The second edition of the unique private show-Textrum, from the house of Vardhman Textiles Ltd. specially designed for Autumn/Winter’ 2019-20 attracted a bigger audience than the first show, thanks to its location in the heart of Gurgaon, which is the hotspot for retailers, brands and manufacturing units. The four-day event organised by the fabric division of Vardhman also marked the coming together of the textile conglomerate with FBB, a part of Future Group, for a special range. As a special invitee at the event, Team Apparel Resources got the opportunity to interact with the Vardhman team and talk to some visitors about their experience at Textrum A/W’ 19-20.
The advantage of Vardhman being a vertically integrated set up, was obvious in the fabrics showcased, which were highly trend-oriented in terms of designs, yarns, fibres and finishes. “The collection displayed in garment formats, saw a huge positive response from the visitors.
Over 150 customers visited the show to get familiar with our versatility, and for us, it was a very good platform for expanding new business horizons,” said Mukesh Bansal, Marketing Head, Vardhman Textiles Ltd.
Vardhman X FBB
With the proactiveness of Vardhman and the wide range of developments, new business opportunities were indeed a focus area and the event served as a two-fold agenda. Besides being a vibrant centre point for Vardhman to display its latest ranges of innovative fabrics that the Group has launched as Autumn/Winter ’19/20 collection for both women and menswear, the company also signed an MOU with Future group.
The consolidation of commitment to work together happened in the presence of FBB’s Joint Managing Director, Rakesh Biyani and Joint Managing Director of Vardhman Group, Suchita Jain. Speaking about the same, Rakesh Biyani stated, “Both the houses have a lot of synergy, in the sense that Vardhman has a strong textile operation base, from spinning to processing, backed by technology and know-how, and FBB has a tremendous front-end presence and a large customer base.”
The coming together of Vardhman and FBB at the Textrum platform worked as a joint promotion for the garments being sold at FBB stores nation-wide, made from Vardhman’s Fabrics. Corroborating on the same, Ajay Chablani, Head-Fashion, Future Retail Group averred, “Vardhman is our key strategic partner. So, we are more than happy to be here to strengthen the relationship.” Suchita Jain further assured that since the brand has a strong belief in the Indian textile market, Vardhman will keep on introducing fabrics specifically suited for the Indian consumer.
Why Textrum?
A benchmark of an event, Textrum A/W’ 19-20 was a second installment in the list of many more to come, the first one being already held at Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, earlier this year, which drew in many retailers, brands and garment manufacturers to experience the best of fabrics that the company known for its innovation had to offer. Textrum A/W’ 19-20 was attended by a large number of customers and business associates from all segments – export, domestic retail, international buying and distribution. The attendees got a first-hand experience of what is in the offing in terms of fabric versatility, business prospects and not to forget – the upcoming trends.
Speaking about the importance of the event, Kaushik Basu Mallick, General Manager, Product Development & Technical Services, Raymond, who was one of the valued clients briefed, “It has been a good experience to see so many new possibilities. Such events give you a chance to learn about new options; thus, helping one in getting in-depth knowledge, as also planning for future products which can be a blockbuster for the brand in times to come.”
The team from United Colors of Benetton, led by its MD, Sundeep Chugh was very impressed with the displays and spent a good amount of time going through the collection. Harita Choudhary Kaul, Senior Vice President, Buying, Merchandising & VM admitted that many of the fabrics were of interest and could be considered for their new developments. Not only organised retail and exports but also many clients from the unorganised sector visited the event and one of them operating out of Tank road was especially happy to see the developments in shirt fabrics.
Unleashing new fabrics from performance fibres
The range of fabric was wide and they were made from some of the new innovative fibres like ‘37.5 R-ELAN’, which stands out for its properties of maintaining a temperature of 37.5° Celsius, which is the ideal core temperature. For the uninitiated, when one feels hot, patented active particles embedded in the material remove sweat in the vapour stage before liquid sweat forms; thus, cooling one down. When one feels cold, those same active particles trap one’s energy to help warm one up.
And then there was ‘Airtherm’ which is basically a highly functional fibre which traps air for greater thermal insulation that is perfectly suitable for winter clothing. While ‘Feel Fresh’ boasted of anti-microbial and anti-odour properties, ‘Super Feel’ fabric carried an excellent drape, softness and cotton-like touch. ‘Refibra’ was the new TENCEL® generation. Refibra™ stands for ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. The name itself illustrates that this new kind of fibre is made from recycled materials promising reduced reliance on natural raw materials. Refibra™ fibre offers a deep sustainability profile that clearly contributes to circular economy.
‘Traveller Chinos’ was another option that was catching everyone’s attention at the event. Basically, made from knit-inspired woven fabric, meant for chinos and joggers, it has been designed to serve the purpose of comfort of people travelling for long haul. Miyabi and Coolmax all season are woven in this range to provide better thermal regulation.
Speaking about their picks from Textrum A/W’ 19-20, Kaushik Basu Mallick from Raymond averred that the brand is mainly eyeing polyester blends and performance-based fabrics from the collection. FBB on the other hand was more keen on grindle and mélange in shirts. Traveller category with chinos and joggers was also something that the brand thought was pretty promising.
Sustainable
From the word GO, there has been a lot of humdrum about sustainable fabrics and collections pertaining to the same in the industry. The attendees were all out there inquiring about the sustainable offerings by Vardhman Group. This collection mainly focused on the quote, ‘From the nature, for the nature, and by the nature’. The fabrics were created from fibres like linen, cotton, recycled poly, organic cotton, Ecovero and Refibra. Ajay Chablani spoke enthusiastically about Vardhman’s sustainable collection stating, “We are the first to get off the ground as far as sustainability is concerned. There is Ecovero that we have opted for the next season and we work very closely with Vardhman. Sustainable is a journey. We are going to call it out and be ahead of the curve.”
Women’s collection
Carefully crafted fabrics for women’s range included variable blends of viscose, modal and tencel that were amalgamated with cotton yarns for tops, bottoms, skirts and dresses. Apart from that, various kinds of prints remained the highlight of the collection. Fancy Novelty yarns were also incorporated in the collection to give a 3D look. Specially designed garments by designer Rajesh Pratap Singh that were showcased in Lakme Fashion Week S/S’ 18, were also featured in this event. These garments were mainly flowy and unstructured in look and feel, and boasted of a breezy vibe. No wonder, this stall had the maximum takers.
Innovation 2.0
Vardhman’s A/W’ 19-20 collection also effectively combined two major characteristics – Price Effectiveness and Fabric Innovation, to bring forward classic mélange that are rich cotton-poly blends which are solid dyed to create yarn dyed looking 3D fabrics.
Overall, Textrum A/W’ 19-20 remained a very successful private show which attracted admiration from all the attendees. Here’s hoping to see more such textile events paving their way to better industry networking, collection preview and trend forecast.
