Specials

Wellness claims in apparel can drift from what a fabric contains to what it supposedly does for the wearer, and the evidence needed rises in between. Vamsi Sivalanka, Founder and Executive Director, and Akhilesh Karni, Co-Founder and CFO, of NITISI Limited, set out how they separate material, biological and wearer-level evidence, and why sustainability verification cannot substitute for technical proof.

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.

Lower fossil-carbon content is increasingly presented as proof of sustainability, though a single percentage can obscure emissions, water use, durability and end-of-life outcomes. Kiki Chen, Global Marketing Communications Manager, Sorona Apparel at Covation Biomaterials, argues for clearer distinctions between feedstock, polymer and finished-product content, independent certification and fuller lifecycle disclosure before bio-based performance materials are judged.

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.

The environmental debate around fast fashion has long turned on a single question: cotton or polyester, which is greener. A comprehensive lifecycle assessment now suggests the question itself was misplaced. Tracing garments from raw material through disposal, the research finds transport mode and garment lifespan reshape emissions by margins that no fibre substitution can match.

Biofabricated materials have become a fixture at trade shows and sustainability conferences, presented as the next chapter in clothing. Fungi, bacteria and agricultural waste now yield fibres and leather-like sheets with unusual properties. Yet wardrobes remain dominated by cotton, polyester, wool and leather, and the distance between laboratory promise and retail reality is widening.

Advanced textiles that monitor health, motion and environment are moving out of laboratories and toward retail shelves. These hybrid garments carry conductive metals, mixed polymers and embedded electronics that existing recycling systems cannot handle. Regulation, disassembly standards and material transparency must arrive before commercial rollout begins in earnest across global consumer markets and outpaces the infrastructure meant to contain it.

Many consumers assume that natural fibres are automatically kinder to the environment than synthetic alternatives. A new systematic review of textile chemistry complicates this rule of thumb, showing that the environmental cost of a garment depends less on fibre origin than on the dyes, finishes and performance treatments applied throughout production, wear, disposal and recycling stages.

A global assessment of pollution from textile manufacturing finds that wastewater treatment, long treated as the industry's primary fix, delivers only a fraction of the reduction available on its own. Researchers at Earth Action, working with The Nature Conservancy, argue that sludge disposal and product design carry far greater unrealised potential, reshaping how brands and policymakers should prioritise investment.

Between 2015 and 2023 federal labour inspections in Mexico fell by close to 70 per cent, and barely one in a hundred reached the textile industry. A recent study shows the shortfall is not merely a matter of scarce resources but of design, with a statutory limit and a jurisdictional dispute together leaving four-fifths of the garment sector unreachable.