction (whether 'one way' as with nap, or 'one way either way' as with some check designs). This happens when fabric is not spread face down, face up, or face to face as required. Unacceptable damages in the garment parts. Parts not fully included owing to splicing errors. Spread distorted by the attraction or repulsion of plies caused by excessive static electricity. Plies are not spread accurately one above another for cutting. This results in mismatching checks.

Failure to follow the marker lines resulting in distorted garment parts. Top and bottom plies can be a different size if the straight knife is allowed to lean, or if a round knife is used on too high a spread. Notches, which are misplaced, too deep, too shallow, angled, omitted, or wrong type to suit fabric .Drill marks, which are misplaced, wrong drill to suit fabric, omitted, not perpendicular through the spread. Frayed edges, scorched or fused edges, caused by a faulty knife, not sharp enough, or rotating at too high a speed. Knife cut. Garment part damaged by careless use of knife, perhaps overrunning cutting previous piece. Marker incorrectly positioned on top of spread. Garment parts have bits missing at edge of lay. If too tight or too loose then garment parts are distorted. Slits opened inaccurately or omitted.

A rotation, usually lateral, between different panels of a garment resulting from the release of latent stresses during laundering of the woven or knitted fabric forming the garment. Twist may also be referred to as Torque or Spirality.

It is very natural that in the course of knitting fabrics, imperfections occur. The imperfections may be the result of faulty yarn, knitting machine malfunction or improper finishing. The defects in knitting construction are considered in terms of appearance and nature.
Various Types of Defects in Knitted Fabrics

There are different kinds of bands and streaks that may occur in knitting. Some of the popular defects are as follows:

v A Barrie effect has the appearance of a stripe with shaded edges. It is horizontal in weft knits and vertical in warp knits. The barrie effect is caused by various factors like:

v : Needle lines or vertical lines are due to a wale that is either tighter or looser than the adjacent ones. This is caused by needle movement due to a tight fit in its slot or a defective sinker.

There are various kinds of stitch defects like:

Where the thread is being broken where one seam crosses another seam (ex: bar tacks on top of waistband stitching, seat seam on top of riser seam) resulting in stitch failure.

Where thread on the stitch line is broken during stone-washing, sand blasting, hand sanding, etc. Broken stitches must be repaired by re stitching over the top of the stitch-line.

Where thread is being compromised by the chemicals used during laundering resulting in loss or change of color and seam failure.

Generally occurs on 401 chain stitch seams where either the stitch has been broken or a skipped stitch has occurred. This will cause seam failure unless the seam is Re stitched.

Where there is a "splice" on the stitch line. If this occurs on Topstitching, then the seam does not appear to be 1st quality merchandise. Caused by:

1. Thread breaks or thread run-out during sewing; or

2. Cut or broken stitches during a subsequent treatment of the finished product (I.e., stone washing).

Where the pocket does not lay flat and rolls over after laundering.

Where the stitch forming device misses the needle loop or the needle misses the looper loop. Skips are usually found where one seam crosses another seam and most of the time occurs right before or right after the heavy thickness .

Where the edge of the seam is either extremely "ragged" or "rolls" inside the stitch.

Where the seam does not lay flay and is wavy due to the fabric stretching as it was sewn or during subsequent laundering and handling operations.

Solutions for wavy seams on stretch Garments

Where hem is not laying flat and is skewed in appearance.

Is where the side seam twists around to the front of the pant and distorts the appearance of the jeans.

Is where the thread looks much smaller on seams sewn in the warp direction than in the weft direction of the fabric.

It is the thread picks up the indigo dyes from the fabric giving the thread a 'dirty' appearance. A common discoloration would be the pick-up of a greenish or turquoise tint.

Poor Colorfastness after Laundry is where the thread does not wash down consistently in the garment or changes to a different color altogether.

Quality is ultimately a question of customer satisfaction. Good Quality increases the value of a product or service, establishes brand name, and builds up good reputation for the garment exporter, which in turn results into consumer satisfaction, high sales and foreign exchange for the country. The perceived quality of a garment is the result of a number of aspects, which together help achieve the desired level of satisfaction for the customer. Therefore quality control in terms of garment, pre-sales service, posts sales service, delivery, pricing, etc are essentials for any garment exporter.

D. Gopalakrishnanis the faculty in South India Institute of Fashion Technology & Arpita Nayak is the student of UG Technology Programme (Apparel Manufacturing & Information Tech.)
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Defects In Garments, Sewing Defects, Colour Effects, Sizing Defects

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In the Garment Industry quality control of practiced right from the initial stage of sourcing raw materials to the stage of final finished garment. There are some certain Defects in Garments like Sewing defects, Colour effects, Sizing defects and Garment defects.

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Your customers should never discover fabric defects in any of your products. Knowing these defects will ensure they never surprise you or your customers.

As a garment importer touring your supplier's factory, you likely have one thing on your mind: the anticipation of customer satisfaction as they buy an item from your product line.

But there's a problem.

The "quality" fabric from your supplier doesn't meet your standards. In fact, it has a lot of problems. Fabric inspection reveals countless defects ranging from drop stitches to color shading variation.

The scale of defects makes it clear the garment manufacturer will have to cut around the issues to use the fabric, wasting material in the process.

Where do these kinds of fabric defects come from? And how can you prevent them from negatively impacting fabric quality ( related: How MMI Textiles Improved Fabric Quality to Retain Key Customers [case study])?

The 4-point system is the industry standard for evaluating fabric quality in the inspection industry. This system assigns penalty points to a roll of fabric according to defect size, quality and significance.

But you must understand the different types of fabric defects to look for before you can use the 4-point system. Read on or click the links below to jump to different sections to learn more about each of these fabric defects.

1. Horizontal lines

This fabric defect is defined by irregular lines that run from side to side. Horizontal lines are generally caused by:

Faults in the bobbin (the barrel used to hold yarn in place)

Irregular thread tension

Causes and prevention of horizontal lines

Preventing the appearance of horizontal lines in fabric is quite straightforward. Regularly replace the bobbin and frequently check thread tension and positioning.

2. Shade variation

One of the more obvious visual defects that can be found on raw textiles, shade variation is defined by a difference in depth of shade and color from roll to roll or piece to piece. Shade variation in fabric is caused by:

Mixing of fabrics used in production

Variations in the production process with regard to time and speed

Improper cutting, bundling and/or numbering

Unequal fabric stretching

Causes and prevention of shade variation

Using the same base material and set of parameters for each production lot can effectively prevent shade variation.

When visiting a factory that manufactures raw textiles, it's critical to ensure workers are only combining garments of the same color and not taking shortcuts when cutting and bundling. Properly numbering textile types prevents mistakenly combining cuts that vary in shade.

3. Dirt/stains

Stains are fairly common among dyed textiles and are defined as spots or patches of differing color. Textiles are never truly safe from stains because they can occur anytime during or after production if they're not kept in an area with adequate protection.

Stains can appear on fabrics from just about any source. Dirt from the factory floor, oil from machinery and dyes are all known sources. Stains are relatively easy to identify and prevent so long as suppliers are vigilant about fabric quality.

Causes and prevention of dirt/stains

Your manufacturer can prevent stains during production by regularly cleaning production machines and equipment to ensure no random oils, grease or dyes make their way onto the textile.

Wrapping the finished rolls of fabric in plastic and storing them in a separate area away from the dying area can help avoid post-production stains.

4. Uneven dyeing/printing/dye marks

Dye marks are irregular patches on the surface of raw textiles. Dye marks are typically the result of:

Low quality base fabric

Improper leveling agents

Incorrect pH in the production process

Dye machine entanglement

Causes and prevention of dyeing/printing/dye marks

Ensuring there are no initial problems with the base fabric prior to stitching can help prevent dye marks. Any issues missed will be present in later production processes.

Other preventative measures include maintaining the correct pH level, using an appropriate dying agent and using a backup power generator to ensure production machines don't shut down during use.

5. Drop stitches

One of the most common quality issues found in raw textiles, drop stitches are holes or missed stitches that appear randomly in the fabric. Drop stitches are typically caused by:

Incorrect set-up of yarn carriers

Slubs and knots

Yarn overfeeding or underfeeding

Loose stitching during the production process

Causes and prevention of drop stitching

Checking the yarn carrier and any other machines to verify they're set to the right tension during production can prevent drop stitches. You can minimize the occurrence of drop stitching in your fabric or textile by regulating the yarn feed rate.

Resetting the pattern chain can fix this issue.

6. Misprinting, off printing or absence of printing

Misprint defects are only relevant to printed fabrics. Misprint is when the print of the fabric does not match your specified design. This is usually displayed in one of the following ways:

Colors and/or patterns are completely or partially missing

Colors and patterns are incorrectly positioned relative to each other

Causes and prevention of misprinting

Misprints are most often the result of:

Wrong dyeing recipe

Wrong leveling agent

Incorrect dye combinations in lots

Improper scouring of grey fabric

Implementing uniform dyeing, leveling and scouring processes can help prevent misprinting.

If you're sourcing a printed fabric, make sure to provide clear specifications regarding the colors and patterns of your printed fabric to your factory. Consider providing pantone color numbers and design files as a guide for your supplier.

7. Crease marks

A crease mark is a visible deformation in fabric. A crease mark differs from a crease streak, as it's unlikely to appear for an entire roll. Rather, it appears in just one spot on the fabric.

If final pressing cannot restore fabric to the original condition, a crease mark will be left on the final product. Discoloration can also be a problem associated with this fabric defect.

Causes and prevention of crease mark

Crease marks often happen when fabric passes through squeeze rollers in the dyeing process. Creasing is inevitable as fabric is fed through machines in rope form. But if properly handled, crease marks should not be permanent.

Crease marks can be caused by:

Inadequate preparation, relaxation or bulking of fabric

Poor quality of fabric: a tight construction, high twist yarns or dense weight

Poor suitability of machine: not moving folds properly

Incorrect loading of fabric into machine, resulting in twisted or knotted rope

Excessively rapid heating or cooling rates

Along with rectifying these issues, using anti-crease agents during the scouring process prior to dyeing can help prevent crease marks.

8. Barre

A barre is an unintentional, repetitive visual pattern of continuous bars and stripes.

Barre will typically appear as a horizontal streak of light or dark bars running the width of the fabric. The bars must appear in a repetitive pattern to be considered barre. Barre is typically found parallel to the filling of woven fabric or to the courses of circular knit fabric.

Barre is usually not detected until after the processing of fabric at the end of production.

Causes and prevention of barre

Barre is a result of physical, optical or dye differences in yarns or geometric differences in fabric structure. Any combination of these differences can cause this fabric defect.

Like many fabric defects, it's easier to prevent barre than to try and rectify it after production. Consistency in raw material organization and labeling can help prevent mix-ups leading to barre, as well as continual equipment maintenance. Following a First In First Out (FIFO) inventory system can help ensure consistent material flow and usage.

9. Neps/knots

Neps are small, tightly tangled knot-like masses of unorganized fibers that form a pinhead shape. These knots are usually comprised of dead or immature fibers.

Neps can be categorized into three types:

Biological: Found in raw materials, these neps contain foreign material such as seed coat fragments, leaf or stem materials. The manufacturer can usually remove them through wet processing.

Mechanical: Found in ginned lint, card web, yams and cloth, these neps are largely a result of mechanical processing.

White speck neps: Generally not visible until dyeing, white speck neps contain immature clusters of fibers and are considered the most severe type of neps.

Causes and prevention of neps

Neps are caused when spools of yarn are tied together. This might be a result of:

Accumulation of fly and fluff on machinery

Poor lint cleaning

Poor carding and incomplete removal of neps before processing

To prevent neps and knots, ensure proper maintenance and cleaning of machinery and roller clearers. Neps can be removed through combing before processing, so early detection of neps is critical to preventing neps in finished fabrics.

10. Abrasion marks

An abrasion mark is a discolored area damaged by friction or rubbing. Abrasion marks are sometimes also referred to as chafe marks or bruised places.

Causes and prevention of abrasion marks

Chafing or impact with a hard or rough surface usually causes abrasion marks. For instance, scratches on the breast beam of the loom might cause chafing.

Abrasion resistance is the ability of a fabric to withstand surface wear and rubbing. Fiber, yarn and fabric properties and finishing processes are the main factors that determine abrasion resistance.

Using fabrics that are more abrasion resistant can help reduce abrasion marks. Nylon is generally regarded as having the best abrasion resistance, followed by polyester.

11. Splicing

Splicing is the overlapping of the cut ends of two pieces of fabric (the end of one length of fabric and the beginning of another) to ensure continuous spreading. Splicing is necessary as one roll of fabric finishes and the next is taken into use.

But these overlapping ends of fabric produce a waste material in manufacturing. Splicing losses can vary up to five percent of total fabric usage. Importers can ensure greater manufacturing efficiency by minimizing splicing in their fabric.

Many importers assign four penalty points under the 4-point system for each splice found during fabric inspection.

Causes and prevention of splicing

The position of the splice in a roll of fabric often depends on the overall fabric quality. Splicing is often used to compensate for other fabric defects, like stains or holes, by removing these from the final roll.

So improving overall fabric quality and preventing other fabric defects can often help to minimize splicing losses.

Setting a maximum length tolerance for splicing in each roll of fabric with your supplier can help to clarify your expectations (e.g. no more than one splice every 30 meters). Be sure to consult your supplier on this tolerance before production to ensure it is achievable.

12. Holes

A hole is an imperfection where one or more yarns are sufficiently damaged to create an opening in the fabric.

Holes are typically treated as a major defect in the fabric and are assigned either two or four penalty points during fabric inspection, depending on their size.

Causes and prevention of hole

Holes are usually caused by an accidental cut or tear to the fabric. Broken needles or rough mechanical parts are common culprits for fabric tearing during manufacturing.

Prevent future holes by ensuring your supplier has procedures in place to regularly check needles and machinery prior to production.

13. Defective selvage (cut, waved or creased)

Selvage is the densely woven edge of a piece of fabric. Most often used in reference to woven fabrics, the selvage is supposed to keep the fabric from unraveling or fraying.

Selvage can be defective in a number of ways, including cut, waved or creased. Cut selvage might also be referred to as broken selvage or ripped selvage.

Causes and prevention of defective selvage

There are two main culprits for defective selvage:

An incorrect loom adjustment during weaving

Improper edge construction

Correctly adjusting the loom and properly constructing the edges of the fabric should prevent this defect.

14. Snags

A snag is a part of the yarn that is accidentally pulled or plucked from the surface. Usually it appears as a large loop of yarn above the surface of the fabric.

In warp knits, the snag occurs in the wale direction. In weft knits, the snag occurs in the course direction.

Causes and prevention of snag

In the case of continuous filament yarns, snagging is typically caused by mechanical strain during knitting. Sharp points and objects can cause the fabric snag at any time. Inspect the fabric contact points on all the processing machines to identify and fix any sharp points.

Some fabrics are more prone to snagging than others due to their composition. You can conduct a mace snag test to determine a fabric's resistance to snagging. During this test, a miniature mace (a spiked ball) will track randomly across a fabric sample to predict actual wear and snagging.

15. Thick place/thin place

These are unintentional changes in fabric appearance as compared to adjacent construction. If the thick or thin place is more than one inch wide, it is typically classified as a major defect in fabric inspection.

A thick place will appear as a small area of more closely spaced yarns or by a congregation of thick yarns. A thin place is the opposite, as the fabric will appear to have loosely spaced yarns or a congregation of thin yarns.

Causes and prevention of thick place/thin place

Main causes of thick and thin places include:

Irregular let-off

Incorrect setting of holding and releasing pawls on the ratchet wheel of take-up motion

Gears of take-up motion not meshing properly

Gear wheel teeth worn out or broken

Ensuring proper training of factory personnel to set the let-off and/or take-up motion properly can help prevent this fabric defect.

16. Bowing and skewing

Bowing is a condition in woven textiles where filling yarns are displaced from a line perpendicular to the selvages and lie in an arc across the width of the fabric. Bowing appears as rows of courses or yarn-dyed stripes forming a bow shaped curvature along the fabric width.

Skewing is a similar condition in which filling yarns are angularly displaced from a line perpendicular to the edge or side of the fabric.

Bowing and skewing affects striped or patterned fabric quality more than for solid color fabrics, as the greater contrast in patterns makes the distortion more prominent.

Causes and prevention of bowing and skewing

Bowing and skewing can be caused by an uneven distribution of tension across the fabric width during dyeing or finishing processes. Improper stretching during scouring, dyeing or finishing might also cause bowing or skewing.

Correcting the tension settings on processing machines should rectify these defects. You can also ask your supplier to fix bowing and skewing found during fabric inspection by reprocessing the fabric through a compactor or straightening machine.

17. Needle lines

Needle lines appear in weft knit fabrics, and appear as prominent vertical streaks or lines in the fabric.

Causes and prevention of needle lines

Defective needles are a direct cause for needle lines. Needle latches, hooks or stems might be:

Mixed

New

Dirty or contaminated with lint

Bent

Worn

If needle lines occur individually, you'll likely only need to trace the needle line to the associated defective needle and replace it to prevent further needle lines. If needle lines appear in a band, you'll likely need to replace multiple defective needles.

An improper dial or cylinder condition with the machine might also cause needle lines. Verify that your supplier has established and maintained proper maintenance and cleaning policies to prevent future issues with needles and equipment.

18. Coarse pick

A coarse pick is where the filling yarn used in the fabric is unusually large in diameter. This defect is also known as coarse filling or thick filling.

Coarse pick is usually classified as a major defect during fabric inspection.

Causes and prevention of coarse pick

Probable causes for coarse pick include:

Lashing of broken end with adjoining end at roving frame

Disturbed weight of back-top rollers at roving frame and ring frame cause the material to slip under the back-top roller and crease a coarse yarn

19. Coarse end

Coarse end appears in fabric with warp yarn.

Also known as heavy end, this is when the warp end is larger than normal in diameter, even sometimes double in size. The opposite is a fine end, when the warp end is smaller in diameter than normal.

The diameter of the yarn is too large, irregular or contains foreign material, which inhibits a smooth, even fabric.

Causes and prevention of coarse end

Coarse end is caused when two bobbins of roving (wool that has been run through a mill on a carding machine) are running together during spinning. The process of running two bobbins together during spinning is commonly referred to as doubling and is used to remove variations in thickness.

To prevent coarse ends, ensure there are no knots, irregularities or foreign materials in the roving prior to doubling.

20. Broken pick

This defect appears as a broken filling yarn in the fabric weaving. It appears as a sharp discontinuity in the weave pattern over the pick length.

Causes and prevention of broken pick

A broken pick is the result of a break or cut in filling yarn, which results in the insertion of a partial pick in the fabric. This can happen after weft break, weft exhaustion or a faulty weft fork mechanism. Correcting weft stop motion will ensure broken picks are detected before they're inserted into the fabric.

Ensuring weaving personnel are trained to identify and replace a broken pick during production can also help prevent the appearance of this defect in the finished goods.

21. Broken end

A broken end appears as a broken, untied warp end of a fabric. The yarn is usually broken during weaving or finishing. Broken ends appear as equidistant horizontal lines along the fabric width.

Causes and prevention of broken end

This defect is caused by yarn breakage. When the yarn breaks during weaving or finishing and is then woven into fabric the result is a broken end.

Some possible causes for broken ends include:

Poor preparation

Weak or irregular yarn

Excessive warp tension

22. Missing end/end out

This defect will appear in fabric as a fine warp-way crack until the weaver rectifies it.

A missing end typically appears at the selvage of the fabric. Missing end is also known as "end out" and is typically classified as a major defect during fabric inspection.

Causes and prevention of missing end

A missing end occurs when an extra piece of filling yarn is jerked into the fabric by the shuttle. This happens when a warp yarn is broken or missing during weaving.

Your fabric may end up with missing ends if a weaver improperly draws broken ends in place or the warp stop motion isn't properly functioning. Weaving should stop immediately when a yarn breaks to prevent introducing missing ends into the fabric.

23. Filling bar

A filling bar, also known as a weft bar, is a visual band or bar across the full width of fabric. The area will contain less than the normal number of picks, appearing different from the rest of the fabric.

Causes and prevention of filling bar

There are three main causes of a filling bar:

Defective spinning processes that lead to a variation in the count of weft yarn

Mixing of different counts or different twist yarns

Faulty take up motion on the looms

Ensure your supplier has proper controls and organizational processes to eliminate mix-ups and segregate yarn to prevent this fabric defect. In addition, ensure proper operation of spinning and loom machinery to eliminate mechanical causes.

Conclusion

Whether you're using fabric to produce inexpensive, promotional t-shirts or high-end furniture upholstery, a clear understanding of the various types of fabric defects will help you prevent them. Learning how to identify various fabric defects and their causes can help you ensure fabric quality meets your standards.

Prior to production, consider setting a defect tolerance for fabric quality issues in a QC checklist. Establishing a mutually agreed upon system for identifying and classifying fabric defects can limit potential disputes with your supplier down the line.

If you're tired of dealing with quality complaints and product returns, consider relying on a third-party inspection company for fabric inspection. Investing the time and effort to rectify issues and prevent future fabric defects will ensure your product meets company and customer standards.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2016 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness. Learn how third-party inspection helped one fabric importer reduce quality defects and improve fabric quality in our case study below!

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23 Fabric Defects to Look Out for During Fabric Inspection

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Your customers should never discover fabric defects in any of your products. Knowing these defects will ensure they never surprise you or your customers. As a garment importer touring your supplier's factory, you likely have one thing on your mind: the anticipation of customer satisfaction as they buy an item from your product line.

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Seaweed has been known for its health benefits as a superfood, but did you know that it can also be made into a fabric? New technologies are constantly being explored and incorporated by the textile industry, resulting in innovative textile solutions such as fabric made with seaweed.

Let's have a look at what is seaweed used for, what is seaweed fabric and specifically what is SeaCell fabric.

Health Benefits of Seaweed

Seaweed, otherwise known as marine phytoplankton, is the ocean's healthiest green superfood and it has been used in Asian cuisine for many years. It is extremely versatile and can be used in a variety of dishes, including sushi rolls, smoothies, salads, soups and stews, garnishing and seasoning and also supplements, to give you these benefits:

Seaweed helps to reduce inflammation.

It increases brain power.

Seaweed contains anti-aging nutrients.

It also enhances stamina.

So it is incredibly effective at keeping your mind and body at its best, so imagine if it can be incorporated into fibers, and becomes what is seaweed fabric then.

Seaweed is a rich source of antimicrobial nutrients and also has anti-inflammatory properties, making it an inherently healthy source for skin-friendly fibers. Fabrics made with seaweed fibers are said to harness the benefits of deep sea minerals and trace elements.

What is Seaweed Fabric?

Seaweed fabric was originally discovered more than a hundred years ago, during the first World War, when textile manufacturers were experimenting with many different sources of materials to make fabric. Because of the lack of a commercial source for pure alginates, the first seaweed yarns were irregular in dimensions and had variable properties.

Sodium alginate is the chemical that is derived from kelp, and the production process, over several years, was improved after the introduction of a high grade sodium alginate.

Seaweed fabric is made by using algae from the sea. Brown algae, called Ascophyllum nodossum, commonly known as Knotted Wrack, is normally used. Wrack is a family of seaweed with many strains that grow all over the world.

Knotted Wrack is found in the Icelandic fjords and around the coastline of the British Isles. Harvesting in the Icelandic fjords means there is no pollution and waste from ship's traffic, so the seaweed is extremely clean and without pollutants.

Seaweed fabric uses cellulose fiber and it is made using the same lyocell process as Tencel and some bamboo, but seaweed is the plant source, making it a true fabric from the ocean.

Seaweed is a renewable cellulosic fiber and if you would like to know more about what is cellulosic fibers, then please read this related post: Viscose fabric - the textile made from cellulose.

What is SeaCell fabric?

SeaCell is a type of seaweed fabric and it is made by the Florida based corporation, Nanonnic Incorporated. No farming or animal use is involved in the innovative and progressive seaweed fabric, Seacell. It comes from a resource that is in abundance in our oceans, namely seaweed.

The properties of seaweed make it an inherently healthy source for skin friendly fibers and to become the fabric from the ocean.

SeaCell is made by mixing cellulose with seaweed to create a yarn. It locks the properties of seaweed into a wearable fabric, and becomes what is SeaCell fabric.

How is Seaweed Fabric and SeaCell Made?

The manufacturing process to make what is seaweed fabric then, is very similar to that used to make viscose, but seaweed, rather than wood pulp, is used. By using amine acids and water, the cellulose in the plant is broken down, while the chemical structure remains the same.

A solvent spinning process is used to dissolve cellulose directly in a solvent containing water.

It goes through the processes of washing and retting.

The solution is filtered.

The pulp materials can be fed through a spinneret with thousands of holes.

By applying pressure, a filament fiber with varying thicknesses, will be produced.

Fibers are then spun into yarns.

Yarns can be used for weaving or knitting fabrics.

To become what is SeaCell fabric, the fabric is made in the same way as lyocell, with a percentage of seaweed added. The method that is used saves on both energy and resources, combining saltwater seaweed with sustainable cellulose.

The cellulosic fibers stabilize the seaweed and is the functioning substrate in SeaCell, and seaweed is added as the active ingredient.

What is the lyocell process? it refers to the process of making cellulose fibers, which is made from dissolving pulp and then reconstituting it by dry jet-wet spinning. Lyocell has become the generic name for cellulose fiber and is obtained by a closed loop organic solvent-spinning process. Lyocell is a man-made material that is made from wood cellulose or pulp and it is known in the USA under the brand name Tencel.

Discover more about what is a cellulose fiber in this post on What is cellulose pulp and what is circulose.

Properties of Seaweed Fabric and SeaCell

It is awesome to see what is seaweed used for and due to the amazing properties of seaweed, seaweed fabric, fabric from the ocean, has many benefits:

It is breathable and light.

Fabric is soft and supple against the skin.

The nutrients in seaweed, including iron, magnesium, calcium and vitamins A, B12, C and E, are retained in the fiber. Transfer of nutrients take place when the fabric comes into contact with skin and natural body moisture promotes the transfer.

Fabric is eco friendly and 100% biodegradable

Seaweed fiber is carbon neutral.

It has a high tenacity.

Flame retardant.

Seaweed fabric absorbs sweat faster than cotton, making it suitable for underwear and baby clothing.

Antioxidants that are in seaweed, react with the free radicals in the skin and will neutralize them, which helps to reduce environmental damage to the skin and slows down aging.

Contains metal ion which means it can screen electromagnetic waves.

SeaCell Active contains silver ions in the fiber and has additional benefits, including enhanced anti-microbial, anti-bacterial and odor reducing properties. Unfortunately nanosilver particles can enter wastewater and accumulate in bio solids, which could potentially affect microorganisms in soil. So nano finishing techniques are under debate.

Harvesting and Processing of Seaweed

Smartfiber AG harvests the seaweed every four years. The seaweed is cut just above the regenerative part of the plant. Special harvesting machines with blades are used for the harvest and the cutting is done without damage to the plants. The seaweed is then collected in nets.

Harvesting the seaweed is a selective, gentle and sustainable process. By cutting the upper portion of the plant, it encourages the plant to sprout more, ensuring the ecological value is retained.

The seaweed is dried naturally and coarsely chopped, without using any chemical treatments, thereby retaining the natural components of the plant.

The production process is energy efficient and environmentally friendly, using renewable resources.

Sustainable manufacturing methods conform to Oeko Tex Standard 100 that follows sustainable practices. The production to make what is seaweed fabric then, takes place in a closed loop. To become what is SeaCell fabric, is a patented process and firmly embeds the seaweed within a natural cellulose fiber.

What is Seaweed Fabric Used for?

The breathable characteristics make fabric made with seaweed suitable for active wear, and it blends well with other fibers. Some brands are blending the seaweed with organic cotton and silk.

Pangaia - Pangaia combines lightweight, saltwater seaweed fiber with GOTS certified organic cotton to make t-shirts. The combination is 20% seaweed fiber and 80% organic cotton. It is made in Portugal and treated with natural peppermint oil to keep it fresh for longer, thereby helping to reduce water waste. All threads, trims and labels are either recycled or sustainably sourced.

Knotted Wrack is used to produce the fabric made with seaweed. Pangaia is further helping to offset your carbon footprint by planting one mangrove tree for every item that is sold. Each mangrove tree stores up to one ton of carbon dioxide.

Reusable Diaper: In 2019 Luisa Kahlfeldt, a graduate from ECAL in Switzerland, won the Swiss James Dyson award for a reusable nappy made from SeaCell fabric. EcoRepel technology was used to make the nappy water repellent. The diaper is easily recyclable.

Lululemon Athletica uses SeaCell fabric in their VitaSea line of apparel and yoga clothes. Other sustainable brands that are experimenting with it include Orca Triathelate Outfitters, Adea Yoga Clothing and Falke socks and hosiery.

London fashion designer Leticia Credidio is using seaweed fabric in a collection of sleepwear and lounge wear, called Ocean Collection. The textile is a blend of SeaCell seaweed and Oeko-Tex modal. Modal is another cellulose fiber that is made using the lyocell process, but the source of wood pulp is beech wood.

Vollebak - A totally compostable t-shirt, made from wood pulp and algae, has been made by the London start-up company Vollebak. The wood pulp and algae t-shirt, which is totally eco sustainable, will decompose at the end of its life cycle of use.

Cellulosic fibers, to make the cellulose pulp, are obtained from eucalyptus, beech and spruce trees. The trees all come from sustainable sources. The pulp is used to create yarn that is then converted into fabric. A dye is produced from a special algae that Vollebak grew in the laboratory, and the algae ink is used for the prints.

An eco responsible production process is used with 99% of the water and solvent that are used to produce the pulp and turn it into fabric, is recycled and reused. The fabric looks like a normal t-shirt. The wearer can literally bury the t-shirt in the garden when it is no longer required and it will be destroyed in eight to twelve weeks.

Do not worry, it will not deteriorate while you wear it. It will only biodegrade when it is buried in the ground or put in compostable facilities, where it needs the correct soil heat, fungi and bacteria, to start disintegrating.

Although these t-shirts are currently sold for $ 110 each, the idea behind it can trigger a whole new generation of eco-friendly clothing. The t-shirt has been developed to be an innovative textile solution for the disposal of textile waste and it could help to reduce the 10.5 million tonnes of fabric that ends up in land fill each year.

Why is seaweed fabric not more widespread? Large scale production of fabric made with seaweed is not available, making it a scarce fabric. That means it is quite expensive and has a long lead time, but it is suitable for use by slow fashion brands

Related post: Fast fashion and Slow fashion - which is best?

Caring and cleaning of what is seaweed fabric is easy. It can be machine washed at 30°C, but do not bleach, tumble dry or dry clean.

More Possibilities of What is Seaweed Used for

If you have ever wondered what is seaweed used for, these are more applications:

I hope you have enjoyed learning more about what is seaweed fabric and what is SeaCell fabric, but if you have any comments or suggestions about what is seaweed used for, then please leave them below and I will get back to you.

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What is Seaweed Fabric? Fabric from the Ocean | Eco World

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Seaweed fabric is made with algae from the sea and is sustainable. All the health benefits of seaweed is retained in the fabric. It's a cellulosic renewable fiber that is kind to the skin. SeaCell fabric is a type of seaweed fabric

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Hemp is a natural plant fiber. It is a bast fiber, which means it comes from the stem of a plant (like linen, which hemp is often likened to, in addition to ramie, jute, flax, and bamboo).

In terms of sustainability, hemp is often considered a preferred fiber with less harmful environmental impact. Organic hemp is one of the most sustainable fibers you can use according to multiple sources, including the Textile Exchange and The Made-By Environmental Benchmark for Fibers (which gives non-organic hemp a "C" rating, while organic hemp gets an "A" - the best possible rating). It has many sustainability benefits, but harmful impacts can come from chemical retting, bleaching, and other processes so it is important to really vet your supplier.

Hemp has played a large and important role in human history, rivaling flax as the chief textile fiber of vegetable origin until the middle of the 19th century. It is assumed that humans have used hemp as long as they have used flax, with remains of hemp cloth dating back to the 5th millennium BC in China.
"We first introduced styles made using hemp with our Spring 2018 Ready to Wear collection. Considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly fabrics, hemp is naturally resistant to pests, requires relatively little water, and grows quickly. Hemp is a "sister plant," meaning it replenishes the soil for the crops around it and is ideal for crop rotation. Hemp feels like a new linen, softening with each wash and wear." "Like linen, hemp moves easily with the body, is breathable and easy to wear across different seasons. Hemp wrinkles less and can start pretty stiff, but softens quickly with each wash and wear. It's one of the most environmentally friendly fibers because it's naturally resistant to pests and requires almost no water to grow. It's also a sister plant, meaning it replenishes the soil for the plants around it." - Mara Hoffman - Mara Hoffman
According to Vote Hemp, approximately 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North and South America currently permit farmers to grow hemp. According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations data, Europe is the world's single largest hemp producing market, followed by China, South Korea and Russia (though data excludes some countries - most notably Canada, a major hemp producing and exporting country). In terms of hemp for textile use, China currently the world's leading producer of both textile-grade hemp fiber and of hemp yarn and textiles, according to Common Objective.

Hemp is unique among other crops in that every part of the plant has utility and potential market value. In addition to being used for fabric, hemp oil and seeds go into food and beauty products. Hemp can be used for building products, paints, inks, paper, composite boards, clutch pads, plastics, fuels, bio-diesel, and Eco-solid fuel. In fact anything that can be made from a hydrocarbon (fossil fuel) can be made from a carbohydrate, but strong lobbies still manage to keep the growth of this useful crop banned.
"Hemp has been one of the most significant crops for mankind up until this last century. It is astonishing to see how the widespread use of hemp has been deteriorated to such an extent that people barely recognize it as anything but a plant that 'gets you high'." - From MIT's journal Sustainability Considerations Hemp growing and cultivation has minimal environmental impacts - and can even be beneficial The Thistle Retting can have harmful environmental impacts.
If hemp is such great fiber, why isn't it more common? Well, it's complicated and political. But a few reasons include:
Processing of hemp can have harmful environmental impacts

Hemp is from the same species of plant, Cannabis sativa, as marijuana. Industrial hemp contains a mere 0.3 percent of THC, the substance responsible for the buzz when smoking weed (the cannabis present at a reggae fest, for instance, contains as much as 20 percent). Nonetheless, production in the United States is restricted due to hemp's association with marijuana, and the U.S. market is largely dependent on imports, both as finished hemp-containing products and as ingredients for use in further processing (mostly from Canada and China). Current industry estimates report U.S. hemp product sales at nearly $700 million annually.

Both hemp and cotton were labor intensive and costly when harvested and processed by hand. The cotton gin was patented in 1794 by Eli Whitney, long before George W. Schlichten patented the Decorticator in 1917, a machine to separate the fiber from the internal woody core of hemp stalks, reducing labor costs by over 90% and increasing fiber yield by 600%.

The Marihuana Tax Act applied in 1938 essentially ended hemp production in the United States, although a small hemp fiber industry continued in Wisconsin until 1958. Similarly in 1938 the cultivation of Cannabis became illegal in Canada under the Opium and Narcotics Act.

Our government treated industrial hemp like any other farm commodity until the early 20th century, when a 1937 law defined it as a narcotic drug, dramatically limiting its growth. This became even worse in 1970 when hemp became a schedule I controlled substance.

Congress included Section 7606 in the 2014 Farm Bill which authorized universities and state departments of agriculture to grow hemp, defined as cannabis with 0.3% THC or less, in states where it was legal. A number of states have established programs to allow hemp cultivation under license through the state department of agriculture. View the 2017 Vote Hemp Crop Reportto see the states which had hemp programs last year.

The Hemp Farming Act of 2018 is a proposed law to remove hemp (defined as cannabis with less than 0.3% THC) from Schedule I controlled substances and making it an ordinary agricultural commodity in the US.

Hemp Production is labor-intensive

Christopher Columbus sailed to America on ships rigged with hemp.

Hemp was grown extensively in colonial America by numerous farmers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag from hemp.

The original Levi Strauss were supposedly made from hemp canvas.

Historian Martin Booth estimated the English fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588 donned 10,000 acres of cultivated hemp. The emerging prominence of the English navy was the chief reason English farmers and later their American cousins were required to devote a share of their acreage to hemp. The Virginia Assembly in 1632 ordered "that every planter as soone as he may, provide seede of flaxe and hempe and sowe the same."

In 1941 Henry Ford built a car with a plastic made from hemp and wheat straw.

Potential impacts during customer use care

Hemp is a renewable fiber that grows extremely quickly and heartily in a variety of climates

Hemp does not require the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers to grow. In fact, it grows so quickly it is know to smother weeds. Nonetheless, pesticides and fertilizers are occasionally used and should be avoided.

There is currently no GMO hemp.

Hemp requires little water and usually no extra irrigation is required.

Hemp has can have a beneficial effect on soil by replenishing vital nutrients. In some areas, it is being grown on land to extract such pollutants as zinc and mercury from the soil. Its root system minimizes soil erosion. It can be planted repeatedly on the same land, and is often used as a "rotation crop" to heal the soil between growing other crops.

Hemp produces 250% more fiber than cotton and 600% more fiber than flax on the same land, and has the highest yield per acre of any natural fiber.

Suggestions: Ideally, use certified organic hemp. If that isn't possible, work together with your suppliers to ensure no harmful pesticides or fertilizers are used.

Hemp is biodegradable, unless bad stuff is added to it

Retting refers to the process in which the natural fibers are separated from the stem of the hemp plant (similar to retting flax and bamboo linen).

Chemical retting is frequently used due to its speed and control over uniform fiber quality. Chemical retting utilizes harmful chemicals and can cause further damage in the disposal of wastewater (rich in chemicals and harmful biological waste) if not properly treated.

Water retting can use high large amounts of water and energy (to heat water), in addition to creating biological pollution. Even when retted in natural stagnant ponds or rivers biological pollution can be a problem.

Suggestions: Dew retting is preferred in terms of sustainability, which requires no additional inputs of energy, water, or chemicals and allows nutrients to return to the soil through natural decomposition. If chemical or water retting are used, work with your suppliers to eliminate harmful chemicals, use renewable energy, clean and recycle water, and eliminate waste (especially toxic waste!).

More Sustainable Options

Once the hemp fiber is extracted from the stem, processing it into yarn is largely mechanical with minimal environmental impact.

Additional processing of hemp can include flattening the yarns with pressure to enhance natural luster, wet spinning, and the use of other treatments like softeners, wrinkle-resistors, dyes, bleaching and other finishes. This can involve using large volumes of water, energy (for things like boiling or heating in particular), and harmful chemicals.

Suggestions: Avoid harmful chemicals and pollutants (refer to RSL or organic standards), and if you have to use them make sure they cause no harm to workers or the environment, and that they are responsibly disposed of. Where water is involved: 1) try to reduce the amount needed, 2) recycle, and 3) clean wastewater (to either make it useful to be filtered back into your processing or safe if it becomes waste). Use less and better energy.

Production of hemp fiber requires a lot of hand labor and should be closely monitored to ensure good, fair, and safe labor practices.

Water, air, and environmental pollution (both chemical and biological) can not only harm the health of workers and people in communities near production, but impact their livelihoods by destroying local industries.

Suggestions: Look for Fair Trade certified or transparent suppliers. Identify all people (aka stakeholders) impacted by the production of your product and make sure they are not harmed in the production of your product.

Hemp Fiber Qualities

In terms of consumer care, hemp can be machine washed or dry cleaned. Because hemp can wrinkle easily, pressing is often required. That said, the amount of electricity used in a hemp garment's lifetime is relatively low.

Suggestions: Design for machine or hand washing over dry cleaning. Can the design be beautiful without ironing? Be sure to educate your customers about best consumer care practices (wash less, in cold water, hang dry, etc.)

How It's Made

Untreated hemp is completely biodegradable. Things like dye, toxic chemicals, blended fibers and trims can hinder biodegradability.

Suggestions: Design for optimal biodegradability. Be sure to educate your customers about how to dispose of the product, or even consider a company take-back program so you can re-use or properly dispose of the products you make.

Available Standards & Certifications
Look for hemp that is:

Certified Organic - You can search the GOTS Public Database to find certified vendors.

Dew Retted - Which is better than water or chemical retting, but takes longer.

Naturally Colored - Removing linen's natural color and adding artificial color can have harmful environmental impacts, so try to use linen in its natural form. If color must be altered, opt for natural dyes and non-chlorine bleaches such as hydrogen peroxide, ozone bleaching (using ozone gas), or enzymes.

Utilize sustainable design strategies

Hemp is one of the strongest and most durable of all natural textile fibers.

You could say it gets better with age! The more hemp is used, the softer it gets.

Hemp is resistance to UV light, mold, and mildew.

Hemp is highly absorbent, making it easy to dye and a good canvas for natural dyes. Depending on the plant and processing techniques, hemp can naturally be creamy white, brown, grey, almost black, or green.

Like linen, hemp has excellent thermo-regulating properties, ideal for keeping cool in warm weather or warm in cool weather.

Hemp can be machine washed and dried. It wrinkles less than linen and requires less ironing.

Hemp is very similar to flax in appearance. Hemp fibers can be 3 to 15 feet long.

Hemp's elastic recovery is very poor, it stretches less than any other natural fiber.

Hemp possesses anti-bacterial properties. (Hemp Traders shares legitimate, third party test results that prove this on their website.)

Hemp fibers can be very long - 3 to 15 feet!

A great description of the process of making Hemp fiber can be found here or here.
Organizations & Working Groups
Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) | A Textile Exchange standard, the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is recognized as the world's leading standard for textiles made from organic fibers. GOTS covers textile processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, exportation, importation and distribution. It does not cover the cultivation of the plant, which is covered by governmental organic standards like the USDA Organic. In order to label an article with GOTS, each site along the GOTS supply chain needs to be certified and the product itself needs to contain a minimum amount of 70% organic fiber material.

Organic Content Standard (OCS) | The Textile Exchange Organic Content Standard (OCS) relies on third-party verification to verify a final product contains the accurate amount of a given organically grown material. It does not address the use of chemicals or any social or environmental aspects of production beyond the integrity of the organic material.

OCS 100 is used for only for product that contains 95% or more organic material.

OCS Blended is used for products that contain 5% minimum of organic material blended with conventional or synthetic raw materials.

Fair Wear Foundation Labour Standards | A Code of Labor Practices is made up from eight labour standards derived from ILO Conventions and the UN's Declaration on Human Rights. This means the FWF Code of Labor Practices is based on internationally recognized standards which have been set through tripartite negotiation.

Vote Hemp | Vote Hemp is a Washington, DC based grassroots nonprofit organization working since 2000 to bring back hemp farming in the U.S. They are dedicated to a free market for hemp products and to changes in state and federal law to allow American farmers to grow the crop once again. The Federal Farm Bill of 2014 was a huge win for their grass roots advocacy movement. They also conduct market research and publish reports.

Hemp Industries Association | The mission of the Hemp Industries Association (HIA), a 501(c)(6) membership-based non-profit trade association, is to advance the hemp economy and educate the market for the benefit of their member businesses, the public, and the planet. Members of the HIA support ethical business practices, including accuracy in labeling, use of environmentally friendly technologies, sustainable and organic agriculture, high quality products and concern for human rights.
Suggested Reading
European Confederation of Flax and Hemp (CELC) | A European trade organization focused on all stages of production for linen & hemp. They act as a spokesperson for 10,000 European companies (including spinners, weavers, brands, and more) and oversees the fiber's development from plant to finished product. Created in 1951, the CELC conducts market analyses for the purpose of promoting the hemp and linen industries.

European Industrial Hemp Association | EIHA was originally founded as an association of the members of the European hemp industry. Regular members include primary hemp processors in the EU. Associate members may be associations, research organizations and companies as well as individuals working in the area of hemp and other natural fibres. Founded in 2005, EIHA today has 27 regular and more than 130 associated members from 37 countries. EIHA was founded to give industry a voice at the European Commission in Brussels. It has rapidly become a respected industry association that provides effective lobbying and serves as an information bank. The annual EIHA conference has become an attractive opportunity for members and visitors to meet, learn about developments and exchange views with their colleagues.

The Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance (CHTA) | The CHTA is a national organization that promotes Canadian hemp and hemp products globally. Established in 2003, the Alliance represents those involved in Canada's hemp industry. Members include farmers, processors, manufacturers, researchers, entrepreneurs and marketers. The key functions of the Alliance are to disseminate information, promote the use of nutritional and industrial hemp and coordinate research.

Indian Industrial HEMP Association (IIHA) | The Indian Industrial HEMP Association (IIHA) is a non-profit national organization focused on promoting Indian hemp and hemp products globally. Established in 2011, the alliance represents those involved in India's hemp industry, both nationally and globally. Its members include farmers, processors, manufacturers, researchers, entrepreneurs and marketers of hemp. The key functions of the alliance are to disseminate information, promote the use of nutritional and industrial hemp, and co-ordinate research. IIHA ensures the quality of hemp products sold in India or abroad by giving them an IIHA approved mark. It also controls the price of buying and selling raw material to maintain a stable market. IIHA collects hemp Industry data, technology and research.

"Fashion Fibers: Designing for Sustainability" By Annie Gullingsrud

"From Hemp To Tencel, Mara Hoffman's Spring 2019 Collection Stands Up For Sustainability" By Katie Shapiro for Forbes.com, September 2018
Reports & Studies
"U.S. Senate Votes To Legalize Hemp After Decades-Long Ban Under Marijuana Prohibition" By Tom Agnell for Forbes.com, June 2018

"The People's History" By The Thistle (MIT Publication), Volume 13, Number 2: Sept./Oct., 2000.

"So Is Hemp Legal Or What? It's Actually Not That Simple." By Svn Space Magazine, June 2018

"There's No Place Like Home, Especially if It's Made of Hemp" By Adam Popescu for The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2018

"Hemp as an Agricultural Commodity" By Renée Johnson, Congressional Research Service June 2018

"Life Cycle Analysis of Hemp Textile Yarn" By Lea Turunen and Hayo van der Werf for the INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - the French National Institute for Agronomy Research), January 2004
Other Resources
"Hemp Fibres for Green Products - An assessment of life cycle studies on hemp fibre applications" By European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) June 2011

"The European Hemp Industry: Cultivation, processing and applications for fibres, shivs, seeds and flowers" By Michael Carus, European Industrial Hemp Association (EIHA) ,March 2017
Bibliography
"Hemp: A New Crop with New Uses for North America" By Ernest Small and David Marcus

"Removing Pectin and Lignin During Chemical Processing of Hemp for Textile Applications" By Wang, Postle, & Kessler, Textile Research Journal 2003

These videos demonstrates hemp fiber production on an industrial scale:

Another informative video about hemp fiber:

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This pilot materiality index is designed as a fiber knowledge tool with learning descriptions. Visit the CFDA Materials Hub within Supply Chain Resources for expanded material innovation-based sourcing, a vendor index, and more.

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Our editors curate highly rated brands that are first assessed by our rigorous ratings system. Buying through our links may earn us a commission-supporting the work we do. Hemp fabric has undergone an image transformation in recent years, as shoppers and brands alike are learning of its versatility, strength, and potential sustainability. Learn more.
Hemp on the high ground

Hemp is the sober cousin of marijuana, and industrial hemp contains only a tiny amount of the psychoactive component of cannabis, so the only high you'll get from hemp fabric is the moral high-ground you'll stand on knowing you're wearing a more sustainable fabric.

In fact, industrial hemp is the fashion equivalent of the boring sibling who wants to stay home every weekend and knit socks for fun. But despite its boring properties, hemp's association with cannabis has copped it a bad rep over the years.

It also doesn't help that hemp clothing has been historically associated with baggy grunge-style clothing in khaki hues. Not that there's anything wrong with hippy clothing if that's the goal, but the trend certainly hasn't done much to improve hemp's image among the general populace.

But hemp has started to redeem its image in recent years, and its potential is undeniable. The environmental benefits of hemp cultivation, combined with its durable characteristics as a fabric, mean it can feature in clothing that both feels and looks great, by even the highest of standards.

So what is hemp?

Hemp has a very long history of being used as a fibre. In fact, it has been cultivated for thousands of years and on almost every continent. It has been used in clothing, ropes, and sails. Rumour has it that the word "canvas" is derived from "cannabis".

Hemp is a type of bast fibre which means it's one of a number of plant-based fibres derived from the stems of plants such as flax (where linen comes from), jute, and stinging nettle. The fabric has various natural advantages such as keeping you warm in winter, cool in summer, and even protecting you from UV rays.

The fibre produced from pure hemp is similar to linen in texture. It can also be blended with other plant-based fibres to create fabrics with the durability of hemp and the softness of cotton or bamboo. Extremely versatile, materials produced from hemp fibres can be used for a variety of fabrics, "from jersey to denim to hessian to canvas", according to Textile Exchange.

But why all the fuss about the little green leaf? Is it really any different to its alternatives?

What makes hemp fabric a more sustainable option?

It's no coincidence that hemp bears the nickname weed. A densely and quickly growing plant, hemp literally chokes out any competing plants. This means harsh chemical herbicides aren't necessary. Hemp also naturally reduces pests, so no pesticides are usually needed. Amazingly, it also returns 60-70% of the nutrients it takes from the soil. As Textile Exchange points out, since hemp plants have deep root systems, soil quality is replenished, which in turn captures carbon from the atmosphere.

Not only is hemp gentle on the earth, it also requires very little water, especially when compared to cotton, which, according to Slate uses "about 50% more water per season than hemp." But that's not all. According to the same article, "when you add processing into the equation, cotton uses more than four times as much water as hemp."

Hemp also requires a relatively small amount of land to cultivate. According to the Guide to Sustainable Textiles, this means it can produce up to double the fibre yield per hectare than cotton. It also makes a great addition to crop rotations throughout the year for farmers.

However, it's important to be aware that hemp does not always mean organic, and many farmers still use environmentally damaging fertiliser. When going for hemp, make sure it's organic and thoroughly study the brand you're considering buying from.

So from an environmental perspective, the benefits of hemp are pretty clear. But how does it compare once we start processing the raw product into a fabric?

How is hemp turned into a fabric?

Hemp fabric is made from the long strands of fibre that make up the stalk of the plant. These fibres are separated from the bark through a process called "retting." These fibres are then spun together to produce a continuous thread that can be woven into a fabric. The processing methods for hemp were originally developed in the early 1900s, and are only now being updated and expanded to meet rising demand.

The various stages of the process can be done organically through a mechanical process that requires no chemicals. However, many companies now produce hemp fabric chemically, in a process that is much more intensive on the environment, but faster and cheaper to create. Often you can tell that a hemp fabric has gone through this intensive process if it is labelled as "hemp viscose", which normally involves the same harmful processing with toxic chemicals as regular viscose. Some companies may use the less impactful lyocell process, so it is worth double checking before purchasing something made of hemp.

Cost of production is another factor to consider, says Textile Exchange. Since hemp is bulky, transporting it to processing centres can be "expensive and energy-intensive". Shorter, localised supply chains are one possible solution here.

The impact of the fabric doesn't just stop once it has been woven, either. Once the fabric has been created, it may be dyed, which again can result in various environmental outcomes, depending on the technique used.

So the production phase is a bit less clear-cut. Although hemp is a more eco-friendly crop to grow, we still need to be sure that the process being used to turn the plant into a fabric is lower-impact. Producers have a responsibility to ensure their manufacturing process considers the environment, workers, and consumers, along with profitability.

So, what's the verdict?

The good news is that hemp generally constitutes a more sustainable, lower-impact crop that can be converted into fabric responsibly. It's important to make sure, however, that companies are not just greenwashing their hemp. Wondering where to start looking?

Check out these brands using hemp, rated "Good" or "Great" in the Good On You directory:

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Material Guide: How Sustainable Is Hemp Fabric? - Good On You

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Hemp fabric has gained traction as a more sustainable fabric option, but how does it impact the planet and does it deserve a spot in your wardrobe?

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Digital printing has four advantages over traditional proofing.

1、Quick reaction

With its fast proofing, digital printing machine can enhance the response speed of the enterprise to the order, step by step in the shopping mall, enhance the competition of printing enterprises, reduce the processing price and reduce the profit space. Customers put forward higher requirements for printing enterprises from aspects of cost, response speed, quality, service and so on. Improving the speed of proofing will undoubtedly make the enterprise win in the hands of many competitions.

2、Cost reduction

The use of digital printing machine can replace some of the original work that must be done on the circular and flat screen printing machines without taking up the time of the machine. Usually a sample often takes up 3-4 hours of a machine. If the customer is not satisfied, it will be modified again and again, resulting in a great waste of production capacity.

3、The effect is good and the customer's approval rate is high

Digital printing and traditional printing belong to different systems. Many professional and technical personnel are worried that the effect of proofing with digital printing machine is too good. Traditional printing can not achieve this effect. In fact, this worry is unnecessary. At present, in order to solve this problem, domestic companies have organized the best technicians in China to carry out in-depth research and find out the solutions. This scheme uses software to adjust the effect of digital printing, so that the traditional printing machine can fully achieve the effect in production. From the perspective of color, because the color range of traditional printing paste is wider than that of digital printing ink, the color effect produced by digital printing machine can also be simulated by traditional sizing agent.

4、Wide range of application

The ink that can be used for proofing has active ink, acid ink, dispersed ink (transfer printing), and the use of dispersed ink is used to find the right ink. In the customer's sample, if it's paper manuscript or electronic manuscript, it can be directly printed with digital printing machine after color separation. The traditional printing machine can complete mass production according to the proofing effect.

If the sample is the sample, you need to explain to customers some of the characteristics of digital printing, in recognition of clients before the change proofing mode. In particular, enterprises should take into account the ability of customers to accept new things. For some conservative customers, it is still safe to use traditional proofing methods. Only when digital proofing becomes the mainstream of the market, it is appropriate to recommend digital print proofing to these customers. This process will take about 2-3 years at home.

Digital printing technology and traditional printing technology are two completely different printing mechanisms. Therefore, the use of digital printing machine proofing needs to have a running in period with customers. From the point of view of the process, there should be a running in period in the enterprise's internal proofing and production system. If it is possible to establish a set of technical standards, the enterprise can quickly import digital printing system for customers.

Digital printing technology needs to be improved, the disadvantages of digital printing technology, mainly in four aspects:

(1) the speed of printing is slow.

Efficiency is money, the speed of printing is to a large extent the benefit of the enterprise. At present, the speed of the fastest digital ink jet printing machine can reach 150m2/h, but it is still far behind the traditional printing machine, and it needs to be further improved.

(2) the ink cost is high.

Although digital ink-jet printing without making screen, a small amount of production total cost than traditional printing, dye and pigment ink which is cheaper than traditional printing is much higher, so more than a certain length after printing, digital printing ink prices will boost the cost of making more than traditional printing. The price of the ink in the future needs to be adjusted reasonably to promote the development of digital ink-jet printing.

(3) the problem of the combination of new and old technology.

Digital printing technology continues to improve, the speed of printing is also accelerating, but to catch up with the speed of the traditional printing machine still has a long way to go. Therefore, the use of time-saving digital printing machine for proofing or small quantity production, combined with traditional printing machine for mass production, will be a basic combination mode of textile printing industry for a period of time. And the combination of new and old technology and difficult problems, we need to make further breakthroughs.

（4）Color accuracy

Compared with the traditional printing of spot color printing, namely, each set of colors individually adjust the color paste, through the computer color matching system, we can achieve high color accuracy, even if a color paste deviate, it only affects one color. The digital printing is CMYK mixed color printing, all colors are mixed by four color ink. A little bit of external influence, such as ink difference, printhead difference and tiny change in printing process, will affect the accuracy of a series of colors after blending. Therefore, the color accuracy of digital printing is a little worse than that of traditional printing.

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Advantages and disadvantages of digital printing of fabrics

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Digital printing has four advantages over traditional proofing. 1、Quick reaction With its fast proofing, digital printing machine can enhance the response speed of the enterprise to the order, step by step in the shopping mall, enhance the competition of printing enterprises, reduce the processing price and reduce the profit space.

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Finishing technique for cotton jersey fabric

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Biopolishing is an environmentally-friendly process that uses enzymes to extend the lifetime of cotton knits and soon, additional fabrics.

In biopolishing, the enzymes remove protruding fibers from the surface of the fabric, leaving a clean surface. This improves dyeability, and it creates better-quality, longer lasting, more sustainable textiles. The biopolish effect is permanent - even after 30 washes.

Surveys show that consumers want clothes that last longer. This presents an opportunity for brands to differentiate their products toward consumers. It gives mills and laundries the chance to differentiate their products towards brands.

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Biopolishing is an environmentally-friendly process that extends the lifetime of cotton knits and other fabrics. Using enzymes instead of chemicals gives mills and laundries an effective tool to save water, time and energy. It creates better-quality, longer lasting, more sustainable textiles.

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UK Shipping Update

New shipping procedures will be in place from 1 Jan 2021, for all UK deliveries. We are taking care of the new documentation processes so your ordering experience should remain the same. However, there may be delays, outside of our control, due to increased transit times between our warehouse in the Netherlands and UK addresses. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this period. For more information please click here.

Returns and Repairs

Unsure of your size? Can't decide between jackets? Our Customer Service team is here to help-the less unnecessary shipping, the better. We have no time limit on returns and accept both current and past-season products.

Returns & Repairs
Customer Service
Paperless Shipping

From May 5th 2021, you will no longer receive paperwork inside your Patagonia order. We are making this change to reduce the amount of paper we use. You can still find all of your order information, and an invoice, in the shipping email we send you. To return an item, please visit the instructions on our returns page.

COVID-19 Update

We can now ship to all countries across Europe. Please rest assured that our delivery partners are applying strict hygiene and social distancing measures, for their own safety and yours. Depending on where you live, it may take slightly longer than usual for you to receive your order.

For more information, please see our FAQs.

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UK Shipping Update New shipping procedures will be in place from 1 Jan 2021, for all UK deliveries. We are taking care of the new documentation processes so your ordering experience should remain the same. However, there may be delays, outside of our control, due to increased transit times between our warehouse in the Netherlands and UK addresses.

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4 January 2021 | Jos Notermans

[The Note] What is the break-even point for rotary screen printing and digital textile printing?

3 December 2020 | Jos Notermans

[The Note] Digital pigment printing: the eternal promise or a close reality?

17 November 2020 | Jos Notermans

[The Note] Digital sampling for rotary screen printing: is it possible and when does it make sense?

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[The Note] Digital textile printing vs screen printing: how to make a cost comparison

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To create a realistic image of the costs of each printing technology, certain important parameters cannot be left out. Learn how these parameters can influence your overall printing costs and how to make a realistic cost comparison.

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Organic cotton for the monk's habit hoodie

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Organic cotton for the monk's habit hoodie

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From the fresh produce in your supermarket to the jeans on your legs, organic products have managed to reach almost every market possible. The term 'organic' itself has a certain ring to it that conjures thoughts of high quality and ecologically conscious production. When it comes to cotton, organic variants are on the rise, with many brands incorporating organic cotton into their manufacturing in response to the world's ever-growing environmental concerns.

But aside from its ecological benefits, why is there such a buzz around organic cotton? And is it as sustainable as we thought? We're taking this opportunity to explore the context of organic cotton and answer those questions.

What Defines Organic Cotton?

Similar to fruit and vegetables, organic cotton is defined as cotton with two characteristics:

1. It has not been genetically modified (non-GMO)

2. It was grown without the use of any chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, or other artificial agricultural substances

Currently, the majority of organic cotton is grown in Turkey, China, India, and parts of Africa. It is also grown in the U.S.A. where farms must meet certain criteria set out by the United States Department of Agriculture to have their crops classed as organic. One of these criteria is that all plants in the cotton crop must be grown in soil that has been free of artificial substances for at least three years.

What are the Benefits and Drawbacks of Organic Cotton?

The majority of organic cotton is completely handpicked which preserves the length and strength of the fibers, which leads to a stronger, more durable textile once the cotton has been woven. In contrast, regular cotton is cultivated much quicker using agricultural machinery, which can damage fibers and lead to loss of cotton.

While regular cotton is sometimes treated with chemicals during textile production - the processing of organic cotton is mostly chemical-free. Natural or water-based substances are used to wash, whiten, and dye the finished textile, meaning most organic cotton is generally easier on the skin, preventing the allergic reactions which can arise from wearing regular cotton such as eczema. In addition, because organic cotton has not been chemically stripped of its natural wax content, organic cotton clothing has a noticeably softer texture and drapes well.

The drawbacks of organic cotton are pretty limited. It is usually more expensive than regular cotton, but it certainly won't break the bank, and one could argue you are getting a better product for the extra few bucks. The main drawback for manufacturers is the fact that truly organic cotton must be dyed with natural dyes to maintain its organic status. This slightly limits manufacturers as some specific colors cannot be achieved with natural, chemical-free dyes. However, organic cotton has been noted for its high level of absorbency which generally makes dyeing quicker and easier.

How Ecological is Organic Cotton?

It is widely accepted that organic cotton has a much smaller ecological footprint than regular cotton. The lack of pesticides and chemicals used from seed to sweater is undoubtedly a much more environmental approach to textile production, especially as cotton is grown on such a tremendous scale. In terms of sustainability, organic cotton scores highly as it does not require any non-renewable synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

However, organic cotton is not without its critics. Some parties are concerned about the extra measures land needed to yield organic cotton in the same quantities as regular cotton, as some plants are naturally lost due to pests. This extra land also needs to be irrigated, leading to more water usage which is a concern for the manufacturers of organic cotton in dryer countries like India and Africa.

Nevertheless, there is contradicting evidence to suggest that organic cotton crops maintain and absorbs water much more efficiently thanks to the lower levels of carbon and artificial substances in the soil.

Caring for Organic Cotton

As per any garment, the care-label is the first port of call for any organic cotton garment. Keep in mind that the product will not have received any artificial anti-shrinkage treatments, so heat should be kept to a minimum when washing and tumble-drying avoided completely. The same can be said for the natural dyes used to color organic cotton, which may fade more if exposed t powerful detergents or high levels of heat. And although organic cotton is durable, bleach or chlorine must be completely avoided as these chemicals will weaken the fibers.

Brands that Use Organic Cotton

Multi-national companies Nike and H&M are listed as two of the biggest purchasers of organic cotton, and as of 2015, Patagonia exclusively uses organic cotton in the production of their clothing. Some brands that we feature here at Heddels who notably use organic cotton include:

Examples of Organic Cotton Products

Loop & Weft LRH1018 Double Breasted Henley

Japanese brand Loop & Weft uses only the finest organic cotton from across the globe. This Double Breasted Henley is constructed from Oatmeal colored 100% organic San Joaquin cotton, an incredibly soft fabric that has been pre-washed to eliminate shrinkage.

Available for $90 at Okayama Denim.
Kings of Indigo Eric Dry Selvage

This staple piece from Kings of Indigo is constructed from 13 oz. raw selvedge denim, woven from 100% organic cotton. Drawing inspiration from the archetypal Type-III Levi's denim trucker jacket, this effort features dual chest pockets with subtle pleats spanning down the torso, as well as a button placket and adjustable waistline.

Available for €169.95(199USD) at Kings of Indigo.

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What is Organic Cotton and Is It Worth It?

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From the fresh produce in your supermarket to the jeans on your legs, organic products have managed to reach almost every market possible. The term 'organic' itself has a certain ring to it that conjures thoughts of high quality and ecologically conscious production.

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55% organic hemp 45% organic cotton

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Check out our full range of organic cotton products printed on demand to ensure high quality.

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Fashion a sustainable future, today.

Sorona® answers the global call for sustainably sourced fabrics, bridging the personal and societal at a defining moment in our ecological stewardship. Sorona® gives you the opportunity to make sustainability a reality.

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Fashion a sustainable future, today. Sorona® answers the global call for sustainably sourced fabrics, bridging the personal and societal at a defining moment in our ecological stewardship. Sorona® gives you the opportunity to make sustainability a reality.

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£12.99 per metre

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How to treat garment workers more ethically

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How to treat garment workers more ethically

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How can we safeguard the people who make our clothing?
Facing a brutally competitive marketplace, characterised by intense pressure to generate profits and a desire for constant newness, the fashion industry is producing more and more products, faster and faster, at lower and lower costs. Many fashion companies have shifted production to markets with low labour costs and limited protections for workers' rights. Meanwhile, most consumers continue to buy cheap products without thinking of the human costs of producing them. The Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh was a serious call to action. But little has been done. Governments, companies and consumers - we are all responsible. How can we safeguard the people who make our clothing?

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How can we safeguard the people who make our clothing?

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How can we safeguard the people who make our clothing? Facing a brutally competitive marketplace, characterised by intense pressure to generate profits and a desire for constant newness, the fashion industry is producing more and more products, faster and faster, at lower and lower costs.

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Brand that uses 3D sampling in their production process to allow made to order garment production and reduce waste

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Reinventing fashion by combining new technology with art and craftsmanship.

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We believe in open source fashion

As a part of our belief in transparency Atacac would like to share the pattern and 3D-model for this garment. As per our philosophy, this garment is free to download. However, we appreciate your support of our development by donating 10€ or 30€.

Description

This basic experiment illustrates how a piece of fabric is placed over the shoulders and shaped to the body's silhouette.

Due to the fact that the posture of the body leans slightly forward, the fabric stays in position. The direction of the grain gradually shifts from straight-horizontal at the back to a bias at the centre front.

Print the pattern out on a large scale plotter or use the tile function if printing on a normal printer and print it in small pieces and then tape the pattern together.

When downloading you will get 4 different files. A png illustrating the garment, a pdf ready for print, a dfx that can be imported into any CAD/CAM software and a ZPrj with the pattern assembled in 3D. The ZPrj file can be viewed and altered in CLO.

The Atacac sharewear patterns are licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA Creative Commons licences. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit Atacac and license their new creations under the identical terms. I.e. you are allowed to make changes and sell garments based on these pattern with the condition that you also share your developed pattern further for free.

This license is often compared to "copyleft" free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

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Atacac sharewear no.9 We believe in open source fashion As a part of our belief in transparency Atacac would like to share the pattern and 3D-model for this garment. As per our philosophy, this garment is free to download. However, we appreciate your support of our development by donating 10€ or 30€.

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Lower level

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Men's Clothes | Shop for Men's Fashion | ASOS

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Discover the latest trends in men's fashion and style with ASOS. Shop the new range of men's clothes, accessories, shoes, bags and more.

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Same level

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Subculture clothing, footwear & accessories. We bleach out cliches with strong graphic narratives, alternative thinking and dark underground energy.

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Aspirational brand

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LAURENCEAIRLINE - MEN'S FASHION CLOTHING

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LAURENCEAIRLINE brings together a path between cultures, drawing contemporary timeless classics silhouettes with deep African roots.

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News: trend forecaster Li Edelkoort has published her Anti_Fashion manifesto, outlining why she believes the fashion industry "is going to implode".

The 10-point printed manifesto, published by Edelkoort's Paris-based agency Trend Union and subtitled "Ten reasons why the fashion system is obsolete", follows her declaration in an interview with Dezeen this weekend that we are witnessing "the end of fashion as we know it."

"These ten points argue that the industry has reached a vanishing point of fashion," she writes in the manifesto. "This means that the economy of clothes will take over from the turnover of fashion."

The manifesto is divided into 10 chapters dedicated to topics including education, manufacturing, designers, retailing and marketing.

"It's the end of fashion as we know it" says Li Edelkoort

Under Education, Edelkoort argues that students are being trained "to become catwalk designers, highly individual stars and divas, to be discovered by luxury brands."

"As a result the fashion world is still working in a 20th-century mode, celebrating the individual, elevating the it-people, developing the exception... in a society hungry for consensus and altruism," she writes. "This places fashion out of society and de facto makes it old-fashioned."

In the Materialisation chapter, Edelkoort argues that cost-cutting in both the education system and within fashion houses is threatening the textile industry.

"The first to be sacrificed are knitting and weaving ateliers," she says. "As a result the students are no longer instructed in textile creation and basic knowledge about cloth."

This means that European fibre, yarn and textile industries are threatened with extinction. "Without them the knowledge of spinning, weaving, finishing and printing will be lost," she warns.

Under Manufacturing, Edelkoort writes that the drive for ever-leaner supply chains has led to a "rapid and sordid restructuring process, which has seen production leave the western world to profit from and exploit low-wage countries."

Rather than boycotting brands that employ cheap labour, customers have instead become seduced by cheap, disposable clothes.

"Now that several garments are offered cheaper than a sandwich we all know and feel that something is profoundly and devastatingly wrong," she writes.

"But worst of all is the symbolism of it all," Edelkoort continues. "Prices profess that these clothes are to be thrown away, discarded as a condom and forgotten before being loved and savoured, teaching young consumers that fashion has no value. The culture of fashion is thus destroyed."

In the chapter called Designers, Edelkoort says that the great names of the past were able to change society by introducing new silhouettes, new postures and new forms of movement.

Today's designers, however, endlessly recycle trends from the past. "Luxury designers are requested by the brand's marketing to focus on product and need to give most of their creative energy to bags and shoes and are rather resigned concerning the creation of clothes," she writes.

Architects and designers "don't have a clue about fashion" says Marc Newson

Edelkoort uses particularly fierce language when discussing marketing, arguing that: "It is without doubt the perversion of marketing that ultimately has helped kill the fashion industries."

"Initially invented to be a science, blending forecasting talent with market results to anchor strategies for the future, it has gradually become a network of fearful guardians of brands, slaves to financial institutions, hostages of shareholder interests, a group that long ago lost the autonomy to direct change."

Advertising gets short shrift too. Magazine ads "are so repetitive and seem so much alike that it is rather difficult to read the various brand values" while publications collude with brands to tie editorial coverage with advertising.

"The same clothes, more or less, are used in the editorials that are heavily art directed by the economy of advertisements; a new brand has little to no chance to be featured."

In the Press & Blogging chapter, Edelkoort says that standards of journalism are slipping as knowledgeable fashion editors are replaced by younger writers with no specialist knowledge or critical perspective.

She writes: "The genial humor and knowledge of some of the best fashion journalists of international newspapers is rapidly replaced by uninteresting generalizations by a younger generation, articles that are opinion pages instead of critical assessment from a professional point of view."

Retailing has failed to move with the times, she states. "As a consequence we are struggling with outdated formats that do not correspond anymore to todays fluid consumers, able to browse high and low, city and country, airport and hotel, on line and in real time."

"Technology is going to turn the entire fashion industry inside out"

Finally a new breed of consumer has emerged, Edelkoort says, arguing that fashion does not cater to them.

"The consumers of today and tomorrow are going to choose for themselves, creating and designing their own wardrobes," she writes. "They will share clothes amongst each other since ownership doesn't mean a thing anymore. They will rent clothes, lend clothes, transform clothes and find clothes on the streets."

Mainstream consumers are taking style into their own hands, while Silicon Valley has produced the first generation of super-rich consumers who don't care about fashion.

"Fashion has lost these consumers over the last twenty years and will not be able to get back to them," she concludes, ending with a prediction that clothes, not fashion, will be the major talking point in the coming years.

"Clothes will become the answer to our industries' prayers. Clothes will dominate trends for the future. Therefore let's celebrate clothes."

The only exception to the bleak picture is men's fashion, Edelkoort argues, saying that men are increasingly interested "in fashion and accessories as well as cosmetics and fragrances."

She predicts that couture will make a comeback, occupying the void left by fashion: "After all it is in the atelier of couture that we will find the laboratory of this labor of love. Suddenly the profession of couturier will become coveted and the exclusive way of crafting couture will be inspiring all others."

Edelkoort presented her Anti_Fashion manifesto at Design Indaba in Cape Town this weekend. Speaking to Dezeen after the talk, she said fashion has become "a ridiculous and pathetic parody of what it has been."

Lidewij Edelkoort, who was born in the Netherlands in 1950 and is based in Paris, advises fashion companies and consumer brands around the world. Time magazine named her one of the 25 most influential people in fashion in 2003 and she was director of Design Academy Eindhoven from 1998 to 2008.

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Li Edelkoort publishes manifesto on why "fashion is obsolete"

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News: trend forecaster Li Edelkoort has published her Anti_Fashion manifesto, outlining why she believes the fashion industry "is going to implode". The 10-point printed manifesto, published by Edelkoort's Paris-based agency Trend Union and subtitled "Ten reasons why the fashion system is obsolete", follows her declaration in an interview with Dezeen this weekend that we are witnessing "the end of fashion as we know it."

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The brand has been compared to Nasty Gal and Hot Topic. These comparisons seem valid on the surface. Like Hot Topic, Dolls Kill is plugged into the rock and roll ethos that elevates the middle finger (pun intended) into a statement of identity, and like Nasty Gal, Dolls Kill thrives and wallows in the risque and the untoward. But both of these comparisons miss something: Dolls Kill is really the anti- .

That might seem counterintuitive - both Dolls Kill and Supreme were born out of the same counter-cultural ideals of rebellion, attitude, and bravado. Both brands cater heavily to a niche audience that stands apart from traditional market demographics and are built firmly on the visions of their creators. Both say something about the times and are a slightly twisted reflection of the world that produced them. That's where the similarities end, though. Despite some superficial overlap, the two brands have completely different approaches and a wildly different ethos.

A Sound Idea

Unlike the founder of the red-logoed skate and street-wear brand Supreme, who was never a skater himself, Dolls Kill was born from the culture they represent. Founder Shaudi "Shoddy" Lynn met her co-founder and husband Bobby Farahi while she was DJing a rave and he was celebrating the successful sale of his media tracking company. They bonded over their love of electronic music, eclectic fashion, and entrepreneurship.

Shortly after meeting, the two began collaborating on a line of accessories for the ravers and club-goers they partied with. The Dolls Kill brand started as an eBay shop reselling a fox-tail keychain they bought from China, and slowly expanded to other accouterments that complete an outfit for someone heading to a warehouse for a weekend of hard bass and harder dancing.

Founded with the money Farahi had from the sale of his previous company, Dolls Kill quickly transitioned from eBay to e-commerce, and from accessories to a full fashion line. The company was profitable from day one, and in 2015 managed to earn the #33 spot overall on the Inc 500 , and the #1 spot among retailers. Since then, they've taken three rounds of investment. The first two rounds were led by Maveron and the latest, a $40 million round, was led by Silicon Valley big-shots Sequoia . Altogether, the company has raised over $60 million, bringing the company's valuation to a rumored value of over $400 million .

More incredibly, the brand managed to get there with virtually no advertising - a few sponsored social media posts and the occasional experimentation with pay-per-click (PPC), but nothing on the scale that most fast-growing fashion houses spend. That may sound similar to Supreme, but it also points out another key point of differentiation . Supreme may have a robust digital presence, but they were always a brand rooted in a physical place - their flagship NYC store and the neighborhood it grew out of. It was a brand defined by geography and "real world" retail.

Dolls Kill never had that. Though they've opened stores in San Francisco and LA, the Dolls Kill brand is a digital native. They exist everywhere and nowhere, and grew up on the web. The physical locations are just another storefront, not the defining soul of the company. This has given them a wide range of flexibility in what they sell, how they sell it, and who they sell it to. As a result, the brand was able to build a large following across the world - they estimate about half of their customers are outside of the U.S . - and were given the opportunity to play with business models, like a parody of the pop-up and drop approaches in which they drove an ice cream truck through multiple cities selling limited edition boots.

What Drives the Dolls Kill Brand?

It can be easy to write Dolls Kill off as just another 20-something extreme fashion brand making a name for itself on Instagram. E-commerce companies like Black Milk Clothing , which made a name for itself during the early years of the "nerd" revival and then faded from the spotlight, or Nasty Gal, which went into sudden bankruptcy protection in 2016 , have been a perennial staple of the startup world since the days of Pets.com. They're born, they shine bright, and then they fade into obscurity or insolvency when the next hot thing comes along.

But there are a lot of reasons to suspect that Dolls Kill has found something different. Not least of which is the support of two top-tier VC firms (first Maveron and now Sequoia), and their top-notch board of directors, which includes the former CEO of Hot Topic. The brand has strengths that many of their former competitors didn't have, much like Supreme, plus a few tricks of their own.

Authenticity

Call it a buzzword, or an obsession, or a trend, but millennial and Gen Z consumers are constantly searching for something real . Whether it be an authentic voice, an authentic experience, or an authentic avocado toast, it seems to be the defining feature of the largest cohort of young shoppers since the baby boom.

The Dolls Kill brand has it in spades. The brand was born from active participants in the cultures they represent. They aren't following trends by looking at market reports, they're living them. Shaudi Lynn was still DJing through most of the brand's growth and only stopped when the day-to-day of running the company got to be too much. Unlike many of their competitors, everyone at the company is deeply immersed in the worlds that they build and the fashion they put on their site.

This even extends to the models. Rather than hiring professional models, or "dolls" as the company calls them, Dolls Kill solicited photos from their fans and followers. This turned into a "Be a Model" contest, which ended with the company hiring the winners, who are still with them today. This kind of fan engagement, combined with "DJ Shoddy"'s endorsements from the DJ booth, gave customers the sense that the brand wasn't some abstract construct, but a part of their community.

Accessibility

While Supreme has built a billion-dollar company on the principles that shopping there should be as difficult as possible, Dolls Kill took the opposite approach. The company still has some limited edition items, and occasionally does drops of limited-run goods, but mostly they sell everything all the time, to anyone that wants to buy it. And at affordable prices, to boot.

Rather than follow the tradition of gate-keeping that often comes along with these intimate communities, the company has gone out of its way to be inclusive of a wide range of cultures and styles. They currently have six dolls (which is also how the company refers to its separate lines). There's the cutesy "kawaii" girl (Coco), the free-spirited festival girl (Willow), the drinks, drugs, and dance raver girl (Kandi), the dark and brooding goth girl (Merci), the in-your-face punk girl (Darby), and the sassy streetwear girl (Mia). These cultures span a huge swath of pop culture, but the company allows and encourages them to coexist peacefully.

More than that, Dolls Kill makes these subcultures just as accessible, whether you live and breathe one of these lifestyles or if you're just dipping a toe in or picking up a single piece for a special occasion. There's no bar of involvement to clear, no shibboleth to memorize, no secrets to decode to find the latest special edition drop, and everything is priced to be affordable even on a budget. In many ways, Dolls Kill has taken the fast fashion model and recreated it for a bit more of a specialized audience.

Community

We've touched on in a couple of points so far, but it's impossible to stress enough how much community has played a role in the brand's growth and how the previous two growth drivers have allowed it to be built. Authenticity has allowed the founders to bond with their fans in a way that most fashion brands can only dream of. After all, when was the last time Virgil Abloh DJed a club that his customers were dancing at? Or is there another example when a brand's in-house models were real customers who interacted with their fans in a genuine way in person and over social media? That's supported by accessibility - the brand has built a strong culture out of making everyone who works there be in a position where they can freely and openly interact with the people they sell to.

The social community the brand has built has been a fundamental part of their growth. Since being founded, the company has managed to grow Instagram followers to over 3 million - almost half of the much larger, more iconic, older, and far more deep-pocketed Saint Laurent . And with more and more commerce moving directly to social media since the introduction of Instagram Shopping and in-app purchases and checkout, an engaged social audience is critical to success. The future of online retail, and possibly all retail, is an activated community that allows brands to combine their marketing, customer service, and sales into one seamless unit.

Hybrid e-commerce

Though it's not talked about as often, one of the keys to Dolls Kill's success is that they aren't primarily a direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand . They're also not just a marketplace. Instead, they walk somewhere down the middle, with in-house brands sharing virtual shelf space with partner brands. Rather than try to go one way or the other, the founders chose to focus on curation and cohesive collections that fit their creative vision.

This is an important point as D2C continues to gain steam - your business model should always be secondary to your customer experience. Going all-in on direct-to-consumer works if you can find efficiencies and specific benefits to handling the entire supply chain from start to finish. Likewise, being a marketplace is good if you have a clear vision of what you want to sell. But trying to shoehorn a brand experience into a specific model just to be in-step with current trends is rarely the best approach to take.

The approach taken by Dolls Kill - selling external brands when they fit their vision, or creating their own when they see an opportunity - allows them to tap into the best of both worlds. More importantly, it allows them to present a singular, unified concept to their audience. Everything they sell is true to who they are, whether it's made by Dolls Kill or not.

The Roll-Up

Brands, especially in youth and fast fashion, tend to come and go. They rise up out of nowhere, fueled by hype and driven by the latest "it" trend, and then tend to flame out quickly, never to be heard from again. Smart brands, however, are able to turn these break-out moments into long-lasting success. Supreme did so by making sure they were always early adopters of whatever the next big "it" trend happened to be (given the current direction of menswear, get ready for a modest and shockingly low-key two-piece suit from them in 2020). Dolls Kill, on the other hand, has managed to grow and thrive over their eight-year run by picking the "it" trends it wants to be part of and sticking to them with ferocity and passion. The lessons they teach us are:

Remember that your customers are real people. Brand managers and marketers need to get out of the mindset of "selling to customers" and into one of "engaging with people." That kind of authenticity is prized by younger consumers and can go a long way towards building a sustainable following.

Pricing matters. There's little doubt that Dolls Kill could have built a brand on being aspirational and unattainable, which seems to be the direction many fashion companies are moving these days. But there's also little doubt that they wouldn't have grown this big this fast if they locked a huge portion of their potential customer base out of their catalog. This is especially true with companies that have large international followings - it pays to remember that "affordable" means different things in LA than it does in Rio.

Exclusivity isn't a silver bullet, and you don't always need it. Streetwear brands took the luxury fashion idea of exclusivity and ramped it up several notches, to great success. But as the streetwear trend fades out, it's important to remember that many great companies were built on the opposite ideal - that your products should be available to everyone. This egalitarian accessibility may well be much better for building a long-term brand than faux exclusivity.

Don't be afraid to get a little naughty. After all, if Sequoia is willing to invest in a company that sells "FU" fanny packs , marijuana bodysuits , and teddy bear pasties , there's no reason for you not to embrace your inner weirdness. Take risks, be yourself, and don't let anyone tell you that your product is inappropriate.

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Unrolling: The Dolls Kill Brand | AdRoll Blog

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The brand has been compared to Nasty Gal and Hot Topic. These comparisons seem valid on the surface. Like Hot Topic, Dolls Kill is plugged into the rock and roll ethos that elevates the middle finger (pun intended) into a statement of identity, and like Nasty Gal, Dolls Kill thrives and wallows in the risque and the untoward.

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WELCOME TO FAIRFAX: Dolls Kill founders and husband-and-wife team Shaudi Lynn and Bobby Farahi saw a nice-looking space on Fairfax Avenue and went for it. The two on Saturday celebrate the grand opening of the company's second store outside of their hometown of San Francisco, where they opened their first store in the Haight District a year ago.

The Los Angeles location, at 415 North Fairfax Avenue, is designed with an industrial nightclub in mind. To that end, the company imported a sound system from Italian custom audio equipment manufacturer Pequod Acoustics and played up the store's gritty brick walls.

"Unlike the many retail stores that pop up all over L.A. in locations that over and over serve as some sort of clothing venue, our location on Fairfax had never been a storefront before," said Shaudi Lynn in reference to the space's past life as a mattress seller.

The store well exceeds the size of the company's foray into retail with Fairfax totaling 6,000 square feet and dubbed a concept shop. San Francisco totals 1,100 square feet at 1475 Haight Street.

The Fairfax store's assortment will include limited drops from the company's proprietary labels Club Exx, Current Mood, Poster Girl, Widow and Sugar Thrillz in addition to pieces from brands such as Dr. Martens, Lazy Oaf and I Am Gia.

The company, started in 2011, has gained a steady following for its edgy, rebellious attitude, often being described in the same breath as a Hot Topic or Nasty Gal - but more brash with plenty of pieces suited for a night out to a rave or music festival. The business initially started out as a direct-to-consumer, online brand before getting into physical retail.

"The San Francisco store is killing it," Shaudi Lynn said. "It's this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place that we never envisioned would do what it's doing today. It was a true D.I.Y. project for us and everyone involved. We had our artists, stylists, models and just about anyone involved in Dolls Kill get in there and draw on the walls and the dressing rooms. We built out that place with our own raw hands."

The Haight space, which drew inspiration from the company's headquarters, originally began as a pop-up but customer demand prompted the Farahis to keep the door open longer.

The couple confirmed more stores are in Dolls Kill's future, but declined to provide specifics.

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Dolls Kill Arrives on Fairfax Avenue With Concept Shop

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WELCOME TO FAIRFAX: Dolls Kill founders and husband-and-wife team Shaudi Lynn and Bobby Farahi saw a nice-looking space on Fairfax Avenue and went for it. The two on Saturday celebrate the grand opening of the company's second store outside of their hometown of San Francisco, where they opened their first store in the Haight District a year ago.

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If Dolls Kill wants you to know about them, you soon will. A misfit or Miss Legit will introduce you to the brand the next time you hit the club, a rave, or a festival. You will see the brand thru Femail Fashion Finder, find the Dolls Kill site, and purchase the next outfit a rebellious non-conformist needs to "aggressively fight the higher power" and unapologetically "raise hell." When you get it, you might unbox your package on Youtube and post on Tumblr. And as you get ready to go out, you might share your selfie with the brand's 1.3 million Instagram followers, 582,000 Facebook followers, and an untold number of Snapchatters.

For a brand launched in 2011 and sold only through its own site, those numbers are pretty good. By comparison, Dolls Kill competitor Hot Topic - with its 30 years in business, 600+ stores and an ecommerce platform - has 1.8M Instagram followers.

The beautiful execution of Dolls Kill's word of mouth and social media strategy is that... if you aren't supposed to know about Dolls Kill, then you don't. It seems that not a single dollar has been wasted telling the conformists and mainstream that Dolls Kill exists. The fashion and retail industry press is just catching on - potentially due to a recent $2M investment in the company. But a google search for Dolls Kill news led to only four legitimate news articles on the first two pages of results. This is even more remarkable given that Maveron Capital -a venture firm co-founded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz - invested in the company in 2014.

The company's results are private- a 2014 article written by Jason Del Ray for ReCode - at the time of the Maveron investment - states that the company had been profitable since it was founded in 2011 and would surpass $15M in revenue in its third year.

Why the success? Why have few ever heard of the retailer, yet so many misfits follow it? Why would a firm that also invested in Zulily, drugstore.com, Ebay, Shutterfly & Groupon see potential here?

Because Dolls Kill knows who its dolls are. There are five dolls, each a personas their customer wants to be There is a succinct description of each on the site. And while you can shop by category, the easiest way to shop is to click on a doll and see what you need. The first four frames for Darby were a t-shirt, jeans, vest and bandana. The next four were a choker, lipstick, a raglan, and another pair of jeans. In the third set you could find the sunglasses you needed to complete the look. In all, Dolls Kill had selected 129 items to suit a Darby. By comparison, Hot Topic had 18 trend subcategories (the closest equivalent to the dolls categories on the site). In the first trend - cosplay (costume play for the uninitiated) there were 218 items. Merchandising by category replicates the focus of the curated assortment; Dolls Kill lists 373 dresses, and competitor Urban Outfitters lists 627 dresses.

Piecing together the bits of information available, Dolls Kill is so focused on its customer that its marketing spend and assortment is -in turn - efficient and effective. The proof will be in the numbers, which we may not see for a while. But other retailers should take note on what knowing your customer looks like.
David Weiss, Partner, McMillan Doolittle

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Knowing Your Customer Looks Like This | McMillanDoolittle - Transforming Retail

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If Dolls Kill wants you to know about them, you soon will. A misfit or Miss Legit will introduce you to the brand the next time you hit the club, a rave, or a festival. You will see the brand thru Femail Fashion Finder, find...

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3.1 million followers

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3.5 million followers

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Popular video games among Gen Z and Millenials

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Popular video games among Gen Z and Millenials

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2020 was a major year for video games. With the pandemic changing their routines, young consumers turned to gaming for escape, connection, and more, fueling a major boom for the industry. Consoles sold out in the summer, and new and old titles skyrocketed in popularity. YPulse found that 46% of 13-39-year-olds started playing a new mobile or video game because of quarantines. Our data shows that the number of young consumers who report that they are gaming daily has increased across mobile, consoles, and computers, and that this year, gaming may have begun cannibalizing their time spent watching TV content. We also found that t he majority of young consumers planned to buy a new console at the end of the year.

After a year in which video games became spaces for events, the center of new marketing trends, and even a mental health refuge for young consumers, more than ever brands need to stay on top of what games they're spending their time in. Advertising in video games is something that Gen Z and Millennials expect: our research shows that 68% of young gamers feel that more brands should work to get products featured in games.

In our most recent report on gaming, we asked young consumers to tell us their favorites to see what titles started 2021 on top. We should first note that our respondents mentioned over 1000 individual video game titles as their favorites-a tremendous amount. Considering the volume of games named, any game that received more than a few responses is a major success-but these are the ones that were the most popular...
What Are Their Favorite Video Games? Among 13-39-year-olds
Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto topped the ranking of Gen Z and Millennials' favorite video games now. Both of these titles were near the top of the ranking in 2019 as well, showing that while new games might get a lot of attention and earn headlines, there is a loyalty to games that have been around for some time that should not be ignored. Fortnite was also on the 2019 ranking, and has proven to be way more than a fad, actually climbing the list to make the number four spot this year.

But there are a few new favorites on the ranking as well. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) was released in 2016, and its popularity has increased in the years since, topping the best-selling list on Steam for 2020. Among Us also made the favorite video game ranking, riding a major surge in popularity. The multiplayer game was released in 2018 but went viral in 2020 with SensorTower reporting Among Us got 18.4 million mobile downloads in August-eight times July's 2.4 million downloads. Interestingly, young female respondents were more likely than males to name Among Us as a favorite, while males were more likely to name PUBG,

Of course, the entire ranking looks somewhat different when we compare young male and young female responses. While Call of Duty is popular among females as well, it was actually second on their ranking, while Super Mario Bros. took the top spot. Females are far more likely than males to call Mario and The Sims a favorite, while males are far more likely than females to prefer Grand Theft Auto, FIFA, and NBA 2K.

As you might expect, favorite games also differ, by age:

Call of Duty continues its domination here, topping the ranking among all age groups. Notably, Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto also made the top five ranking among all ages. But younger Gen Z players are more likely to favor Among Us and Minecraft, while Millennials were more likely to name Super Mario Bros. as their favorite. Nostalgia is playing a big role here: many who named Mario as a favorite mentioned childhood memories as a reason they love it.

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These Are Gen Z & Millennials' Favorite Video Games Going into 2021

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2020 was a major year for video games. With the pandemic changing their routines, young consumers turned to gaming for escape, connection, and more, fueling a major boom for the industry. Consoles sold out in the summer, and new and old titles skyrocketed in popularity.

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Video games and social media are the top of the list.
66% of Gen Z who play report that they’ve used video games to hang out with friends. In the last year, games that double as social spaces have flourished,  and Gen Z is growing up using games to create and connect with a community.
Taken from Religion and Spirituality report.

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It's no secret that 2020 has been a lonely and isolating year for young people. Our State of Mind trend research found that much of their mental health has been negatively impacted by the pandemic-especially Gen Z. As they've felt cut off from their friends and social circles, YPulse found that Gen Z is more likely than Millennials to say that they've felt detached from personal relationships in the last year, and over half (53%) say they have felt lonelier because of COVID-19. Arguably during this time the communities they feel connected to have become more important than ever before.

YPulse's research shows that the majority (69%) of young consumers feel the communities they are a part of are a big part of their identity. When we ask about the benefits that their communities give them, a sense of belonging, confidence / self-esteem, advice, and stress relief are their top responses. So where are they finding those benefits now? After a year that young consumers spent most of their time at home, our recent religion and spirituality report asked Gen Z and Millennials: "Outside of friends and family, where do you find your sense of community?" Their top responses show that they're most likely to feel connected to communities that live in digital spaces.

Social media platforms, video games, and social media groups are the top places that young people are finding community overall-but Gen Z and Millennials' top responses are not the same. Gen Z is most likely to say they find their sense of community in video games, while Millennials are most likely to say they find it on social media. YPulse's Gaming trend report found that the majority of 13-39-year-olds play video games in some capacity , but Gen Z is more likely than Millennials to say they have hung out with friends in video games, with 66% who play reporting that they've used video games to hang out with friends. In the last year, games that double as social spaces have flourished , and Gen Z is growing up using games to create and connect with a community.

There are of course other differences between Gen Z and Millennials' responses. It shouldn't come as a surprise that school is one of the top answers for Gen Z, since that age demographic was still attending school, whether in-person or virtually, in the last year. Meanwhile, Millennials are more likely to say they find community through work, again because of their relative age.

But other differences are more indicative of some potential cultural differences between these generations: Gen Z is more likely to say that they find community in a fandom, indicating that this generation is more likely to connect through their passions around media.

These aren't the only differences we found in the data. Young males are females are finding community in very different places as well:

Young males are far more likely to say they find community in video games than young females, with only 23% of 13-39-year-old females saying they find a sense of community there compared to 48% of 20-38-year-old males. Interestingly, males are also slightly more likely to say they find community in groups outside friends and family across the board, and young females are more likely to say they don't feel connected to a community. It's possible that young males are more easily finding connections through their existing hobbies and passions, while young females are more focused on their existing friend groups.
YPulse Business users can access the full Religion and Spirituality behavioral report and data here.

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These Are the Top Places Gen Z & Millennials Say They Find Community

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It's no secret that 2020 has been a lonely and isolating year for young people. Our State of Mind trend research found that much of their mental health has been negatively impacted by the pandemic-especially Gen Z.

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The last 12 months have radically reshaped the fashion industry, but sustainability remains one of the sector's favourite buzzwords and most intractable challenges.

While the pandemic is an ongoing and immediate crisis, brands are doubling down on commitments to reduce emissions, keep clothing in a virtuous loop of recycling and tackle human rights abuses in the supply chain in a bid to mitigate the risk that the next disaster to hit the industry is environmental.

"The industry is not resilient to crisis and that is worrying," said Morten Lehmann, chief sustainability officer of the Global Fashion Agenda, an industry advocacy group.But there's a growing understanding that the industry needs to change if brands are to align with global climate goals and growing consumer interest in more socially responsible models.

"We see a polarisation [of brands, where] some see sustainability as a way to become more resilient," Lehmann added.

There's certainly no shortage of problems to pick from, but a number of key issues are coming into focus this year as brands react to the social, economic and technological shifts of the last 12 months.
Scaling Circularity
Companies have been talking about ways to minimise waste, keep clothes in circulation for longer and scale up recycling technologies for years, but 2021 looks set to be a pivotal moment for the circular fashion movement.

The pandemic served to highlight fashion's huge over-production problem and ratcheted up pressure within brands to find economic ways to manage excess inventory. That's boosted the profile of the already fast-growing resale market, even piquing the interest of luxury labels long wary of how second-hand marketplaces could affect their brand value. Last year, Gucci partnered with The RealReal and LVMH flagged in December that it is looking at ways to integrate resale into its business.

Elsewhere, brands including Cos and Levi's have launched their own resale offerings, and second-hand platforms Poshmark and ThredUp are gearing up to go public in a test of investor appetite. Though the second-hand apparel market is still relatively small, it's growing fast, with sales expected to more than double from $28 billion in 2019 to $64 billion in 2024, according to GlobalData estimates cited in a 2020 report by ThredUp.

Those numbers make it particularly appealing for executives looking for ways to boost their sustainability credentials and their bottom line.

The potential to shift to more circular models is set to get an additional boost in 2021 as recycling technologies that have been years in development finally begin to scale.

[Circularity is] a much bigger idea than just one technology, or one change in the business model

"The [next] key thing is going to be scaling technologies now, because a lot of them have just reached pilot scale," said Laura Balmond, programme manager for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Make Fashion Circular initiative.

For instance, over the next 12 months, one of H&M Group's suppliers is test-driving a machine that can recycle blended cotton and polyester in a factory setting for the first time, with the fast-fashion giant committed to supporting the technology's wider rollout if all goes well. Meanwhile, textile recycling company Renewcell listed on the Swedish stock market in November, with plans to ramp up production capacity almost fivefold by 2026.

To be sure, volumes still remain fractional within the context of the global textile advancements and building on the progress made in the coming year will require long-term commitment and widespread industry collaboration.

"[Circularity is] a much bigger idea than just one technology, or one change in the business model," said Balmond. "It really is looking at the whole system within which clothes are offered and how they're made."
The Next Big Thing: Biodiversity
Fashion brands aiming to level up sustainability ambitions are increasingly looking beyond initiatives that simply reduce harm to opportunities to have a positive impact. That's increasing focus on one of the industry's most poorly understood and complex environmental pain points: its effect on biodiversity.

It's a relatively emergent topic within the fashion sector, reflecting a broader and growing awareness of the devastating impact climate change and industrial agricultural practices have had on the natural world. For instance, a recent report by the World Wildlife Fund found animal population sizes have declined a staggering 68 percent since 1970 as a result of ecological disturbance that has affected around three-quarters of the planet's ice-free land. Agricultural practices linked to many of fashion's key raw materials are one big contributor.

The issue is set to gain more attention in the coming year as a central component of The Fashion Pact, a high-level coalition put together by Kering chief executive Francois-Henri Pinault at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019. The group numbers 60 fashion companies (representing roughly a third of the global industry), including H&M Group and Inditex on one side of the spectrum and Chanel and Prada on the other.

We can't expect nature to bounce back on its own.

As part of a broader suite of targets intended to tackle fashion's biggest environmental risks and pressure points, signatories committed to developing biodiversity blueprints by the end of last year. In the coming months, companies are expected to set clearer targets to develop solutions based on their findings. One area likely to gain greater attention is regenerative agriculture, a farming and livestock rotation practice that makes soil healthier so that it can sequester more carbon and help regulate local water cycles.

"We're so out of balance with nature at this point. And so we can't expect nature to bounce back on its own," said Claire Bergkamp, chief operating officer of Textile Exchange, a nonprofit aimed at improving the environmental standard of raw materials production. On the other hand, understanding and addressing biodiversity could prove pivotal in addressing the climate crisis.

"How we manage our agricultural processes is going to dictate whether or not we can actually achieve the 45 percent reduction [of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030] target," Bergkamp said, referring to global goals to reduce emissions to a level that would avoid catastrophic climate change.
Social Justice
Climate has dominated fashion's discourse on sustainability in recent years, but the cultural unravelling and economic devastation caused by the pandemic has shifted focus back onto long-standing social challenges.

From Leicester to Dhaka to Xinjiang, reports of labour rights violations in the garment and textile industry have piqued the attention of consumers, investors and policymakers. The reports haven't simply served as fodder for PR scandals, they've also increased regulatory scrutiny, hit share prices and sent investors running.

The crisis has raised the profile of calls from human rights campaigners and labour advocates to address long-standing problems in the fashion supply chain. A high-profile campaign last year led by ethical clothes campaign group Remake successfully pressured many of the industry's biggest brands to commit to pay for orders placed with suppliers throughout the pandemic. As the dust settles, campaigners are pushing for more systemic change to ensure workers are paid living wages and guaranteed decent working conditions.

But the pressure to change isn't just coming from labour rights groups. Allegations of widespread human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where one-fifth of the world's cotton is produced, have left the industry exposed to intense regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic. The United States has said it will bar entry of all cotton products and tomatoes imported from the region.

It's a thorny challenge for the fashion industry, which has little visibility over where the raw materials in its supply chain come from, but it's ratcheting up pressure for brands to do more.

"For a huge percentage of the industry, that lack of traceability and the lack of long-term, equal partnerships with manufacturers, and the vulnerability of many manufacturing countries with their weak institutional setups, has really come front and centre [for] 2021," said Lehmann of GFA.

The coming year presents new challenges that threaten the fundamental business of fashion, but it also presents an unprecedented opportunity to improve practices that have failed to meaningfully advance for years.

"We can't go back to business as usual," said Amina Razvi, executive director of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. "That would be the worst outcome."
Related Articles: The Year Ahead: Consumers to Seek Justice in the Supply Chain Chasing The Holy Grail of Circular Fashion How Fashion's Sustainability Targets Measure Up

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Sustainability: What Brands Are Prioritising in 2021

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The last 12 months have radically reshaped the fashion industry, but sustainability remains one of the sector's favourite buzzwords and most intractable challenges. While the pandemic is an ongoing and immediate crisis, brands are doubling down on commitments to reduce emissions, keep clothing in a virtuous loop of recycling and tackle human rights abuses in the supply chain in a bid to mitigate the risk that the next disaster to hit the industry is environmental.

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Selling unintangible signifiers instead of actual products to radically decrease production

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Louis Vuitton has collaborated with Riot Games' League of Legends to create branded virtual assets for the video game. Louis Vuitton.

By Aaron Chamberland November 26, 2020 05:30

The fashion industry seems to think it can solve its sustainability problem with manufacturing processes that are more environmentally friendly: more efficient supply chains, more organic materials, less toxic dyes, and so on. The assumption is that the way to become more green is to keep on making more stuff, but doing it in a different way.

To be sure, this approach may result in incremental progress. But as Albert Einstein said, we can't really solve problems by applying the same kind of thinking that created them. Similarly, the solution to fashion's sustainability challenge is unlikely to come from the same thinking that created it, even if the stuff being produced is more sustainable.

Instead, we need to dig deeper and see that it's not how we manufacture but why we manufacture that is the root of the problem. The truth is, nobody needs another handbag but our consumer culture has convinced billions of people that they do. The tragedy isn't just that fashion is damaging the environment. It's also doing so in pursuit of false gods; we're selling products that rarely offer real fulfilment and we're destroying the planet in the process.

To be blunt, we're enticing people to spend more money on more things they don't need to create impressions that won't last on people they don't care about while sacrificing our world.

The underlying dilemma we face is not: "How can we make our means of production and manufacturing more sustainable?" The real question is: "How can we reconcile our aspirations for the 'good life' with the limitations and constraints of a finite planet?"

It's not how we manufacture but why we manufacture that is the root of the problem.

When I think about what makes up a "good life," what comes to mind is personal growth, discovery, learning, friendship, family, community, making a difference and helping others. None of these things are material. Interestingly, the main reasons why people buy fashion and luxury goods aren't actually material either. First and foremost, they buy them in order to convey status. They buy them because it helps them cultivate their identity in the eyes of others. They want to associate themselves with a particular brand and show off that association.

None of those things necessarily have anything to do with tangible goods. Rather, they have everything to do with intangible things like image and reputation. If this is the case, is it really necessary to continue to produce so much material stuff to fulfil our desires?

Indeed, if what we fundamentally desire (and are willing to pay for) is intangible, then wouldn't it be better for the planet and everyone inhabiting it to decouple these desires (and the economic growth that depends on them) from material objects? Simply put, could fashion companies manufacture and sell way less tangible stuff (clothes, bags, shoes) and sell way more intangible stuff (media, experiences, community)?

In effect, what I'm advocating for is the dematerialisation of fashion; that fashion brands cease being fashion brands in the traditional sense and start acting more like media-experience companies that may also happen to sell clothes and accessories.

Thus far, signifiers of prosperity and the "good life" have come in the form of expensive material things. But remember these objects have little value beyond the meaning we give them. We have the power to break free from the straitjacket of materialism that's destroying ourselves and our world, and reassign social value to immaterial things, perhaps even unlocking a healthier definition of a "good life" in the process.

Remember that, if the fashion industry has taught us anything, it's that it's capable of making us fall in love with all sorts of signifiers we didn't even know we desired. And these new symbols could deliver things like community connection, not just social status.
Aaron Chamberland is a marketing and communications specialist in the fashion and luxury sector. The views expressed in Op-Ed pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of How to submit an Op-Ed Related Articles: Op-Ed | What Consumers Really Think About Sustainability How the Climate Crisis Is Reshaping Luxury When 'Mea Culpa' Is the Best Marketing : The Business of Fashion accepts opinion articles on a wide range of topics. The suggested length is 700-1000 words, but submissions of any length within reason will be considered. All submissions must be original and exclusive to BoF. Submissions may be sent to opinion@businessoffashion.com. Please include 'Op-Ed' in the subject line and be sure to substantiate all assertions. Given the volume of submissions we receive, we regret that we are unable to respond in the event that an article is not selected for publication. The Business of Fashion.

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Op-Ed | A Sustainability Solution for Fashion: Sell Signifiers, Not Stuff

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Louis Vuitton has collaborated with Riot Games' League of Legends to create branded virtual assets for the video game. Louis Vuitton. By Aaron Chamberland November 26, 2020 05:30 The fashion industry seems to think it can solve its sustainability problem with manufacturing processes that are more environmentally friendly: more efficient supply chains, more organic materials, less toxic dyes, and so on.

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Rubicon is a software platform that provides smart waste and recycling solutions for businesses and governments worldwide.

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Rubicon: Software Platform Offering Smart Waste and Recycling Solutions

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Overview

Rubicon is a software platform that provides smart waste and recycling solutions for businesses and governments worldwide.

Using technology to drive environmental innovation, the company helps turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises, and neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work. Rubicon's mission is to end waste by helping its partners find economic value in their waste streams and confidently execute on their sustainability goals.

Our Story

Rubicon was founded in Kentucky in 2008.

The waste and recycling industry has not seen innovation in thousands of years. In ancient times, societies the world over used landfills to dispose of waste, burying it in the ground and forgetting about it even as it broke down and released chemicals into their land, water systems and, ultimately, their food.

Fast-forward to today and things are much the same. The massive environmental impact of the accumulation of waste is now undeniable, but there have been no major scientific or technical advances to help us fight back. It was solving this growing, global problem - and finding market-based solutions to do so - that planted the seed in Nate Morris' mind for a new kind of waste management company. Nate, a Kentuckian, connected with an old high school friend, Marc Spiegel, whose family had been in the waste and recycling business for more than a century, and asked if there was a better, more sustainable way to deal with the global waste problem.

Together they went to work. Morris maxed out his personal credit cards and even sold items on eBay to fund initial expenses. They came up with the name Rubicon, a reference to the idiom "crossing the Rubicon," which means to pass a point of no return and refers to Julius Caesar's army crossing the Rubicon River in 49 BC. With this humble start, but grand ambition, Rubicon was born.

Today, Rubicon is the worldwide leader in providing cloud-based waste and recycling solutions for customers in business, government, and the non-profit sectors.

With more than 4.9 million service locations worldwide, the company focuses on developing cutting-edge software that brings transparency to the waste and recycling industry, encouraging customers to make data-driven decisions that lead to more efficient and effective operations that drive more sustainable outcomes.

Rubicon manages all waste and recycling services through its extensive network of more than 7,000 vendor and hauler partners. Programs include cardboard (OCC), plastic, paper, metal, glass, electronics recycling, construction and demolition (C&D), organics recycling (including food waste and composting services), and single-stream recycling solutions (SSR). In addition, our subject matter experts manage commodity markets, zero-waste programs, and other sustainability offerings across our portfolio. Rubicon also offers a cutting-edge smart city solution, RUBICONSmartCity™, that helps city governments run more efficient, effective, and sustainable waste and recycling operations.

Highlighting innovation at Rubicon

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Rubicon is a software platform that provides smart waste and recycling solutions for businesses and governments worldwide. Using technology to drive environmental innovation, the company helps turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises, and neighborhoods into greener and smarter places to live and work.

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Orchid Flower is Colour of the Year 2022

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WGSN | Creating Tomorrow | Trend Forecasting & Analytics

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WGSN, the global authority on trend forecasting, and Coloro, the universal colour system, today announced that Orchid Flower will take the lead among the five key colours predicted to gain worldwide popularity in Spring/Summer 2022.

Joanne Thomas, Head of Content for Coloro notes "Orchid Flower has an intense, hyper-real and energising quality that will stand out in both real-life and digital settings. It is also versatile enough to work across seasons and continents. In a challenging time, this saturated magenta tone will be a great way to create a sense of positivity and escapism."

Jenny Clark, Head of Colour at WGSN added, "This season's colours are driven by a desire to be uplifted and energised while staying grounded and balanced. Consumers will reconnect with tones that spark joy, whether from a nostalgic or a sensorial experience. These colours will either ground or entice us with their delicious and textural charm."

Vibrant pinks are making an impact across activewear and occasionwear, especially for women, and this will continue with Orchid Flower, which will resonate across fashion, swimwear, interiors and beauty. With its purple undertone, it will appeal to men and women and be driven initially by the youth market.

The partnership that brings these predictions unites WGSN's trend forecasting expertise with Coloro's revolutionary system of 3,500 tones. It brings accurate and reliable colour forecasting, with added intelligence from Coloro's technical team on how to achieve the tones on different substrates.

"Working alongside WGSN gives us access to unparalleled trend expertise and creates a unique opportunity to collaborate directly with their forecasting team to identify the season's colours that are critical for business to be aware of in advance," Joanne Thomas added.

In the colour forecast, WGSN and Coloro have balanced the desire for newness with the need for familiarity, with green, blue and yellow tones that feel reassuring and consistent, and juicy pink and orange tones that bring excitement and optimism to the season.

With prolonged periods of isolation, nature and its vitality will have a clear appeal, but technology will also be celebrated as connections through digital tools become a more necessary and valued part of everyday life. The new season's key colours reflect this duality, ranging from authentically organic hues to artificially enhanced tones.

The key colour palette for S/S 22, with the relevant Coloro code are as follows:
Orchid Flower Coloro: 150-38-31
See remarks above.
Olive Oil Coloro: 044-52-13
Green is a consistently important color, thanks to its association with nature, and for S/S 22 we will see it shift to the nourishing plant-based hue of Olive Oil, which feels restful and balanced. This is a rich trans-seasonal tone with a timeless, comforting quality, and much like its namesake, it makes a great base to combine with other colours.

Olive Oil will have broad appeal across outdoor active apparel, workwear denim, soft lingerie sets, footwear, accessories and interiors. For menswear and womenswear, it will have particular relevance for practical, functional styles, which are gaining momentum.
Butter Coloro: 040-86-20
Yellow has grown in popularity over the past three years, encompassing both saturated brights and pale tints. For S/S 22, a desire for wholesome and nourishing experiences will drive yellow toward the softer tone of Butter, which has a creamy, almost edible quality. This is a comforting and adaptable colour that will pair well with power pastels and accent brights.

Warm buttery shades are already up-trending in luxury womenswear, and for S/S 22 we will see this expand into menswear, lingerie and interiors - especially for luxurious and elevated styles. Butter also has a genderless appeal, making it perfect for kidswear, loungewear and casualwear.
Mango Sorbet Coloro: 030-67-34
Optimistic colours such as Mango Sorbet will have a much clearer appeal in S/S 22. This invigorating, tropical hue fuses the popularity of orange with the brightness of yellow, and can be used to add a much-needed dose of energy to seasonal palettes, enhancing feelings of wellbeing and health.

Mango Sorbet will be perfect for swimwear, activewear and outdoor apparel, and will work as a surprising off-kilter bright for womenswear - especially for contemporary silhouettes. With its juicy quality, it can also be used to give a lift to homewares and interiors.
Atlantic Blue Coloro: 115-35-20
The dependable, versatile and trustworthy appeal of blue makes it a perennially popular color. For S/S 22, we have chosen the grounded, reassuring and transseasonal tone of Atlantic Blue, which echoes the hues of organic indigo dyes and the ocean, making it perfect for sustainable and heritage designs.

Deep blues such as this are already being championed by slow-fashion brands, and will be ideal for menswear. Atlantic Blue will also work as a classic core for womenswear, activewear and interiors, and as a directional tone for beauty colour cosmetics.
For further information and images, please contact:
Nina Giglio, WGSN (nina.giglio@wgsn.com / +44 (0) 20 7467 8125)

James Volpe, WGSN (james.volpe@wgsn.com / +1 201 739 6177)

Ashleigh Ralfe, Coloro (ashleigh.ralfe@coloro.com / +44 (0) 20 7715 6054)
About WGSN - the global authority on trend forecasting
WGSN is the global authority on consumer and design trends, helping brands around the world create the right products at the right time for tomorrow's consumer.

WGSN's trusted consumer and design forecasts power outstanding product design, enabling our customers to create a better future. Our services cover consumer insights, fashion, beauty, interiors, lifestyle, food and drink forecasting, data analytics and expert advisory.

WGSN is an Ascential company. Visit
About Coloro
Coloro is a truly universal, intelligent and logical colour system that allows fast and accurate communication throughout the colour process and supply chain. A sister brand of WGSN, Coloro helps reduce waste and time in colour decision-making and manufacturing by bringing creativity and science together. Coloro was created through collaboration with leading global textile and fashion companies. Coloro's extensive library of 3,500 contemporary colours can be accessed through colour books, and by purchasing swatches online. A free digital colour tool, the Workspace, is also available on coloro.com.
About Ascential
Ascential (LSE:ASCL.L) is a specialist information, data and analytics company that helps the world's most ambitious businesses win in the digital economy. Our information, insights, connections, data and digital tools solve customer problems in three disciplines:

Product Design via global trend forecasting service WGSN

Marketing via global benchmark for creative excellence and effectiveness Cannes Lions and WARC and strategic advisory firm MediaLink

Sales via ecommerce-driven data, insights and advisory service Edge by Ascential, leading managed services provider for Amazon Flywheel Digital, the world's premier payments and FinTech congress Money20/20, global retail industry summit World Retail Congress and retail news outlet Retail Week

Ascential also powers political, construction and environmental intelligence brands DeHavilland, Glenigan and Groundsure.

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Key Colours Spring/Summer 2022 - WGSN | Creating Tomorrow | Trend Forecasting & Analytics

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WGSN, the global authority on trend forecasting, and Coloro, the universal colour system, today announced that Orchid Flower will take the lead among the five key colours predicted to gain worldwide popularity in Spring/Summer 2022. Joanne Thomas, Head of Content for Coloro notes "Orchid Flower has an intense, hyper-real and energising quality that will stand out in both real-life and digital settings.

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Is the 2,600th most followed account on Instagram with 2.6 million followers (a 55%-60% increase from the previous year).

Generates 3.8 million website visitors monthly (of which 93% is organic).

Generates $8-10 million in sales

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To figure out how Dolls Kill has exploded off the floor and created profits from the start, I've analyzed what they've executed in their short-but-powerful past. I've also tracked their current strategy of success, which focuses heavily on "tribe building". In fact, all of Dolls Kill's marketing seems to be lasered in on fostering a devout and excited "tribe" to drive sales and hype.

In this article, I've broken these strategies down into actionable tips so you can get inspired. Use these tips to take your business to the next level.

Tip #1: Make Your Core Values the Foundation of Your Tribe

Every successful entrepreneur has a theory or view of the world that he or she translates into their business, bar none. These theories or views often morph into the core values of the business (or at the very least, influence them). As an entrepreneur, you've probably heard the vague, but pertinent, advice that in order to have a successful business you need to build a brand; and that a brand is built on those core values.

You won't get too much about Dolls Kills values from the "About" section of their Facebook page; it pretty much just says "GRUNGE TECHNO BABY" seven times in a row ( I'm not kidding).

But when investigating such an odd brand, you have to dig deeper. What I quickly understood from this strange "About" section is that they're targeting a very niche audience. They're tapping into growing youth subcultures that align under the umbrella of "just don't give a f***."

And that's almost word-for-f-word from the CEOs own mouth. An interview with their CEO, Bobby Farahi (founder of Multivision which he sold for a small fortune), reveals the brands values: "The brand empowers girls to unleash [their] inner 'I don't give a f***'." He continues by explaining "[Dolls Kill] allows her to express her individuality and be as loud as she wants to be."

The youth subcultures, which Dolls Kill targets, literally embody not giving a f***. Think of Punk Rock, Goth, Grunge, and Techno subcultures; they're rebellious, empowering, and unabashedly themselves.

So, how did Dolls Kill so effectively translate the values of these subcultures into their brand?

Firstly, they have product lines that appeal directly to youth who belong to each of these subcultures. Secondly, their authentic approach to marketing and leveraging people who are, and aspire to be, part of those subcultures allowed them to build a community organically.

Dolls Kill managed to brilliantly incorporate the fans themselves into their marketing strategy as well, but we'll talk about that later in the article.

Takeaway: Farahi and Dolls Kill aligned their core values of freedom and "not giving a f***" with a niche-but-growing market that shared their ideals (aka a "tribe"). This gave them ample and fertile ground to market their products. They build a "tribe" dedicated to their business.

Tip #2: Directly Communicate with Your Tribe via Social Media

I would argue that Instagram is, by far, the most critical medium Dolls Kill leveraged for their rapid growth.

Very early on, Dolls Kill was eager to exploit Instagram and Facebook, when social platforms were growing like wildfire (remember 2010 Facebook?). Undoubtedly, they had the advantage of capitalizing on the platform when it wasn't nearly as saturated with startups as it is today.

But to this day, Instagram still has massive value and potential. I would even argue that Instagram ads are still under-priced when compared to Facebook ads.

Marketers are quickly catching on to this, too. Instagram now has a billion monthly active users and is a significant source of revenue for Facebook. Instagram is projected to become their main revenue source by 2020.

Apart from the significant contribution Instagram makes to Facebook's ad revenue (effectively Facebook's entire revenue), the acquisition also provided Facebook with two extremely important, unquantifiable advantages that also benefit marketers who leverage Instagram:

1. A reconnection with a younger demographic (primarily millennials); and

2. an elimination of Snapchat's competition and usurping of their user base by cloning their features.

As social networking sites continue to pop-up (think Musical.ly) and some smaller players continue to grow (think Pinterest), pose yourself an important question: Where does your tribe live?

Takeaway: Communicate with your tribe directly through social media to achieve heightened brand awareness, advertisement awareness, and feeling of connectedness between your business and your tribe.

Tip #3: Sell Where Your Tribe Lives

Instagram is one of the most effective sales channel for ecommerce businesses because:

It's visual (impeccable for showcasing products).

Its users are engaged millennials (80% of users follow a brand).

Its users are making purchases (Instagram has the second-highest average order value out of all social channels).

It's continually adding new features that are commerce friendly (think of shoppable tags or the native payments Instagram is currently testing).

When I first began running ads for my eCommerce fashion brand two years ago, I started by advertising on both Facebook and Instagram.

I quickly noticed that my ads on Facebook were underperforming. Not only were they getting low engagement, but also attaining low conversions compared to the same ad that was being run on Instagram.

There could be multiple explanations for the underperforming ads on Facebook:

The demographic which I was targeting was between the ages of 14-28. This is the main demographic that is leaving Facebook in favor of Instagram.

My business was never very active on Facebook so It's likely that users of Facebook had never seen or engaged with my content.

Whatever the reason, I decided to double-down on Instagram as I had found a clear winner.

Takeaway: Find where your tribe is most likely to frequent. Focus your marketing efforts on those areas, and keep your tribe engaged. Engaged users of social media are vital to keeping both your business and the tribe profitable.

Tip #4: Use Organic Means Before Paying to Play

From the start, Dolls Kill eschewed print and TV ads. Their smart founders were aware that, in order to build a cult-following, they needed to grow organically on platforms where their tribe was already populating. For clarity, organically growing on platforms means little-to-no paid advertisements; just good-ol'-fashioned social networking.

Only after three years of organic growth, Dolls Kill started dabbling with Facebook Ads and experimenting with PPC (pay-per-click) ads on Google.

I routinely check the ads that Dills Kill is running on Facebook by checking the "Info and Ads" section on their Facebook page. Today, they're often running multiple ads simultaneously and probably have a much larger portion of their budget allocated for paid marketing.

However, their initial organic growth allowed them to be profitable from the very start; they leveraged social commerce to generate sales with almost zero dollars spent on advertising.

When I started my ecommerce business, I didn't run any paid ads or push for sales until I had built a following of 2k. Sure, this is a tiny following in the grand scheme of things. But the community was built organically, so this tribe of 2k was much more inclined to engage and make purchases when I finally started running paid ads.

It must be mentioned that I did kick-start the community with 'boosted' (sponsored) content in order to build a following more quickly. But these posts were never about selling; they were about building a tribe. I focused on content that established the values, the aesthetic, and the overall vision of the brand.

I would suggest doing this if you have a small budget to allocate as Instagram has become much more saturated with content!

Takeaways: Grow the consumer base of your brand organically at first. It may seem like slow-going, but it'll pay off when you start running paid ads. Investing in your tribe early with boost your engagement once you take the next step.

Tip #5: Turn Diehard Fans Into Key influencers of Your Tribe

Remember the subcultures that are the foundation for Dolls Kills values that I referenced earlier? For reference: Punk Rock, Goth, Grunge, and Techno subcultures; groups that focus on rebellion, freedom, and being yourself.

Dolls Kill managed to translate these subcultures seamlessly into a key influencer (or "doll" as they call them).

In other words, they have a real human that is actually a part of each of these subcultures in order to represent each of their product lines.

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Dolls Kill: Why Finding Your Tribe Creates Marketing Success - Indie Hackers

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To figure out how Dolls Kill has exploded off the floor and created profits from the start, I've analyzed what they've executed in their short-but-powerful past. I've also tracked their current strategy of success, which focuses heavily on "tribe building".

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The firm does not disclose revenue figures, though its founders have affirmed the company is profitable.

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If one were to make a list of products for a cutting-edge fashion brand aimed at capturing the emerging Generation Z market, it is safe to assume that "foxtail keychains" would not make the top 10.

But that is exactly where husband-and-wife entrepreneurial team Shaudi Lynn (aka DJ Shoddy Lynn) and Bobby Farahi started when creating Dolls Kill in 2011.

The brand has been well-known among Generation Z and millennial consumers for several years - particularly those into the clubbing and music festival scene. Dolls Kill specializes in edgy, unusual designs and offerings geared toward those with more eclectic tastes.

Need a glow-in-the-dark fishnet unitard? Or a fully Hello Kitty-themed for 2020? Maybe a floor-length leather dress with a high leg slit to match your knee-high Doc Marten boots? These are the types of things one can expect to find on the Dolls Kill online shopping portal - as well as off the rack in their San Francisco and Los Angeles physical locations.

Shaudi Lynn, as noted above, was a DJ who, in her own words, never had any aspirations of being a fashion designer or clothing merchant. But she was an eclectic dresser who had been selling her own outfits on eBay since she was a young teenager - so in some sense, she believes launching the brand was "always something in my DNA."

And while the brand is often described as "punk," "goth" and "extremely eclectic," Lynn noted in an interview that she doesn't see it this way. From her point of view, the uniting vision behind all of Dolls Kill's assorted items isn't any particular visual aesthetic - in the decade or so of growth it has enjoyed, all kinds of looks have flowed from the brand. As Lynn told Fashionista, it is more about an attitude that permeates everything they sell.

"You can dress like a hooker on the weekend, go to work during the week, who the *** cares? Live your life, wear what you want," she said.

The amount of funding Dolls Kill brings in is something of a mystery: The firm does not disclose revenue figures, though its founders have affirmed the company is profitable. And they are looking to expand - fresh off a $40 million infusion of funds, care of a Series B round from Sequoia Capital. Alfred Lin, former COO, CFO and chairman of Zappos and a current partner at Sequoia Capital, led the round of funding and will join the Dolls Kill board.

In many ways, as both Lynn and CEO Farahi noted, Dolls Kill was lucky in being the right brand at the right time - but they also made their own luck. Festival and club clothes comprised a rather niche market in 2011 when the brand first began advertising their products. Pushed by the emergence of Instagram, where their visually striking outfits played particularly well among consumers - as well as the widespread popularity of festivals like Coachella and Burning Man in the last decade - Dolls Kill began appearing more publicly and prominently.

Their latest major boon, according to most experts, has been the emergence of TikTok and the associated phenomenon of "eGirls." For the unfamiliar, eGirls are an increasingly common way to refer to Gen-Z members known for their strikingly candid TikTok posts and their distinctive fashion stylings, which are generally a mishmash of skater, punk, goth and anime looks, often with a sprinkling of BDSM flair.

eGirls are big Dolls Kill shoppers - though, according to the brand, that is more a matter of organic happenstance than anything they did to bring those shoppers on board.

Where there is popularity, there are always imitators and follow-ons. Asos and Pretty Little Thing have added specific festival categories and shopping guides to their product lineups, and Forever21, Zara and H&M have also worked to "eclectify" their offerings in recent years to capture the emerging niche of Gen Z consumers and eGirl influencers.

That competition is what pushed the brand to seek more funding, Farahi, as it looks to grow up and out with its fanbase. That means greater international expansion, since so many of their customers come from outside the U.S. And it also means finding and adding more brands and looks to stay on the cutting edge.

But while they are gearing up to play in a more competitive space, both of Dolls Kill's founders remain confident. Because in their opinion, they are selling not just clothes, but a vision of how fashion should be. And, Lynn noted, no matter how much bigger they've gotten, they've stayed true to that vision.

"We're an authentic brand," she said. "We are dedicated to who our fans are, who our girls are, who our guys are - so in that sense, it's the same. We're always speaking to the same group of individuals."

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How TikTok Helped Create A Fashion Brand

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If one were to make a list of products for a cutting-edge fashion brand aimed at capturing the emerging Generation Z market, it is safe to assume that "foxtail keychains" would not make the top 10. But that is exactly where husband-and-wife entrepreneurial team Shaudi Lynn (aka DJ Shoddy Lynn) and Bobby Farahi started when creating Dolls Kill in 2011.

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The retailer plans to bolster online support and expand its international offering | Source: Courtesy

By M.C. Nanda December 2, 2019 05:20

NEW YORK, United States - Dolls Kill, the online retailer known for its festival wear and following among online "e-girls," has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Sequoia Capital, bringing the amount of total capital the company has raised to over $60 million.

Founded in 2011 by former DJ Shoddy Lynn and her partner Bobby Farahi, the brand started within rave and EDM subcultures, offering platform shoes, fishnet unitards and other festival-style pieces. The company declined to reveal revenue figures, but says it's profitable.

The funding will be used to expand international operations, as well as launching more brands and strengthening digital offerings for the company. "A large percentage of our followers and site traffic are international," said Farahi. The expansion would also include enhancing delivery and returns as well as providing more on-site support and customer service for international customers.

With the rise of Coachella and general festival-EDM culture in the US, the brand helped establish an online offering similar to Hot Topic and Nasty Gal, pushing other online retailers like Fashion Nova and Pretty Little Thing to expand their categories to include festival wear and rave pieces.

Alfred Lin, former COO, CFO and chairman of Zappos and current partner at Sequoia Capital, led the round of funding and will join the Dolls Kill board. Sequoia has previously invested in companies like Glossier, Charlotte Tilbury and Instacart. "To us, Alfred seemed like the perfect partner," said Dolls Kill -Founder and CEO Bobby Farahi. "There are few companies like Zappos that built such technological and operational excellence."

The site has a strong Gen Z following. Recent Instagram posts include an ASMR edition of staffers favourite products and a "Y2K dream girl" outfit. "Their brand values are very aligned to the values of Gen Z," said Amy Sun, a partner at Sequoia Capital.

The market for festival-goers and Gen Z, once a small niche, has become larger and more competitive in recent years, with larger players like Asos and Pretty Little Thing taking a share of the market by adding specific festival categories and shopping guides.

Winning often means marketing a sense of belonging to a community. "We haven't built a brand around an aesthetic, we've built it around a much deeper movement," said Farahi.

Dolls Kill cites success with its "Doll" model, creating six personas of "Dolls" that speak to different subcultures within the community, with products and styles sold under these customer archetypes. The new funding will also help expand these brands to strengthen the personas of each "Doll."

Will expansion dilute Doll Kill's appeal with its customers? "We are not going to make decisions around broadening the market that artificially grow the brand," said Farahi.
Related Articles: Inside the Fashion Nova Hype Machine The Big Problems with Fast Fashion Boohoo Wants to Beat Zara at Its Own Game

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Festival Wear E-tailer Dolls Kill Raises $40 Million

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The retailer plans to bolster online support and expand its international offering | Source: Courtesy By M.C. Nanda December 2, 2019 05:20 NEW YORK, United States - Dolls Kill, the online retailer known for its festival wear and following among online "e-girls," has raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Sequoia Capital, bringing the amount of total capital the company has raised to over $60 million.

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Maveron has helped jumpstart some well known retail brands, from sandwich maker Potbelly to flash sales site Zulily to online marketplace eBay to cosmetics startup Julep.

Now, the Seattle venture capital firm, founded by former investment banker Dan Levitan and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz, is making one of its boldest bets yet. The firm is leading a $5 million investment in San Francisco-based Dolls Kill, an edgy San Francisco online retailer designed for girls and young women to "experiment with their individual style and encourage them to let their freak flags fly."

The brand - which combines a bit of punk, glam rock and goth style - certainly is irreverent. The company's models, dubbed dolls, often hold signs or wear clothing with sexually explicit references. For example, the lead image on the company's Facebook page features a tattooed women holding a sign that says: "If yer gunna ride my ass, at least pull my hair."

In another image, a woman holds a purse with the words "fuck you" on it. Middle fingers, pink hair and bare midriffs are commonplace from the models, most of whom are chosen via the company's social media channels.

The company built its brand around "four iconic Dolls" - described as festival fashion; haute Goth; frilly Kawaii; and punk rocker chic. A fifth "Doll" with a new personality is in the works.

Here's how the company describes itself:

A leading fixture in the society of praised rebellion, Dolls Kill is an active subversion of the fashion industry's "norm." We want our kult members to experiment with their individual style and encourage them to let their freak flags fly.

The company was co-founded three years ago by Shuadi Lynn, a former electronic music DJ and her husband Bobby Farahi. And since then it has been growing its following via social channels, with nearly half a million followers on Facebook.

Jason Stoffer, a button-down venture capitalist at Maveron, said they were "wowed" at how fast the brand grew and noted the incredible enthusiasm of the community. Re/code reports that the profitable company is on track to double sales to more than $15 million this year.

"Reading through the thousands and thousands of comments and posts across Instagram and Facebook, it was impossible to not see that cauldron of consumer passion we look for," said Stoffer in a press release. He's joining the board as a result of the deal.

Meanwhile, Farahi tells Re/code that they looked at other venture capital firms, but most wanted Dolls Kill to tone down its approach. That was not the case at Maveron.

"If it makes 50 white guys uncomfortable, it usually means you're onto something," Stofer told Re/code. "If you want to invest on the edge, you have to be comfortable with that."

You can get a better idea of the company's edgy style in these videos, featuring models Katie Rae and Brandi Howe.

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Maveron bankrolls edgy girls apparel retailer Dolls Kill, an online boutique for 'Misfits & Miss legits'

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Maveron has helped jumpstart some well known retail brands, from sandwich maker Potbelly to flash sales site Zulily to online marketplace eBay to cosmetics startup Julep. Now, the Seattle venture capital firm, founded by former investment banker Dan Levitan and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz, is making one of its boldest bets yet.

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Lower price, alternative fashions for men

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Men's Clothes | Shop for Men's Fashion | ASOS

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Discover the latest trends in men's fashion and style with ASOS. Shop the new range of men's clothes, accessories, shoes, bags and more.

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Similar price point, alternative style, darker palette

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ALLSAINTS UK: Men's clothing, footwear and accessories, shop now.

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Aspirational, sustainable, higher price point than Dolls Kill

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A READY-TO-WEAR MENS BRAND - LAURENCEAIRLINE

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LAURENCEAIRLINE is a ready-to wear mens brand also presenting a unisex capsule. The brand is born between Abidjan and in Paris.

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Last week, NFT mania hit new highs when 255-year-old auction house Christie's sold a JPEG file by the digital artist known as Beeple for a record-breaking $69.3 million.

Some saw a speculative bubble, others a historical inflection point. But there's no disputing the explosion of interest in "non-fungible tokens," unique digital assets, whose authenticity and ownership is verified by a digital ledger known as a blockchain. Proponents of NFTs say they remove a key barrier to virtual goods, which are otherwise easily copied, being valued and collected like physical objects.

A unique version of Nyan Cat, a flying cartoon cat with a Pop-Tart body and rainbow trail that became a viral sensation and has been seen and shared hundreds of millions of times since it was first uploaded to YouTube almost ten years ago, sold for $580,000 last month.

And it's not just the art world that's taking the plunge. In music, Grimes sold 10 digital works on NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway for nearly $6 million earlier this month. Some of the pieces were offered in large editions and sold for $7,500 each, while others were auctioned as one-offs. A music video called "Death of the Old" commanded almost $389,000.

Meanwhile, in sport, NBA Top Shot, a partnership between the NBA and blockchain company Dapper Labs, has sold virtual basketball cards featuring short video clips for thousands of dollars each. An NFT depicting a LeBron James dunk recently sold for $208,000.

The NFT craze has come to fashion, too. Two weeks ago, a collaboration between 18-year-old crypto artist Fewocious and virtual sneaker brand RTFKT Studios sold out in seven minutes, generating $3.1 million. Though each virtual edition of the drop came with a physical pair of shoes, the digital product with associated bragging rights was the primary source of value.

According to market sources, leading fashion brands are examining the NFT space. But are NFTs a real opportunity for the fashion industry or just a passing fad?

There's no denying that the space is heavily hyped, not least by speculators. During the pandemic, housebound day traders looking for new and entertaining asset classes have poured money into the market. What's more, NFTs are typically purchased with cryptocurrency and many see a bubble within a bubble as crypto investors, who have seen the value of their holdings skyrocket, pile into the space.

"I feel like I got a steal," the mystery buyer of the record-breaking Beeple work, a Singapore-based crypto entrepreneur who goes by the pseudonym MetaKovan, told The New York Times this week. As it turns out, MetaKovan, who had bought other works by Beeple and sold fractional ownership of them to the public as NFTs, may have also profited from pushing the price he paid Christie's to astonishing heights in a calculated cash grab.

But beneath the hype there are signs that NFTs could have staying power.

From paintings to baseball cards, people have long assigned emotional and social value to physical objects that far outweigh their material worth. After all, canvas and paint is worth nothing compared to a Picasso. The same is true for fashion goods like handbags and sneakers.

Collecting these objects, over which we enjoy a kind of sovereignty, turning them into extensions of ourselves, is a fundamentally human activity deeply linked to how we craft and communicate our identities. And as we lead more and more of our lives online, everywhere from social media to video games, the concept of collecting and displaying digital objects seems likely to grow.

How should fashion brands respond?

Many are taking a wait and see approach, not the worst idea given how fast the space is shifting. For those eager to experiment, NFTs can be minted with a range of creative assets - a designer's sketch or a memorable runway moment - and used to drive a variety of marketing outcomes, from being seen as "innovative" to deepening fan loyalty. It doesn't hurt that NFTs are hot with precisely the young, affluent, tech-savvy audience many fashion brands are after.

But issuing NFTs that are linked to physical products and extend their value is perhaps the most strategic way to engage with the space. These could be arty digital certificates that prove ownership of physical products, earning consumers clout when they display them online (unlike an Instagram pic or unboxing video, NFTs prove the goods haven't been returned or resold) or "digital twins" for people to wear online, when they play video games, for example.

"Luxury customers have digital lives now, and it's natural for them to want to take products into these lives," said Ian Rogers, chief experience officer at French crypto start-up Ledger and an advisor to LVMH. "The idea of buying a luxury handbag and taking a digital representation of this into a video game or another digital environment is not too far away."

NFTs linked to physical goods can also help combat counterfeiting, serving as proof of authenticity. They could also have a transformative effect on the resale market. That's because with NFTs, the blockchain that authenticates them can also create a contract that governs their future use. In the case of Beeple, the artist is set to make 10 percent in royalties every time one of his NFTs is sold on the secondary market. What if handbags and sneakers came with NFTs that guaranteed the brand got a royalty each time the product changed hands?

While diving headfirst into the digital art gold rush may be tempting for fashion brands eager to test the waters and generate marketing buzz, NFT strategies anchored in physical goods could unlock far greater value for the sector.
THE NEWS IN BRIEF FASHION, BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY
Nike earnings miss estimates. The world's largest sportswear maker said revenue rose to $10.4 billion in its fiscal third quarter ending February 28 from $10.1 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected sales to hit $11 billion, according to data from Refinitiv, but a slump in brick-and-mortar sales as the pandemic drags on and logistical headaches dented the company's performance.

H&M sales decline less than expected in first quarter. Net sales at the world's second-biggest apparel retailer fell 27 percent from a year earlier, or 21 percent when measured in local currencies, to 40.1 billion crowns ($4.7 billion).

Adidas, Peloton form partnership to tap pandemic fitness demand. The German sportswear maker and the New York-based at-home fitness platform will create a co-branded apparel collection. Items will be available starting March 25 on the companies' websites and in select stores and showrooms.

Kanye West and Gap have billion-dollar ambitions for Yeezy deal. The figure reflects estimates from UBS contained in a private document reviewed by Bloomberg. UBS pegs the value of Yeezy, West's sneaker and apparel business with Adidas and Gap Inc., at between $3.2 billion to $4.7 billion, with the Gap tie-up estimated to be worth as much as $970 million.

Chinese sportswear giant Li Ning's 2020 revenue growth disappoints. In 2020, Li Ning saw its revenue increase 4 percent year-on-year to 14.5 billion yuan ($2.2 billion), missing analyst estimates of between 5 and 8 percent growth for the year. Offline retail sales of new products recorded a single-digit decline last year, which the company attributed to the impact of the pandemic on its brick-and-mortar business.

Zalando aims for more than 10% of Europe fashion market. The e-commerce company set a new target for gross merchandise volume (GMV) - sales on its site by itself or by partners - to exceed €30 billion ($35.7 billion) by 2025, after announcing on Monday that its revenue forecast for 2021 was well above market projections.

Stone Island and New Balance set multi-year collaboration deal. The cult favourite Italian sportswear brand, fresh off an acquisition by Moncler, will start releasing items produced with the American footwear-focused brand in 2021 as part of a long-term deal.

Ralph & Russo enters administration. The British couture business, which also sells ready-to-wear and accessories, has felt the economic impact of Covid-19 as a dearth of red carpet events and evening soirees dampened demand for couture gowns and python clutch bags. The brand will go through a period of restructuring, but will continue to operate throughout the administration process, the company said in a press release.

UK lawmakers call for crackdown on companies with supply chain links to forced Uighur labour. The directive came in a report that said existing UK legislation surrounding supply chain transparency and modern slavery "is out of date [and] has no teeth." The report highlighted the role of the fashion industry in addressing this, noting that many industry players have "accepted that it is not currently possible to fully trace the cotton used in final products, which means cotton produced in Xinjiang could still be part of their supply chains."
THE BUSINESS OF BEAUTY
Shiseido to shutter youth-focussed Waso Brand in Japan. Shiseido has announced the imminent closure of its Waso brand in the Japanese market. The skincare line, designed specifically for a younger demographic, was first launched amidst much fanfare in 2017. According to Shiseido, Waso will continue to be available in other global markets outside its home country.

Amazon bets on Indian beauty brand. Direct-to-consumer beauty brand MyGlamm has raised 175 crore rupees ($24.1 million) in a series C funding round led by Ascent Capital, Amazon and Wipro Consumer, which values the company at more than $100 million.

Waldencast Acquisition Corporation goes public via SPAC. The multi-brand beauty and personal care company formed by investment from Waldencast Ventures and former Anheuser-Busch executive Felipe Dutra has gone public with a $300 million IPO, which includes an additional investment of up to $333 million in forward purchase agreements.
PEOPLE
Walmart appoints Brandon Maxwell creative director of Scoop, Free Assembly Brands. The world's largest retailer hired Maxwell as the first-ever creative director for its Scoop and Free Assembly fashion brands. Maxwell will oversee four seasonal collections a year for the two labels, starting with influencing this year's holiday range before his full lines appear in the spring of 2022.

L Brands founder Les Wexner leaves board. Wexner, 83, and his wife, Abigail, won't stand for re-election at the annual shareholder meeting in May, the company said Thursday. Wexner had already relinquished his chairman seat last year at L Brands, the owner of Victoria's Secret, though he had maintained a chairman emeritus role. The change caps a near six-decade run for Wexner, who has faced scrutiny in recent years for his ties to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It comes amid wider change at the company. Victoria's Secret is being split off in the coming months after struggling to adapt to changing consumer tastes.

Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang steps down. On the same day it was announced that Pinduoduo had overtaken Alibaba to become China's largest e-commerce company according to the metric of annual active buyers, its founder and chairman Colin Huang stepped down.
MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY
Incoming editor in chief Alexi McCammond is out at Teen Vogue. The former political reporter at Axios was heavily criticised online for past tweets that included racist anti-Asian and homophobic statements. She apologised publicly about the statements last week, indicating her intention to still take on the role despite the backlash, but announced on Thursday that she will not take over the Condé Nast teen title.

China market regulator clamps down on livestream e-commerce. China's market regulator on Tuesday tightened scrutiny over the country's booming livestream e-commerce platforms, where internet influencers sell goods directly to consumers, citing concerns about poor quality products and misleading advertising.

Snapchat acquires tech startup Fit Analytics. The social media platform acquired the fit tech startup, in an attempt to further move into the fashion and e-commerce space. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

YouTube to roll out short-form video service in US to take on Tiktok. The service, Shorts, lets users record mobile friendly vertical videos that can be spiced up with special effects and soundtracks pulled from a music library.

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Last week, NFT mania hit new highs when 255-year-old auction house Christie's sold a JPEG file by the digital artist known as Beeple for a record-breaking $69.3 million. Some saw a speculative bubble, others a historical inflection point.

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in-game ‘skins’ - the clothing designs of the digital world

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For the first time ever, fashion is posed with a problem - with no one going out, clothing has shuffled to the back of the wardrobe, relegated until the lockdown is lifted. This has made the industry pause, with fashion companies busy making emergency relief gowns for hospitals instead of pushing out their next collections. Designers and consumers have noticed and are calling for a change in how fashion is produced - namely, what if we didn't even need to wear physical fashion at all?

The idea of luxury digital clothing has been around for over four years now. In 2016, Lightning, a female character from the best-selling Final Fantasy VIII video game series made waves as she fronted Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer campaign by Nicolas Ghesquière. This was the first time when mainstream gaming and luxury fashion collided. With her silky pink digital hair blown by a virtual breeze and a Louis Vuitton bag clutched at her waist, the game heroine looked every bit the fashion model. Around the same time, an uncannily realistic girl with a blunt fringe appeared on Instagram under the account @lilmiquela. Almost four years later and this digital creation of Brud, the first company behind digital influencers, has 1.8 million followers and is doing sponsored posts for the likes of Samsung alongside real-life Stranger Things actress, Millie Bobby Brown. The fascination with digital models and clothing has brought in a new and limitless way to experience clothes.

Louis Vuitton SS16 campaign

The industry is quickly waking up to opportunities outside of digital influencers and game characters - the big money comes from in-game 'skins', the clothing designs of the digital world. Gaming has been slowly gathering strength in numbers, cloaked by outdated stereotypes of dark teenage bedrooms and shooter games like Grand Theft Auto. By now Final Fantasy, the game behind LV's campaign star Lightning, has amassed enormous fan bases with over 100 million gamers all over the world - an audience that at that point had not been touched much by fashion branding. It is valued that the modern gaming industry has brought in over $152 billion this year alone.

Creating outfits in-game has become increasingly more popular, with new games like Animal Crossing from Nintendo allowing players to replicate their favourite items from Gucci, Prada, Valentino and Vetements and download the designs for their characters in-game at no cost. On Drest, a mobile fashion gaming app, users style outfits on digital models for others to rate, somewhat similar to the iconic early 00's kids dress-up game Stardoll. Drest goes one step further, allowing users to buy outfits for real on online e-tailer Farfetch.

Stardoll

Luke Leitch, Vogue contributor and style editor of The Economist's 1843 magazine, has written that his teen sons are increasingly more willing to pay for skins in games like Fortnite for the clout of certain outfits, similarly to how trends function as short-term obsessions in real-life fashion. Last year's reports show that Fortnite's registered player count reached over 250m - each of those players (and their avatars) already understand that digital clothing works and is an extension of personal style.

The main issue behind digital fashion is that it is restricted by the platform it sits on - whether that is Moschino creating skins for in-game characters in The Sims, or Louis Vuitton creating cases for in-game trophies for League of Legends.This has given rise to brands producing altered images with digital clothing overlays for Instagram in the form of 'outfits' for a small sum. Carlings, a sustainability-focused Scandinavian fashion brand, have come out with a solely digital collection to highlight the environmental issues caused by fashion production, in collaboration with WaterAid. Although initially, the campaign was just meant to shine a light on sustainability issues, Carlings has now opened up a new market for digital fashion.When asked why the customer should spend money on something they'll never wear in real life, the brand answered, "The most fun products are the most difficult to buy, due to them being either too crazy or too expensive, often at times both. By digitizing these products, we also make fashion more affordable."

Carlings digital collection

Compared to the complex supply chain issues around making fashion more sustainable, digital seems a lot easier, allowing for new clothes to be made in a different medium with little to no production cost. Although the graphic design is time-consuming, it allows for new physical qualities for the clothes, more flexibility for design and zero reliance on resources like textiles and machinery. This makes digital an attractive option. The relatively short jump from creating clothing for gaming characters and doing the same for social media platforms means that there are plenty of software designers already in gaming equipped to handle this demand. Virtual clothes also possess one quality that clothing made out of fibres doesn't - as long as the software keeps up, they do not deteriorate, meaning no clothing ends up in landfill.

Virtual clothing for Instagram or other platforms buys into how fast the market really is - a person can go through a limitless supply without ever needing to change or wearing out the seams. A turn towards the digital could be a renaissance for new clothes - a modern form of fashion, one that could still change as quickly as the current fashion cycles, but with no real-time impact on production or the climate. It would allow for fashion to indulge in its hunt for the new.
Top image courtesy of @animalcrossingfashionarchive.

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Digital Dressing: How Virtual Clothing Is Changing Fashion As We Know It - 10 Magazine

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For the first time ever, fashion is posed with a problem - with no one going out, clothing has shuffled to the back of the wardrobe, relegated until the lockdown is lifted. This has made the industry pause, with fashion companies busy making emergency relief gowns for hospitals instead of pushing out their next collections.

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Competitive video gaming apps made by fashion labels such as Gucci and Moschino

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The image of gamers that look like scraggly men in ill-fitted hoodies and sweatpants is no more. The previously uncharted (from a fashion perspective) territory of e-sports seems to be increasingly more incorporated within our industry. If you're unfamiliar with e-sports, it is the technical name for competitive video gaming. Think Call of Duty and Fortnite, two of the most popular multi-player games that allow players to either work solo or in groups to make it to the next level. This entertainment business has not only attracted an estimated 800m players worldwide this past year, but has also garnered deals from the likes of Coca-Cola and AT&T, mega brands hoping to tap into consumer base. Now, the virtual gaming market is also catching the eye of fashion.

Earlier this year, Moschino collaborated with everyone's favourite avatars The Sims, releasing the capsule collection both in-stores and through the game, which allowed players to give their virtual selves a stylish makeover. In May, Giorgio Armani announced that its sub-brand A|X Armani Exchange were sponsoring Mkers, a professional e-sports team based in Italy, making it the first luxury brand to debut the market. And last week, it was announced that 100 Thieves, an e-sportswear company co-owned by musician Drake, received $35 million in Series B funding part of which was backed by Aglaé Ventures, the tech investments arm of LVMH. All in all, this new relationship is showing no signs of slowing down.

If you're interested in tapping into the gaming world but not ready for the big leagues just yet, Gucci recently added a collection of retro-themed games to its app that is low-pressure without sacrificing the action. Inspired by games that were all the rage in the 1970s and 1980s, Gucci Arcade currently has two you can play now. Gucci Ace is table tennis-themed, spanning three levels that takes the player through a pixelated past to the very present mobile future while detailing the history of the Ace sneaker. Gucci Bee is a classic maze game, that those craving a wave of nostalgia (hello plugging on the buttons of Nokia to navigate Snake) will surely enjoy. In the coming months, Gucci will continue to add new games to Arcade, meaning once you've won over the first batch, there will be more challenges to take on.

Whether it's spending hours to beat a level and showing that hard-wired determination can break down obstacles or working with a team to create a world of beauty and infinite possibilities, gaming, like fashion, is a space people escape to for living out their fantasies. Here's to welcoming gaming and its loyal devotees with a fashionable embrace.

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Gamer Galore: E-Sports Are The Next Big Fashion Thing - 10 Magazine

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The image of gamers that look like scraggly men in ill-fitted hoodies and sweatpants is no more. The previously uncharted (from a fashion perspective) territory of e-sports seems to be increasingly more incorporated within our industry. If you're unfamiliar with e-sports, it is the technical name for competitive video gaming.

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Bio-based faux fur that is 37% plant based

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Created exclusively by ECOPEL, KOBA® Faux fur integrates DuPont™ Sorona fibers to offer a soft, versatile, and long-lasting fur alternative for the global fashion industry.

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Ethical, sustainable and vegan faux fur company.

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We are developing high end faux fur, with a vertically integrated supply chain that straddles from fabric to garments, for more than 300 top fashion brands.

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€29.40 per metre

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Luxurious imitation rabbit faux fur fabric per meter, cream, 100% recycled - 2R400 Cream

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Imitation rabbit faux fur fabric by the meter, luxury quality, cream, 100% recycled. As a faux fur fabric manufacturer, we are aware of the need for a transition to more environmentally friendly materials. This is why we have developed a range of faux fur fabrics made from 100% recycled raw materials.