India

A year after the last round of US tariffs cost Indian garment workers shifts, wages and jobs, a fresh US duty has been imposed and suspended in the same order, leaving the threat in place. The textile industry's main lobby group says the sector is already under stress, with apparel exports still below last year's level and production concentrated in small firms that have little room to absorb sudden new costs.

A US executive order of 16 October imposed a 100% duty on the largest buyers of Russian energy and waived it in the same text. Indian exporters escape the duty for now, but the waiver has no end date and can be withdrawn at any time, while India's Russian crude purchases remain close to 1.8 million barrels a day.

Much of India's textile waste is too mixed or contaminated to resell, reuse or recycle. Asha Singhal, Director, Nature of Fashion at The Biomimicry Institute, explains what the fourth Nature of Fashion pilot will target, what India can take from earlier work in Ghana, the Netherlands and Germany, and why local conditions must shape the technologies tested.

India generates an estimated 7.8 million tonnes of textile waste a year, and much of the low-value, mixed or contaminated fraction has no commercially viable end-of-life pathway. Shruti Goel, Chief Executive Officer of Upaya Social Ventures, explains how a new accelerator run with The Biomimicry Institute will support decomposition enterprises while tying their growth to dignified, verifiable employment.

Growing commercial interest in traditional techniques has turned handmade irregularity into a marketable quality, yet the labour and knowledge behind it often go unexamined. Sayali Goyal, a textile visual artist, discusses natural dyes, mechanisation and the line between inspiration and extraction, and why communities should have a say in how their knowledge is represented and sold.

Traditional garments across India carry knowledge of materials, construction, climate and local identity, yet many have not been explored for contemporary markets. The Weavers' Service Centre, Chamoli, has tested one approach with Uttarakhand's Dokha, a heavy woollen winter garment. Its lighter, shorter cotton version has since passed through field training to weavers, and commercial production has begun in Khatima.

Seamless construction has given Indian intimatewear a new vocabulary of comfort, softness and stretch, yet the manufacturing economics behind it remain demanding. Pankaj Kabutarwala, Founder and Owner of Piccion, a venture of Pigeon Industries, argues that advanced Italian machinery matters far less than four decades of accumulated knowledge in yarns, dyeing and integrated garment production.

A four-year European Union-funded project coordinated by Fairtrade International has concluded after reaching more than 9,500 cotton farmers and 700 textile manufacturers across India, with a primary focus on Tamil Nadu. The initiative delivered digital sustainability tools, capacity-building programmes, and market links between Indian suppliers and European buyers.

Artificial intelligence is no longer just recommending what to buy. It is beginning to decide and purchase on a shopper's behalf. India's fashion sector, projected to reach $1.93 trillion by 2030, faces a structural question that goes beyond technology adoption: when a customer's AI agent goes shopping, will it choose your brand over a competitor's?

For generations, master artisans across India and the Global South supplied luxury markets while their names stayed hidden behind export houses, intermediaries and non-disclosure agreements. A new incubator asks whether that labour can carry its own name and command luxury value. Susan Walker, whose nonprofit Ibu operates from the American city of Charleston, explains how visibility and price might converge.