Vardhman has further strengthened its legacy of product innovation and commitment at the third edition of Vardhman TEXTRUM 2019. A four day event, which attracted huge footfall from textile designers to technocrats, was held in Vardhman Textiles Limited complex, Palm Court Building, Gurugram from Feb 19 to Feb 22, 2019.
Textrum is a bi-annual textile trade show showcased by Vardhman Group. The trade show has been a great success in the past two years and serves as a platform to present Vardhman’s latest innovations in fabric and yarns. The first edition of Textrum was organised in Badi at Vardhman’s manufacturing plant. Since the last edition, the company it started holding showing it in Gurgaon since it was more convenient for the customers.
Invited to select customers, Textrum was visited by around 300 representatives of several brands, retail companies, wholesalers, buying houses and their liaison offices etc. from various parts of the country. Some of the leading names which marked their presence at the event were Raymond, ITC, Big bazaar, Benetton, Zara, Gap, Marks & Spencer etc.
Vardhman is one of the largest vertically integrated textile conglomerates in India with 23 manufacturing units spanning across 6 states, a committed taskforce of 27,000 people, worldclass yarns produced by 1.1 mn spindles and a yarn production capacity of 650 metric tonnes per day. In over five decades of its exhilarating existence, Vardhman has strived to deliver unparalleled quality through its state-of-the art technology and customer-first approach. The group has turnover of $1 bn and its spinning to weaving manufacturing facilities produce diverse range of products i.e. cotton, cotton blends, and stretch fabrics of high quality. The group currently has capacity to produce 140 mn mtr of fabric per annum.
Highlights of Yarns collection
At this occasion, the company launched its first Spring Summer Collection 2020 of Speciality Yarns. This collection of Speciality Yarns offers Cellulosic, Functional, Sustainable and Breathable range of yarns with a blend of 15 fibres like bamboo, Bemberg, Tencel, Coolmax, Ecovero, feel fresh Tencel etc. The collection consists of 40 varieties of blends that are conceived to add remarkable versatility, excellent comfort, great strength and durability to the garments.
The Cellulosic ranges of yarns are exceedingly breathable and skin-friendly while Functional Yarns are specifically engineered to deliver a pre-defined performance or functionality to the user, over and above its normal functions. Keeping nature in mind, the Sustainable Yarns from the Spring Summer Collection are derived from eco-friendly resources such as sustainably grown fibre crops or recycled materials. The Breathable Yarns are made from linen & hemp combined with various other fibres.
Talking about the new collection, Sumit Aggarwal, Senior Vice President and Head Sales & Marketing of Vardhman Yarns said, “We listen to our customers day-in & day-out and they inspire us to innovate for them. Our new Spring Summer 2020 Collection offers the perfect mix of trend focused blends with wide customer appeal. We want to provide our customers with yarns that are unique and nature friendly.”
The new range brings together weather resistant materials and subtle performance details that are best suited for spring and summer. Be it at work, party or gym, this collection of yarns will encourage the designers to experiment with their creations.
Fabrics collection on display
The company displayed innovative and sustainable fabrics for spring-summer 2020. The Ludhiana-based company showed twelve different collections that boasted of innovation in sustainability, blends, construction techniques, surface exploration, design sensibility and functional finishes.
“As you know, Vardhman is into the woven apparel fabrics since 1999-2000 and we have been preparing our seasonal collection 2 times a year. The collection was presented wherever the customer wanted it to be presented, but we wanted to create a platform wherein we can show our whole range together because we want to show our customers everything, whosoever is interested. So, this is the platform where we are presenting our men’s collection, women’s collection, bottoms, tops, blouses and shirts, everything on the same platform,” said Mukesh Bansal, Head Marketing, Vardhman while speaking exclusively to Knitting Views.
“Trend wise what is happening is now, the formal wear, sportswear and casual wear is kind of merging. The trend these days is of ‘leisure’. The clothing that you wear during the office but after that you want to go to the gym or a bar and you can go to such places wearing the same clothes, you won’t need to change. If you look, there are hardly any trousers without any stretch. Beyond this, we are talking about hi-stretch and bistretch, fabric which stretches in all the directions,” said Bansal.
For this spring/summer 2020 collection, Vardhman very much focused on sustainability apart from the fabric surfaces, the colours and the designs. So, sustainability was one of the major themes wherein it represented sustainability from consumers’ perspective and also from the manufacturing standpoint. This is all what Vardhman is explaining to the customers.
Second is, 2-3 years ago, it started its print range and melange range, which is necessarily for women blouses. The fabric substrate is rayon based. This is the second highlight. Third highlight is more comfortable fabrics, more comfortable finishes, soft finishes and stretches, bi-stretch, hi-stretch. The 4th highlight is on the innovation side. So, Vardhman partnered with R I Elan and they have range of very nice fibres which, are viable from both functionality and sustainability point of view.
When asked how last one year for Vardhman Bansal was said, “The last year has been great. After a long gap, we are expanding our capacities. We expanded our print capacity, our yarn division capacity. We have been able to utilise the capacities reasonably and next year our solid dyeing capacity is also going to increase. So, in a nutshell, from last year, say 10 mn meters a month, we’ll be expanding to 15 mn meters a month, April onwards. The capacity will be increased at both the plants.”
Commenting on the market scenario he said, “Any big change which happens, will take time to settle down. If you look at the textile industry, the fabrics particularly was out of the VAT net, there was no sales tax. The whole sector is going through a big change after GST implementation. So, the absorption of the changed scenario will take some time because the change is big.”
“I think the current government is doing a good job in terms that they’ve brought in demonetization and now a lot of focus is being put in infrastructure so that the transit time in India is reduced. With GST coming in, the interstate barriers have been diluted. A lorry which used to travel 150 km a day, the target is to cover 250 km a day now. Doing business has been eased and the speed of the business has also increased,” added Bansal.
