Neiman Marcus. J.Crew. Debenhams. Laura Ashley have just filed for bankruptcy. The credit ratings of parent firm’s of Coach &Michael Kors were downgraded to junk in April. Per Marketwatch, Macy’s has ~4 months, JC Penney has ~7 &Nordstrom~12 months before store closures loom. 1/x

Online apparel sales in the US have dropped every week since March 9 despite 40-70% discounts . Retailers have stores and warehouses full of products and containers waiting to be unloaded at ports.(MW) 2/x

Faraway from US&UK,1-3 year old cotton bales worth USD 1 billion are sitting unsold in bonded warehouses in China per Jernigan Reports. China’s National Reserve isn’t buying any Indian cotton either despite exporters offering a wide range of lower grades at sizeable discounts.3/x

Undoubtedly there’s going to be a bloodbath in textile factories across Asia if global store closures prolong. A UBS study of post-virus US consumer spending indicates a dramatic drop in clothing purchases as “buying apparel is not important at this time." (JR) 4/x

Major headwinds for Fast Fashion. Grim times ahead but the real challenge is yet to come as vendor-buyer relationships change drastically.
Mapping supply chains upto the Tier 3 level may become the norm for brands or retailers. 5/x

Traceability and provenance are now more important than ever as supply chain diversity becomes critical to risk mitigation. https://medium.com/@shilpaanand/greenwashing-provenance-traceability-whats-that-625def77bd44
India’s app happy techies need to pay heed. There’s an opportunity calling in this crisis. 6/6

While macro issues surrounding the textile industry are unsettling, the firms producing innerwear should do well. One needs to look at Hanes in the US to understand why. Hanes is due to deliver more than 320 million washable 3-ply all-cotton face coverings to the US govt. 1/2

Hanes will make ~ 1.5 mn masks/week & a consortium comprising Fruit of the Loom, Parkdale &other US textile firms is expected to make ~5-6 mn weekly w/ Hanes’ designs. Take a look at the 3 ply Parkdale masks https://www.parkdalemills.com/facemasks/  VIP, Lovable, Rupa et al , over to you 2/2

A flow of the new business segments will open up as 2020 changes the market for Textile Technologies and Applications. The market is segmented both by geography (the Americas,EU, MEA, APAC )&by end-users (Defense , Architecture, Health and Sports, Transportation and Others) 1/x

The market is concentrated & major participants are AiQ ,Carré,Jabil, Ohmatex, Schoeller Textil, Sensoria,Xenoma etc per Technavio. While some of these are already here, its their design, engg &mfg expertise that will help Indian textiles transition from competing w/ BD et al 2/x

With Minister Irani being clear that the textile industry ought not ask for packages, perhaps the industry should take up the offer of support by requesting govt to initiate policy for these marquee firms to set up full fledged bases here. 3/3