Textile industry has been always evolving and has stood tough times, simply because clothes are necessities of life just like food and water. The key pillars that move this industry are to Adjust, to navigate, and to create. While a lot of questions pertaining to the future of the industry and its survival have been bombarded, it’s the inner strength of players that is shaping the market for a promising tomorrow.

Here’s how the fashion and textile world is evolving with time in the post-COVID era.

Virtual domination

The past year has pushed the fashion industry to build a virtual world. The fashion industry is going through a transition with fashion weeks going online coupled with growing online fashion market. At present, a strong online presence is a key to brands' survival and success in the future. Digital space is playing a key role in offering a substantial market to all sorts of players. Recently, Fashion Designer Mr. Manish Malhotra launched his first ever virtual store in partnership with Gmetri, which is India's first-ever virtual store from an Indian design house. Mr Manish Malhotra has highlighted that the brand is relying on technology more than ever. "While our customers have been able to shop via our e-commerce site, we wanted to offer a seamless experience to our brand, even though they can't make our stores in the lockdown. With this new virtual experience facility, we hope to bridge the serendipitous joy of shopping at our exclusive physical outlets. It's a result of over 11 months of research, planning, strategy, and design, and I'm looking forward to the response of our fans and loyalists," he added. The Manish Malhotra virtual store, will allow customers to take an immersive walkthrough of the 15,000 sq.ft Delhi flagship store. Built with navigation systems and custom configurations, using your mobile or laptop, you can walk through aisles, zoom in on the products and get the details of the item, all from the comfort of their home.

Vocal for local

India is already the largest and second-largest producer of cotton and man-made fibers such as polyester and viscose respectively. The call for Aatmanirbhar campaign is accelerating the growth in fashion and textiles. The ‘Made in India’ campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also given a major boost to Indian fashion designers, who were lacking behind because of fast fashion brands. Social media and influencer marketing has been effective channels that made local fashion brands popular during the post-lockdown era.

Sustainable Fashion

The fashion industry’s annual production is 400 billion square metre of textiles leading to cutting room floor waste of 60 billion square metre. One truck capacity of textiles is landfilled or burnt every second somewhere in the world, according to the Isle of Wight-based Ellen MacArthur Foundation that is pushing fashion to move to a circular economy. As vocal for local turned out to be a success, Sustainable fashion is now the accelerating trend. Now, many customers have started shopping more consciously and thinking about the ethical aspects of their shopping experience.

A variety of young Indian neo-fashion desigers are breaking the boundaries of fast fashion trends by using local and exotic materials like beeswax, watch parts, coconut accessories, cross-national techniques, employing exquisite but obscure traditions like rural tile-making and producing customised avant garde natural designs to take Indian design to the next level. Most creative fashion houses now create apparel with safer renewable materials and refashion old garments while recovering the textiles and fibres.

“If we do not start embracing sustainable fashion now, the future is grim,” warns designer Mr. Gautam Gupta, whose two-decade-old label has zero-waste philosophy. He uses only handspun, natural fabrics and dyes. The leftover cloth goes into making buttons, tassels and potlis, and appliqué work.

Change in style

The pandemic has made the people buy clothes that they can wear to stay comfortable yet presentable in their homes. Athleisure brands, loungewear and comfort leisure clothes have seen a win during the pandemic. Designers are also finding new directions where fabrics and designs can help them sustain the times by venturing into home décor, gloves and masks.