As the fashion retail industry continues to move forward with increased production of merchandise using sustainable and recycled raw materials, freshness and hygiene have been critical factors for consumers, along with an extended lifecycle as well as superior performance…
Freshness along with performance has become the most important trend for innerwear, home textiles, socks, active, athleisure and casual apparel. As the fashion retail industry continues to move forward with increased production of merchandise using sustainable and recycled raw materials, freshness and hygiene have been critical factors for consumers, along with an extended lifecycle as well as superior performance.
Today’s consumer has many interesting retail options including retail which strongly focusses on using sustainable raw materials and processes. All major fashion retailers and brands, today, are striving to combine sustainability and performance for better consumer experience across all product categories to provide more value to the consumer.
What is Sustainability?
Sustainability and performance have today become the top briefs for any new product innovation from all major brands and retailers to their manufacturing partners. Global organizations too are coming together, setting common sustainability goals and righting their actions now to lessen the impact of the fashion retail industry on both nature as well as the human race. Some organizations have described what sustainability means to them:
Functional Performance & Hygiene
Recycled Raw Materials – both natural and man-made – are very critical for sustainable retail offerings and the challenge has been performance during manufacturing for great consumer experience. Many leading brands and retailers have been working on collections using recycled materials from pre-consumer waste and post-consumer waste.
Functional performance and hygiene are very critical as well, with retailers and brands continuing to work on recycled sustainable ideas based on raw materials from pre- and post-consumer waste. This would support to maintain and extend the life cycle of the raw material and improve consumer experience. It is suggested to rinse wash the new garments before first use for better hygiene due to handling and multiple trial room session of the same apparel by many potential consumers.
Hygiene and freshness have been a very strong trend in as far as Indian consumers are concerned, across segments – from home care to personal care and even lighting. The following are three different consumer campaigns which have reflected this trend very clearly for the Apparel and Home Textiles industry:
Lifeboy:Bollywood star couple Kajol and Ajay Devgun star in a commercial for Lifebuoy handwash, urging people to invest only 10 seconds in washing their hands with the product which promises 99.9 percent protection with its silver technology. The campaign has had strong impact on the target audience with sales shooting up.
Crompton: Crompton’s new innovation – its Anti-Bac Led with Envirosafe technology addresses the age-old customer concern of performance laced with hygiene. The company came up with this campaign after studying trends based on consumer insights.
Asian Paints: Asian Paints’ ‘Health Shield’ offering is also an indication of the strong demand for both freshness and hygiene from consumers.
ALook at Brands Which Are Using Sustainable Raw Materials to Provide Freshness Solutions to Millennials:
Freshness, along with performance, has become the most important trend for innerwear, home textiles, socks, active, athleisure and casual apparel. The fashion industry continues to manufacture more merchandise using recycled raw materials, something which is critical for better life cycle and sustainable performance.Take for instance, the innerwear category. Odour resistance and moisture management have been the top 2 most desired performances for innerwear by consumers.
Some innerwear brands which have been successful in giving consumers what they seek, include:
Van Heusen-innerwear for men with strong focus on anti-bacterial performance for all day sustainable fresh experience to the consumer.
Jockey treats its underwear with its Stayfresh technology with antimicrobial properties for freshness throughout the day.
Fruit of the Loom has been designed with Intellifresh for a sustainable lifecycle of innerwear and to give consumers a ‘stay fresh’ experience.
Spaces has been able to offer the idea for home textiles using the combination of bamboo and charcoal and claim as natural performance.
HRX by Hrithik Roshan is engineered with Rapid-Dry Technology tnd an antimicrobial finish to ensure consumers stay comfortable no matter where they are.
Raymond produces shirts with fine Supima Cotton and their B Fresh Technosmart idea. The end result are products that are a perfect combination of sustainable performance and freshness.
Cannon Towels use Silvadur and Dreamline Towels use N9 for freshness protection and Odour Control. They are both available at Big Bazaar. Brands Shyla, Champion and Santa Barbara, available at fBB, too use Odour Control and Freshness technology as part of their offerings.
Proline has been able to offer the Everfresh idea for Athleisure apparel with antimicrobial and Anti-Odour performance from the polyester fiber used for the blend. Millennials will continue to drive this growing trend of Freshness and Hygiene across all categories of apparel and textiles including recycled raw materials for all blends.
