LATEST UPDATE

Width Variation among Women with Identical Foot Length Points to Limitations in Current Shoe Sizing

Conventional shoe sizing, built around foot length, fails to account for the width variation among women's feet. In Australia, most women wear a shoe size that differs from the one their foot length indicates, and those who size up may be compensating for widths that shoes sold in only one width cannot accommodate.

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CIRCULARITY / RECYCLING / SECONDS / WASTE

Fashion Has Discarded 110 Million Tonnes of Textile Fibre a Year with No Biological Recovery Path, Case Studies Find

Completed case studies from a multi-year programme have shown that biological decomposition processes, including enzymatic hydrolysis, bacterial fermentation, and microbial activity, can convert discarded textile waste into biodegradable and biocompatible materials. Pilots in Ghana, the Netherlands, and Germany have mapped a pathway that routes fashion's discards through breakdown processes rather than landfill or incineration.

 
FLASHPOINT: CLIMATE
Material Innovation / Bezos Fund

Breakthrough textile materials have received $34 million in new Bezos Earth Fund grants, backing research into bacterial fibres, spider-silk-inspired biodegradable materials, coloured cotton and cotton seedbank restoration. The funding targets materials that can match rayon, silk and cotton while improving cost, performance and environmental outcomes across fashion and textile supply chains.

Climate Action / Ethiopia Project

Climate resilience, productivity and workplace safety are being advanced across Ethiopia's leather, textile and garment sector through a new ILO-Japan joint initiative. The one-year programme targets 40 factories across five cities, integrating Japanese expertise, digitalised safety tools and a women's leadership development programme to drive sustainable and inclusive industrial growth.

 
 
 
FOCUS: COTTON

Climate Pressure Forces a Reckoning Across Pakistan's Cotton Belt

Fragmented pilot projects have long defined regenerative agriculture efforts in Pakistan's cotton sector, but mounting climate and market pressures are exposing the limits of that approach. Drawing on a recent industry roundtable, Abou Bakar, Country Representative – Pakistan, CottonConnect, explains what a coordinated national framework would look like, and why farmer incentives and traceability now sit at the centre of that conversation.

 
 
 
SPOTLIGHT EDITIONS: SELECT 4
 

"Quote Unquote"

Anita Reddy
Anita Reddy
Founder
DWARAKA
The artists of DWARAKA would never compromise on what they believe to be the authentic, time-driven, labor-oriented processes involved in hand-painted Kalamkari using “Kalams” as their forefathers did too. Regardless of the push from the market, strategic planning and distribution of responsibilities lend support to these processes. In DWARAKAs experience the artists share their skills, and art with the buyers, who adapts concepts from the shown possibilities, and then modify it into new ideas or concepts where required.

"Quote Unquote"

José Luis Spontón
José Luis Spontón
Researcher
Reconquista Experimental Research Station
In the primary cotton production sector specifically, with its diversity of actors across the Latin American territory, making a particular technology or productive technique widely adopted requires different "incentives" depending on whether the producers are family-scale or large-scale. In many cases, the absence of those incentives is precisely what limits the widespread adoption of many available technological advances.
 
 
FOCUS: LEATHER

Major Reorganisation Positions Fierecongressi as a More Competitive Force in Global Exhibition Markets

A major internal reorganisation, aligned with a growth strategy and a substantial infrastructure investment programme, has reshaped Fierecongressi's operational model. The restructuring establishes a dedicated Internationalisation Area, merges two business units into a single Fairs Business Unit, and introduces a product-oriented structure to strengthen the company's competitive position in the global exhibition and congress market.