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Spotlight Women of the Loom
Handloom Livelihoods Women of the Loom

Heritage Means Little Until the Women Who Make It Are Named

For most of its history the craft travelled without its makers' names attached, a silence the collective treats as a condition of the market rather than an accident.

For generations, the women who hand-paint Kalamkari cloth in southern Andhra Pradesh sold their labour without their names attached to it. Anita Reddy, a social worker who founded the artisan collective DWARAKA, set out to change that by placing control of both the making and the pricing with the women themselves, from the first outline to the final price.

[The texfash Spotlight series runs through the week.]
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ITMA 2027
CIRCULARITY / RECYCLING / SECONDS / WASTE
Ecosystems have processed and cycled material for billions of years without accumulation. The case studies have drawn on this as a design model for fashion's own material recovery.

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.

Staff Writer
Distinctiveness has a ceiling that few briefs account for, and understanding where that ceiling sits matters more than chasing novelty without any restraint.

The Design Instinct Upcycled Fashion Brands Need to Unlearn

  • Special Correspondent
 Analysis

30 June 2026
 
FLASHPOINT: CLIMATE
Material Innovation / Bezos Fund
The funding signals a research-led push to make alternative materials commercially usable, not merely experimental answers to fashion’s environmental footprint or laboratory curiosity.

The Race to Reinvent What We Wear Gets $34 Million from Bezos Earth Fund

  • Staff Writer
 Update

27 April 2026

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
Ethiopia's garment sector is entering a new phase, where climate resilience, cleaner production and worker advancement are becoming central to industrial strategy.

Climate Resilience and Workplace Safety Drive New ILO-Japan Programme for Ethiopian Garment Factories

  • Staff Writer
 Update

1 April 2026

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.

 
Saudi Fashion Tex 2026
Intex Sri Lanka
Inmac Sri Lanka
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FOCUS: COTTON
Resilience in agriculture often begins with small, repeated decisions made under uncertain conditions and constrained resources. This caption explores how incremental change accumulates into structural transformation across a working landscape shaped by necessity.

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.

Richa Bansal
 
 
SPOTLIGHT ARTICLES: MOST READ
 
SPOTLIGHT EDITIONS: SELECT 4
State of Leather 2024 21 Oct 2024
Has to be Leather All the Way!
 

Highlights: Sea Change

"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.
MORE: Heritage Means Little Until the Women Who Make It Are Named

"Quote Unquote"

Toby Moss
Toby Moss
Chief Commercial Officer
Worn Again Technologies
The Worn Again process has been designed from the start to process polycottons, which are a cornerstone fabric in modern clothes, but also some of the hardest to recycle. We also provide a unique solution to the market, which is the solvent based recycling approach. This approach is able to selectively target key materials, in this case polyester and cotton, in a way that other technologies are not.
MORE: The Future of Fashion Waste Hinges on Scaling Solutions for Blended Materials
 
 
FOCUS: LEATHER
The new organisational structure is completed by a strongly product- and project-oriented operational model, with three event managers.

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.

Staff Writer
Lineapelle 2025 demonstrated that the industry is ready to communicate in a different way. The collaboration between UNIC, Lineapelle, La Conceria, Is It Leather?, and voices like Volkan’s marks the beginning of a more open, consumer-connected era. But collaboration must extend to influencers, educators, and storytellers, people who can speak the language of the next generation of consumers.

The Power of Storytelling, Community and Leather’s Next Chapter

  • Blake Garavaglia
 Commentary

14 October 2025
 
ATTENTION: DENIM
 
COMPANY NEWS / PRESS RELEASES
 
 
Young India Fashion Survey 2025