The central engineering challenge was not making an existing dyeing process faster but eliminating the fundamental reasons why both conventional and prior-art CO₂ dyeing processes are slow. In conventional water-based dyeing, time is consumed by diffusion-limited exhaustion, repeated baths, fixation, washing, and multiple auxiliary chemical steps.

The bigger challenge is less about technology and more about market structure and appetite. Today’s fashion economy is increasingly polarised: at one end, luxury; at the other, ultra-fast, disposable fashion. The middle—where durability, fair pricing, and long-term value traditionally lived—is being hollowed out. That squeeze makes it harder for remanufactured products, which require care, time, and intention, to scale at the pace fast fashion demands.

We work with several native macroalgae species that are naturally abundant along parts of the Red Sea coastline. Because this is a sensitive marine environment, sustainability is non-negotiable. Our teams conduct ecological surveys before any harvesting takes place, and we only collect from areas where biomass levels can support it. The main Red Sea seaweed species that we use are from the brown group and specifically Sargassum genus.

By creating a consistent, uniform blend at the fibre stage rather than the fabric stage. This engineering ensures smooth processing and retains the softness, strength, and premium hand-feel of traditional MMCFs, even with up to 50% recycled content.

A big part is data and transparency: recyclers often lack reliable, standardized material and attachment-data about trims (what they’re made of, coatings, adhesives), so the safest operational choice is removal. The other part is inertia and risk-aversion: sorting and recycling lines are tuned for throughput and predictable inputs; including trims creates contamination risk, downgrades output or causes downtime to handle foreign materials.

With a pan-India presence over 570 procurement centres across 11 major cotton-growing states, CCI directly procures raw cotton from farmers at APMC yards while closely monitoring market conditions throughout the season. Digital initiatives, such as the Kapas Kisan mobile app, enable Aadhaar- and land record-based self-registration and slot booking, ensuring efficient and transparent procurement. All cotton and cotton seed stocks are sold via an independent e-auction portal, making the sales system market-driven and transparent.

It is obviously easier to collaborate hands in hands with small and medium brands which are more inclined to adopt our guidelines as they are starting from scratch. Larger corporations present different challenges: Bigger brands have a lot of inertia and current processes which makes it more difficult to implement our processes in order for the final garment to be 100% recyclable.

People spend thousands on machine-made international brands but bargain with us over handmade craft that takes weeks and months of people hunched over a frame, running a loom, preparing the loom, creating natural dyes, dyeing. It is a deep focus, mathematical backbreaking work. They forget that each artisan has a family to feed. I often tell buyers, ‘If you can’t respect the craft, please don’t buy it.’ I’m not here to sell cheap. I’m here to preserve what we know.

By changing how companies engage with material composition, product consumption and disposal in innovative, inventive and more sustainable ways, they’ll be in a strong position to extract more value from the entire textile and footwear product lifecycle. Circular business approaches have the potential to dramatically shift how revenue growth both rewards and incentives businesses in the fashion and textile value chain by decoupling from resource use and delivering superior risk-adjusted returns with more efficient, more sustainable performance.

Supply chains are fundamentally about people, not just technologies and metrics. We need to build human relationships between buyers and suppliers and workers, that centre dignity in the process and not rely on transactional dealings that focus on compliance. Social dialogue, close collaboration and meaningful consultation with all stakeholders should be prioritised to support accountability that benefits the people that make our clothes.

Fashion has often been an instrument of colonialism, exporting aesthetics, material cultures, erasing identities and traditional cultural practices. Decolonising fashion means challenging colonial legacies of oppression and exploitation, decentring the fashion system through critical research, cultural plurality, and communication of often untold stories, foregrounding indigenous knowledge, beyond Western logics.

And clearly, the Copenhagen Fashion Week case bears industry wide implications, considering how it is being adopted in other countries, and of course, it also affects consumers through the hundreds of influencers and media platforms invited to purvey its messages. Zalando, on the other hand, had 25.000 products tagged with their green coloured "sustainability” flag, while simultaneously asking brands to supply them with "sustainability information" which simply made it so much more difficult for brands to navigate what they were themselves allowed to communicate.

We wanted to be flexible. Initially, we focused on fabrics, but soon added garments, largely Indianwear, with styles designed to be as free-size as possible. For instance, sarees and jackets require little or no measurement, making them easier to produce without waste. The whole model is built around reducing waste while keeping the experience customised and inclusive. “The response has been very encouraging.

There should be a clear intention to switch to responsible ways of doing things. If someone continues to rely on outdated, resource-heavy techniques, it often means they’re not fully aware of the urgency facing our industry and the planet. Education, transparency, and access to technology are key to accelerating this transition. Once people understand that innovation doesn’t limit creativity and efficiency but enhances it, the shift becomes inevitable.

Cotton is a cash crop and has always given better profitability compared to others like peanuts. Before 2002, we had local varieties like Shankar-6. Yields were low, but returns were higher than other crops. In 2002–03, when BT cotton was introduced, it doubled yields from 250–300 kg per hectare to about 500 kg. Costs rose only 20–30%. Farmers prospered in those years.

Surat and Ahmedabad are the two biggest textile hubs. Surat in particular has expanded rapidly—it even started dealing in cotton about two years ago, roughly 5% of its trade now. Surat’s growth has been phenomenal. Ladies’ materials, saris—products from this port city are sold across the world, even to international brands like Zara. Garments are exported too. But Surat faces the same fundamental issue: defaults and fraud. Traders take goods on credit, don’t pay, and simply move on to another city—Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad. Entire gangs have been operating like this for years.

Some women emphasise that their jobs promise new freedoms: the chance to make decisions about their own lives and their own money. Yet, in practice, there is little room for such freedom—whether in time or finances. Most describe the work simply as a means of survival. Many try to pursue college studies alongside factory work, often with financial help from their families.

The main hurdle now isn’t policy—it’s operational cost, particularly power. Electricity here costs about ₹8.5 per unit, whereas in Maharashtra it’s around ₹4. That difference alone makes a huge impact on competitiveness. When your production cost is higher by several rupees per metre, you can’t match the price of someone in another state. Power tariffs need rationalisation if Gujarat wants to stay ahead.

The development in the country is noticeable and we see it grow every year. As most of the production facilities were built in the last five years and there‘s sufficiently space available in the industrial parks, the factories were set up according to the latest production processes and equipped with the latest technology.

In the early years, MANTRA focused mainly on testing and R&D support for the textile industry in Surat. It provided services to weaving units, dyeing units, and processing houses. Over time, the scope expanded. Technical textiles emerged as a new focus area, and MANTRA started taking up projects in geotextiles, medical textiles, and other specialised areas.