At the 2nd edition of Denimsandjeans Virtual Show, Sandeep Agarwal spoke to Sevgin Sicim from C&A Brussels to understand the upcoming changes in denim world. We share her views on various points discussed during the talk below. You can see full talk here .
Do you think there is a revival in the market that can be seen in the last one or two months?
Actually, we have been experiencing globally something we never had before, everything has changed, the life cycle has changed, everything is changed so also in entire retail business there are lots of changing and before COVID there was a business created based on the volume and large all orders and very low cost with shorter life cycle and to buy more and pay less.
When I compare it for last 10-15 years, there is a huge pressure in the market for margins and more than ever so we also have been trying all together to evaluate how customers behave in post covid situation considering all these things what we were facing before COVID and so it was a very hot topic also Denimsandjeans Virtual’s July event.
Are consumers preferring higher quality products post-Covid?
Buyers will buy less generally and look for a better quality by longer users and I think implementing circularity will be a norm after post COVID situations.
I think what they see is kind of short reaction of customers. They look for a more relaxing style and they would like to keep their clothing at home as well as also move around and the same clothing, so relaxing and feeling comfort in your jeans is kind of a short reaction of that but I do believe it’s coming further in the months ,because it’s quite still situations not yet improve. We still face lots of things, yourself in india we are all in Europe, globally nothing really changed.
You must have also noticed that there’s been changed in the denim styling and because of work from home .Do you think these changes will remain permanent?
I think as I said people want more comfort and relaxed styles and when I look at C&A, our majority for the Men Denim part is Jog denim which gives the customer a lot of comfort and jeans look. High stretch is also in demand for the women denim market which is quite important but I think generally what customer wants- We want to keep authenticity, We want to keep that look and with high stretch and comfort so as valuable recovery so we want everything. (laughs …:) )
Thanks to current innovation of fiber suppliers, new technologies so we can do power stretch with very good recovery but what we are all considering at the end of the day in order to reach all these levels, we depend on more petroleum-based fibers so there is a conflict in there.
Do you think SEASONS are going to be important in denim fashion?
I think it’s important in a sense that denim is considered for long periods of time and not for fast fashion . It’s a perfect product to remake and reuse and also recycle it and which makes it kind of timeless but I think the two seasons consideration will remain in the market which also make us follow up what’s going on in the market, what is the new innovation so how we can do it with approach, I think it will continue again but I think it will be more focused on the simplicity and consider entire year instead of six months.
Your views on Sustainability in the Post-Pandemic Era
The pandemic has created a lot of awareness from the people, all of us all over the world we spent more time in our houses and we also appreciated nature a lot so we had time to feel the nature during that time and I think this will create more demand to more sustainable from the customer side so . And also the customer has purchasing power, so I think we need to really reap that in a sense that we as a brand we are also responsible to educate customers by sharing all with the simple and clear ways what we are offering them . So in terms of sustainability this will also kind of guide the customers purchasing power in the right direction.
How do you see the popularity of HEMP Fibre in denim fashion?
I wouldn’t say its very popular right now , it’s more kind of solution . Maybe because for C2C we use organic cotton which is great , so as a brand we are responsible to source our cottons from ethical sources . Cotton is a great fiber, it’s denim fiber . So, all over the denim and it’s impossible to avoid .
All this and we say most of the water during production but we cannot avoid cotton needs. Though it uses a lots of water to grow and by also thinking millions people are suffering because they cannot have the clean water. But cotton is very valuable in the people’s life but to replace the cotton -this is maybe future . I think hemp will be quite important but also our solution for that is that we try to use recycle but couldn’t as much mix with hemp also. So you see whatever we touch there is some influx to also consider and try to find a solution that’s why HEMP is a good solution .
How do you see 2021?
We have to keep our hope and people really kind of following what we are doing altogether in the industry. I’m quite optimistic about that because we are facing something together , so it also gives us a kind of sense of how important is to protect our environment and also look at the future in a way that we have something to protect for our future – for our kids as well . So, in order to speak in those things in the industry make me really optimistic because we haven’t really spoken that for all senses.
2021 is very challenging for all of us not only in the denim industry but also for all retail or textile industry, it’s all over globally but we should keep our hope, we’ll be going post-pandemic next year, we should see a great revival in the industry . In fact not only in denim industry but in fact we can look at a revival in the most of the industries.
See full video at this page .
