Sri Lanka, fondly called as Island nation, is under severe debt crisis, one of the main reason being that Covid-19 pandemic has severely reduced the flow of tourists in to the country and this has in turn has reduced in-flow of foreign currency. Tourism is one of the most important foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is  dependent on sugar, pharmaceuticals, clothing and apparel raw materials such as fabrics, accessories and other essential products and dollar reserve is needed to procure these items.

Economic crisis has already increased the diesel prices, inability to import coal has lead to severe power cuts - which has a direct effect on clothing manufacturing industry in Sri Lanka. Cost of clothing manufacturing will increase sharply in the year 2022 because of this economic crisis, which in turn will increase the price per garment. Competitive advantage for clothing buyers, importers and retailers of the World to buy from Sri Lankan private label clothing manufacturers are,

• Colombo Port - Which is one the busiest and 25th largest port in the world and is located Strategically in the world map. 
• Europe has GSP+ agreement with Sri Lanka. This means that European nations can import clothing from Sri Lanka with zero percent duty.

The Current economic crisis seems to offset the competitive advantage held by Sri Lankan private label mens, women's & children's clothing manufacturers. Looking at the current situation, definitely clothing manufacturers from India have great opportunity in wooing the clothing buyers, who are manufacturing currently in Sri Lanka. In the current scenario, Main advantage for the clothing retailers to manufacture clothing in India is,

• Strong Economy and Government
• Availability of cotton, since India is the second largest producer of cotton in the world.
• Experienced clothing manufacturing cities such as Tirupur, which can manufacture clothing from knitting, dyeing to stitching and finishing.
• Direct connectivity to Europe and USA through Cochin Port, Nhava Sheva Port, Chennai Port and Mundra Port.​

There are plenty of opportunities for a White collar job seeker aspirant of any age in the tirupur clothing apparel manufacturers Industry in India. This article talks about the different job opportunities that are available in the industry and what corresponding skills one should posses to be selected for that job.
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1. Merchandiser:-

Merchandiser is one of the most important job in the apparel industry. A merchandiser's responsibility starts immediately when a purchase order is raised by by the buyer and completes until the shipment leaves the factory. A merchandiser's job includes but not limited to,

• Sourcing relevant raw materials needed to produce the apparel.
• Ensuring the raw material needed for a particular process reaches the production plant on time.
• Ensuring that each production process is completed on time so that the final delivery date is met.
• Sending lab dips, accessories and samples to buyers on time and get their approval before proceeding to different stages of production.
• Communicating with the shipping agents for shipment of the goods.
• Ensuring that the documents are checked and correct.

In order to become a merchandiser there are specific courses at the prestigious institutes such as NIFT. One must be well educated about the production process and also have good english communication skills to become a good merchandiser. A Talented merchandiser working with Large clothing manufacturing companies in Tirupur has the possibility of earning up to Rs.25 Lakhs per annum.

      2. Quality Controller:-
As the name suggests, Quality controllers or QC is a job, where the quality of the apparel is controlled. The reason why this job is so important is because manufacturing process in an apparel industry especially in smaller industries like Tirupur, where there are not many clothing manufacturing factories which are vertically integrated, most of the factories are CMT only and depend on independent dyeing, printing and embroidery works and because  of this, there is a constant shift of raw materials between the manufacturing units, hence there is a more chances of damage to the garment. Therefore a Quality controller is vital in order to check the quality of the garment at every stage of the production and ensure that quality is maintained until the end of production. One must have thorough knowledge in the apparel manufacturing process, AQL inspections to become a Talented Quality controller and this comes through experience. You can kick start this career by studying specific diplomas in organisations such as NIFT.

​      3. Marketing:-
A Job of Merchandiser and Quality controller starts only after a Marketer converts a client in to their buyer for their clothing manufacturing company. Therefore Marketing is the most important job in the clothing manufacturing industry but at the same time the most difficult and that is because of there is more supply than demand in the apparel manufacturing industry.  To those aspirants who wants to be in marketing in a clothing manufacturing industry, they must have the following skills:-

• English speaking and writing
• Travelling abroad
• Cold calling and fixing appointments
• Digital marketing skills
• Some knowledge about the Clothing manufacturing process

These are the three most important white collar jobs that is available in the Tirupur clothing manufacturing industry in India. All the best in your quest to be a part of this prestigious and growing industry!

Russia is ranked as 45th largest importer of clothing and Ukraine is ranked 110th exporter of apparel with the value of $1,33,191 and $10,623 respectively. [1]

India mainly exports clothing to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East and is less dependent on the other parts of the world for its exports. As you can see from the above data, even if Russia and Ukraine stops buying clothing and apparel from India, until the war is over, it would not much affect the clothing manufacturing companies based in tirupur or other cities in India.

[1]https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/IND/Year/LTST/TradeFlow/Export/Partner/by-country/Product/50-63_TextCloth

Cotton is the most used fibre in the world for clothing and apparel manufacturing. Before the introduction of man-made fibres, 85% of the clothing made was from cotton but after the introduction of man-made fibres such as polyester and viscose, cotton is now used in about 39% of the clothing manufactured in the world. [1]

Even now, consumers and fashion retailers around have shown keep interest in sustainable fashion and the main component of an sustainable fashion clothing manufacturing is that that they are made from organic cotton yarn. Organic cotton yarn is grown in the agricultural fields that does not use chemical fertilisers and pesticides. The demand for organic clothing is only growing and is set to increase exponentially. [2]

• Problems faced by the Cotton Clothing & Textiles Industry

​On one hand, there is growing demand for cotton and organic cotton, on the other hand, cotton production has gone down in the world and thus resulting in the increase of cotton prices multifold in the recent times [3]. Since healthy soil is the most important factor in producing abundant cotton, degradation of soil and the loss of the organic content in the soil are an added factor for the low production of cotton in the world. If we allow our soil to degrade and deplete at this rate, then production of cotton would decrease further, thus resulting in unprecedented cotton price increase. This could further result in consumers switching to polyester fibres, which is not good for human skin and polyester clothing is one of the major reasons for ocean plastic pollution [4].

• Solution:- Save Soil Movement by Sadhguru​ ​

Sadhguru, a yogi, a mystic, a visionary and the founder of Isha Foundation, is spearheading The Save soil movement, which intends for the Governments of the different nations of the world to bring in the necessary policy changes to address the soil crisis. As a part of this Sadhguru will be riding a lone motorcycle from United Kingdom to India in a 30,000 km Journey to spread the awareness to save soil.[5]

Cotton clothing, home textiles manufacturing and Fashion retailing industry in the world is one of the largest employers. Textiles industry employs millions of people through cotton fields, ginning & spinning mills, weaving factories, dyeing mills, printing & processing mills, garment & home textiles stitching factories. If you are directly and indirectly related to the cotton clothing and textiles manufacturing or retail industry, then be a part of this movement by spreading the "Save Soil" message so that we see a world with abundant cotton - This is only possible if we have rich soil. Show your support - Action now!
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Sources:-
[1] oureverydaylife.com/spandex-vs-polyester-12588601.html
[2] www.intracen.org/Future-development-of-the-organic-cotton-market
[3] https://www.thehindu.com/business/availability-of-cotton-rising-prices-worry-textile-industry/article38119375.ece
[4] ​https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/19/17800654/clothes-plastic-pollution-polyester-washing-machine
[5] ​consciousplanet.org

Stage 1:- First stage involves using a software called Wilcom to create the design that the embroidery machine can understand. The design can be created from scratch or the design can be transferred from the tech pack files given by the clothing importer or a clothing retailer, who has ordered the garment.

Stage 2:- Stage two involves thread rewinding (i.e) Threads are purchased from cotton mills which are in the form of cone. From this form, thread is converted in to a form which is usable for the embroidery applique machine.

Stage 3:- Stage three also involves rewinding the thread as required by the needles in the automatic embroidery embossed machine.

Stage 4:- Fourth stage involves inserting the fabric in to the fabric so that it sit firm on the embroidery machine when the automatic embroidery takes place.

Stage 5:- Step 5 involves inserting the bobbin case with the thread rolled in the bottom of the automatic embroidery machine.

Stage 6:- Stage 6 is a very important stage where the correct colour thread is inserted in the multiple holes in the automatic applique embroidery machine.

Stage 7:- This stage involves double checking the threads are inserted correctly in to the needles because if one thread cuts off from the hole, the whole embroidery machine stops automatically.

Stage 8:- A paper foam needs to be kept in to each of the frame to avoid damage to the backside of the clothing. Therefore, before placing the fabric in each of the frame, a cut paper foam is placed.

 Stage 9:- This stage involves inserting the hoop ring with fabric on the frame of the automatic printing machine.

Stage 10:- This stage involves inserting the disk drive with the design from the software that we created at the stage 1.

Stage 11:- This stage involves programming the automatic embroidery machine to read the design from the disk inserted. If the file is not corrupt or disk is not damaged then design will be displayed in the small monitor, which is attached to the machine.

Stage 12:- This step involves starting the machine and testing whether the design is correctly transferred to the fabric clothing.

Process of Automatic Embroidery in Video

Stage 13:- This stage involves checking if the stitches are intact.

 Stage 14:- This step involves removing the foam.

 Stage 15:- This stage involves trimming the raw edge threads.

Stage 16:- Then fabric is taken to assorting and counting and sent back to clothing manufacturing factories for further processing.

If you want to get your clothing designs to be manufactured from clothing manufacturers you need the following details to be sent to them so that they understand your exact needs and manufacture apparel based on your exact requirements:-

• Tech Pack

A tech pack is an important document that is necessary to make the clothing manufacturers understand your designs. A tech pack is set of documents that includes appearance of the garment, print and embroidery artworks, labels and accessories required etc., Here is an example of how a tech pack for garment will look like:-

You can clearly see that the designer has clearly communicated their requirement including the fabric weight, appearance of the garment, embroidery and print placements on the clothing, space measurement in between the line to be printed. This much of details is necessary to make the clothing manufacturer understand your requirement. If you do not have a huge designer team, you can opt for online cost effective service like Tech packer to make your tech packs.

• Measurement Spec

You must also give the exact measurements for different sizes that is required for your design. Below is an example of an size wise measurement chart:-

• Other details

You also have to present them the quantity requirements per size, accessories requirements - which includes branded tags and labels, negotiate the payment term. If all the above are communicated correctly to the manufacturers that you can buy your designed clothes with them. All the best!