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.]
Earlier Editions
 
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"

Amey Padma
Amey Padma
Head – India Business
Heartland USA
Each stakeholder plays an important role, but technically capable manufacturing partners supported by strong research validation are critical in the early stages. Once technical feasibility and product performance are established, exporters and brands can accelerate commercialisation. Building a successful hemp ecosystem requires all participants to move forward together.

"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.
 
 
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.