The seminar was inaugurated by Dr. Prabir Jana, president of Tantu. His brief inauguration speech included every aspect of denim and jeans as well as all their technicalities and commercial sections. Tantu launched the annual journal after Dr. Jana’s speech.

The first visual presentation session was conducted by chief guest of the seminar Sunder Belani, managing director of Ramsons India, where he showcased the Indian retail apparel market scenario and how his own firm of laundry and finishing equipments, is looking at sustainability as a matter of great concern.

Next Subir Mukherjee, business head of denim giant Bhaskar Industries, spoke about fabric and denim jeans production and its consumption by Indian consumers by some numerical data. He coined an important term – value creation besides product creation. He also talked about the pros and cons of Indigo dye which is generally used in dyeing of denim or jeans and further advised for utilisation of wastages.

In the first panel discussion of the event, 'Denim fabric development: Art or Science', Dr. Jana initiated the session by a video about embroidered and knitted denim and threw a question to the panel members whether 'Denim is a science or a art or classic product or a fashion product?'. Jasim Uddin, project director, NZ Denim Ltd, Bangladesh, said jeans is an art whereas his co panel member Munir Syed Sayeed, chief operating officer, Epyllion Group, Bangladesh, said jeans is science. Other panel members such as Abhijit Ghosh, principal consultant of Mak Gameplan Enterprise, India and Subrata Ghosh, vice president, Chiripal Industries, India, both suggested that denim is a mixture of both art and science.

There was discussion regarding stripe denim at the event. Questions from audience such as discrepancies in denim checks were beautifully answered by Uddin and Ghosh. Questions were also raised by audience about washing, pollution, dyeing and cutting problems of denim and jeans.

M Sai Navneethan of Ramsons India presented a session on sustainability in textile and garment industry. He displayed how Ramsons India is concerned in sustainable finishing of apparels sector and supported his words by technical data and evidence. Ram Sareen, CEO, Tukatech, pointed some areas where denim industry in India is lacking and why it is running behind. He introduced the 3D generation of pattern of denim jeans as well as other garments in Tukatech CAD software and how much it is perfect for bulk patterning and cutting.

The second panel discussion was on 'Finishing Jeans – a Environmental Reboot'. The session was moderated by Suvodeep Mukherjee, senior general manager of TUV SUD South Asia Private Limited. Manuj Kanchan, general manager of Jeanologia South Asia initiated the panel discussion with a presentation where he showed how textile and apparel industry is gradually depleting natural resources.

Kishan Daga, business leader of Triburg sportswear India, discussed how Triburg is executing a smooth sustainable way of apparel manufacturing and taking it to the next level. Dipankar Bose, implementation manager of ZDHC South Asia, talked about how people are proceeding towards that final day even after knowing everything about man-made depletion of earth and earthly resources. He added that international brands are very strict towards corporate social responsibilities in sustainability.

Kishan Daga shared his experience on how European giants like Germany only consider organic cotton and recycled polyester.

Vinod Krishnamoorthy of Fortuna Colours presented how his firm is working with industrial inkjet printing to minimise water use. He also showed how digital inkjet printing could save gallons of water.

Presenter Rahul Mahajan of Datatex gave solutions for many problems and questions asked by the audience about how his firm's software can go side by side with Industry 4.0.

BK Mohanty of Macpi Group of Italy, showed how machineries of his firm deal with newly modern techniques of garment finishing line.  

Jai Nugessar of SipItaly displayed how stitching is the most important in jeans or denim manufacturing. He pointed out Indian jeans manufacturing units are still lacking behind in stitching assemblies, where other South Asian countries are going ahead of Indian manufacturers. He showed some automation in garmenting of jeans in his presentation.

Yawyer Ali Shah, founder of AMA Herbal, talked about his firm of natural dyes, and how it is so much eco friendly in comparison to other types of chemical dyes and colours with statistical data and numbers.

The third panel discussion 'Start up in Blue space' was moderated by Pranav Khanna of Builder at X, India. Khanna started the discussion with whether the industry or business sector is going innovative or disruptive way, where panel members like Sartaj Singh Mehta, chief product officer at BigPhi (Turms); Sanjay Goel, founder and CEO, Srishti Technet Private Limited; and Padma Raj Keshri, curator, agreed that it is disruptive.

Another topic of discussion was whether the apparel sector is going the B2B way or becoming customer facing. Every panel member was in favour of customer facing role with an addition of smart technologies in garments and apparels resulting in value creation.

The panel members came to the conclusion that sustainability, disruption and innovativeness will succeed in future.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (PC)