At a recent economic summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Prasanna Hettiarachchi, General Manager of MAS Holdings, discussed how the apparel industry in the country needs to transform itself, from mere production to a knowledge based industry.
This industry stems from a very basic fundamental need that we all have, clothing. It has today moved from that very fundamental and basic need to become a much more complex purchase decision.
It was earlier just 'something to wear' but today it has global consumers and global markets have evolved.
The global consumer is able to exercise choice and his and her wants, requirements are taking shape in an emerging global environment and what is this global purchasing decision that has evolved, how has it become really complex? To highlight these I like to point out a couple of examples.
Levis recently launched 100% organic cotton jeans. Where they say the cotton is organic the button on the waste band is organic because it is made out of a coconut shell, the label is from recycled card board, the dye is from natural compounds and no metal rivets are involved in the whole product.
Now this is because of an emerging trend where there is concern for the planet, concern for sustainability of our environment, which is becoming fashionable, and the need of global consumers and the global market.
So this has actually required businesses, vendors, service providers etc to adapt; to align themselves to the global marketing requirements.
Similarly, Dockers have also launched a new range of golf pants where they say there is ultra violet protection, that it is wrinkle free, it has effects that make you feel cool when you are on a long day of golf and there is anti microbio technology.
So as these dynamics drive global business, it becomes imperative that we as suppliers to this global market place become more aligned and understand and also become intelligent and be able to manage these different dimensions that are important to global business.
Just looking at our own industry some of the new trends that are emerging, are functional and intelligent fabrics, self lean fabrics, stain and static resisted coating, impact resistance clothing, memory shaped foams that helps a particular body shape or accommodates a particular body shape which is sewed in that entire foam through the use of memory.
Intelligent fabrics which will resemble that the next time the user uses it and face change fabrics that can actually regulate body temperature in military applications for strategic communication purposes, embedding Global Positioning Systems in clothing that will help communicate certain advanced communication requirements to remote medical teams etc.
In the medical applications heart sensing sports bras that have come in to the market, electro cardiogram recording shirts and vitamin induced wearable fabrics that allow the body to absorb nutrition over a period are some of the aspects of innovation that is actually sweeping through the landscape of the global apparel industry.
