Textile Insight - May, 2008
Sustainabilty Surge: Interest In Green Textiles Peaks at Chicago ATO Show
Chicago -- Organic non-food products, which includes the fiber category, is among the fastest growing sector of organic sales worldwide, with consumer sales up 26 percent to reach $938 million in 2006. It’s only natural then that the recent All Thing...
Skate Style
An Inside Look at Sole Tech’s R&D Process
Often viewed as more of a lifestyle than an athletic activity, skateboarding sometimes slides under the radar when it comes to discussing high-performance sports and the products designed for them. However, leading brands making apparel and footwear ...
Wired For Wear
As textiles go more functional, garments follow suit with wearable technology
In today’s gadget-laden world – who hasn’t got a cell phone, iPod or MP3 player? -- wearable technology comprised of electronic interfaces embedded into garments have been gaining ground on an international level. Initially launched for the active sp...
Wal-Mart — The Green Giant
Slightly more than two years ago Wal-Mart went green in a big way.
Slightly more than two years ago Wal-Mart went green in a big way. At a time when it was faced with a changing consumer, a corporate image battered on multiple fronts, and a challenge to continue expanding as the world’s largest retailer, the folks i...
The Future Is Now
For one exec it was a best-selling book on how to get a good night’s sleep in an increasingly 24/7 society, while another marketer mentions Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” In both instances, cultural shifts put into motion new product develo...
Uniforms: All In A Day's Work
Politics, Performance and Distribution Define Uniform Market
In the past, a wide variety of garments were typically described as uniforms. Today, however, many people wearing “uniforms” don’t like that label depicting their working apparel. To update the concept, companies have started calling segments of the ...
Faytex — Going Forward
It doesn't take long for the conference table at the Faytex office to pile up with new product. Swatches of organic cotton footwear linings are stacked alongside a catalog of hip-looking, high-performance women’s running skirts, which gets ploppe...
Last Look — Bag Habits
Each year, an estimated 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That equates to something like over one million per minute. In the U.S. about 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away annually. But the times they are changing ...
Where the Trends Are — Your Neighborhood Market
About five people welcomed the Wal-Mart into our small town shopping center a few years ago. And now just about every citizen in Guilford pops into the giant-size retailer on a weekly basis. Some women I know confess to daily visits – they say it’s a...
ask the fabrikologist
by karla magruder, contributing editor and textile consultant
Q: We're hearing a lot about inflation. What’s happening in the fiber market? Some of the drivers affecting our day-to-day cost of living are the same that are increasing the costs of fibers. Crude oil and natural gas prices are contributing ...
trend talk
PARIS — Première Vision Gets a Global Spin
A kaleidoscope of color and profusion of creativity shifted the gloomy economic cloud that is hovering over the industry as textile mills at the recent Première Vision bucked the trend and injected a freshness to apparel fabrics for Spring/Summer 200...
Material World — Politics, Trade and Competitiveness of the Western Hemisphere
Passage of the Colombia trade agreement was keenly discussed at Material World last month in Miami; the importance of which was evident with an all-star cast of industry insiders on tap to speak at seminars and participate on panels to talk about the...
Eco Update: Kimberly-Clark Kleens Up On Sustainability
It is not easy being environmentally sensitive when you are well-known as the maker of such definitely ungreen items as Kleenex tissues, Huggies disposable diapers and Kotex feminine hygiene products. But consumer products giant Kimberly-Clark is sho...
Reliance Industries Innovates Reusable Bag Market
Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector company and the only private sector company from India to be featured in the 2005 Fortune Global 50 list, has been focusing on the development of end use products that utilize its polymers, such as ...
Made in Taiwan
At a recent visit to the headquarters of Li Peng Enterprise, a completely vertical textile company based in Taiwan, sentiments are shared about the “Made in Taiwan” benefit of its Libolon brand. Company president Jonathan Lin notes that his Europe...
On the Horizon
Last year, the legwear category generated retail sales of $6.6 billion. Here Sally Kay, president of The Hosiery Association, addresses five top-of-mind industry issues
Q: With the price of raw ingredients going up, what impact is this having on product development? Price impacts factors across the board, not just the content of the product but the overall logistics of production and movement of product through...
University Education
By Kathlyn Swantko, contributing columnist
“A stick of butter, cotton bed sheets, and light bulbs carry more quantitative information and technical specifications on their packaging than performance apparel!” Haskell Beckham, professor in the School of Polymer, Textile and Fiber Engineering, ...
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