California Apparel News

MIAMI BEACH, Fla.—Miami has always been one of the principal stepping stones to doing business with Latin America, a fact not lost on the organizers of Material World, the textile, technology and sourcing show that hosted its first event here seven years ago.

As the event has grown from its roots as a fabric show, so has the sourcing section. This year, there were 150 sourcing booths, which now comprise more than one-third of the show’s 400 booths at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

While Latin American factories have always been a mainstay, many Asian and Far Eastern firms joined the April 4–6 run of the annual Miami Beach event, which saw attendance remain consistent with last year’s show, said Tim von Gal, executive vice president of Urban Expositions, the Marietta, Ga., company that produces Material World. The company recently added a New York run of the show and is considering expanding to Los Angeles.

On hand in Miami Beach were 10 Korean silk companies from Jin-Gu, Korea’s silk capital, which hopes to gain a toehold in South America.

“The Chinese have taken over the American market,” said Jin-Kyu Kim, president of Daea S & A Co. Ltd. “So we thought we would concentrate on South America. South Korea has a free-trade agreement with Chile and is working on one with Colombia. And weather-wise, the area has a warm climate, which works well with silk.”

Business at the show was okay, said the nattily dressed businessman, standing in front of a booth draped with swaths of silk. But next year, the Korean group will be better prepared by doing more targeted marketing, something it can afford because half the cost of the trip was sponsored by the South Korean government.

In addition to South Korea, companies from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and China had a presence at the show.

As usual, a large number of Latin American companies returned to the event, hoping to take advantage of the duty-free and quota-free status given their goods entering the United States under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which still hasn’t been fully implemented but was to have gone into effect on Jan. 1. El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras have amended their national laws to comply with CAFTA. Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica are still working on the issue.

Trading on time

Material World organizers set up a number of daily seminars and discussions. Sourcing was the main topic at a well-attended panel discussion that included such heavy hitters as Wilbur Ross, chairman and chief executive officer of WL Ross & Co., owner of Cone Denim and Burlington Industries; Gary Ross (no relation to Wilbur), corporate vice president of global manufacturing and sourcing for clothing giant Liz Claiborne Inc.; Rick Helfenbein, president of Luen Thai Holdings USA, a large apparel manufacturer in China; and Tom Travis, a customs and trade attorney for Sandler, Travis &Rosenberg, a law firm in Miami.

Trade pacts, cheap labor and speed to market were some of the key issues these apparel and textile executives said they considered when doing business.

Ross noted that he has shelved his plans for now to install a denim mill in Guatemala or Nicaragua because CAFTA hasn’t been implemented as quickly as he would like.

“Our concern is that if it takes too long to get CAFTA implemented, it may almost become obsolete because sourcing decisions that get made now won’t be reversed so quickly,” he said. “I have been extremely disappointed that CAFTA hasn’t been implemented.”

Instead of focusing on Central America, which is more convenient because of its geographic proximity to the United States and reasonable labor rates, Ross has his eye on Far Eastern countries where costs are low.

Late last year, his company became a 51 percent partner with the $1 billion Vietnam National Textile Garment Group, or Vinatex, in Hanoi. Ross has plans to build a $100 million denim and twill plant to produce goods for the mass market. Currently, Vietnam, where wages run about 40 to 45 cents an hour, or half of what they are in China, imports most of its fabric.

Ross is also hoping to do a joint venture in India to set up a denim mill and possibly a worsted wool mill in a country that still has huge potential to expand its apparel industry.

While Ross’ mills are looking for cheap labor, Liz Claiborne is concentrating on speed. The company has been studying other markets, such as the food industry, that deliver goods swiftly.

“Speed to market will dictate our sourcing decisions,” Gary Ross said. “It is extremely disappointing that CAFTA hasn’t been implemented. Instead of going out to the Far East, we could be going out to the near West. Time waits for nobody—we are putting our sourcing plans together for the next five years.”

Believing in Central America

Outside on the show floor, many exhibitors were holding out hope for CAFTA. Al Dinunzio, a U.S. sales representative for Liztek, a Guatemalan company that is one of the largest fabric producers in Central America, said business has been picking up since last year.

“In mid-2003, all of a sudden, the phones stopped ringing,” he said. “It was really tough. But I think everyone who has a commitment to Central America realizes that everything will get sorted out again.”

He noted that Liztex is supplying more fabric again to Phillips–Van Heusen, which produces shirts in Honduras.

Central America has been a boon for companies like Texollini, a knitting mill in Long Beach, Calif., that specializes in stretch fabric used in activewear, swimwear and performance apparel. Daniel Kadisha, Texollini’s president, said about 60 percent of his customers are in the Caribbean region.

“A lot of people have been visiting and asking for samples,” he said. “I can’t complain.”

Things weren’t as bright for Behdad Noorani, vice president of B.N.B. International Textiles Inc. in Los Angeles. His company, which has no minimums, specializes in stretch fabrics imported from Korea. Noorani said most of his clients were in Las Vegas attending the International Lingerie Show, held at the same time.

“It has been very slow,” he said, adding that he has attended the show since it was launched in September 2000.

But not too far away, Robert Kaufman Co. Inc., a fabric converter and importer based in Los Angeles, was overwhelmed with customers. The company’s secret? Brad Coombs, the firm’s Northeast representative, said they have no minimum orders and sent out 300 fliers to customers.

“You have to put some effort into this thing,” Coombs said.

Spotlight on PLM

Technology vendors continued to focus on emerging PLM (product lifecycle management) technology at Material World’s Technology Solutions section.

PLM uses the Internet as a window to visualize various production processes like line planning and fabric and color development, giving a company and all of its trading partners “a single version of the truth,” explained Matthew Austin, of Needham, Mass.–based PTC, a software company.

Austin and other tech executives are touting PLM as the white knight for a new economy, which has forced apparel companies to bring products to market faster due to competition and overseas sourcing.

PLM technology can skim 20 to 50 percent off the product development cycle because it eliminates much of the faxing, e-mailing and other interactions between various parties in the supply chain.

“I’m not sure if this will be the break-out year for PLM, but it’s coming,” said Fred Isenberg, vice president of sales for Miami Lakes, Fla.–based New Generation Computing Inc., which markets e- PLM and e-SPS sourcing solutions.

Isenberg said the new equation in manufacturing has set a mandate to increase speed to market.

“You have to get things done faster with more SKUs, which means more product to market for the same dollars,” he said.

NGC’s solution has attracted a number of companies in recent weeks, including Cypress, Calif.–based Manhattan BeachWear LLC; Nelsonville, Ohio–based Rocky Shoes and Boots;Warren, Pa.–based Blair Corp.; and Canton, Mass.–based Casual Male.

The steady migration into PLM has technology leaders Lectra and Gerber bringing new offerings to the table. In Miami, Gerber previewed its Fashion Lifecycle Management, and Lectra did the same for its new PLM product, which will debut next month at the IMB show in Germany. Both companies will be offering industry-specific applications.

“We know our customers’ needs and have spent lots of time figuring out what problems need to be addressed,” said Nancy Sears, Lectra’s senior PLM solutions consultant. “We’re looking at it from a fashion company’s perspective.”

With a sea of PLM applications on the market, apparel manufacturers, retailers and importers can become confused, said Ross Amarante, chief financial officer of Avenel, N.J.–based Amerex Group Inc., which produces lines for Jones New York, Mudd and Akademiks, among others.

The company recently decided to use Computer Generated Solutions’ new PLM, which is part of the company’s Blue Cherry ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite.

“We looked at third-party applications, but the integration costs were astronomical,” he said.

PTC’s Austin said the next 12 months will be a critical stage of acceptance for PLM technology.

“I think it’s still in its embryonic stages,” he said. “The lifting of quotas has accelerated everything. The promise of lowcost manufacturing has been realized. Now, everyone’s looking for the next area of margin enhancement.”

In addition to the heavy dose of PLM offerings, new product debuts included Los Angeles–based Tukatech Inc.’s Tuka bra, which is a lifelike torso form aimed at the lingerie market to help improve fit for brassieres and other undergarments.

Manchester, U.K.–based E-Measurement Solutions showed its e-tape tool, an automated measuring device that can digitize body measurements so they can be imported into CAD programs or 3D applications.

And Chadds Ford, Pa.–based ESC software debuted Frogfish, aWeb-based supply chain management system.

The advantages of a Web-based system are a mininum investment in infrastructure and its flexibility, said Michael Piombino, vice president of sales and marketing at ECS.

“People are opening and closing factories all the time,” he said. “You can shut down your Dominican operation and then you have to re-align all of your servers, but not with this system.”

Interest in 3D design is also increasing, said Yoram Burg, president of OptiTex USA, who added that sales at his firm doubled in the first quarter.

One of the criticisms of 3D has been the time it takes to make renderings, but Burg said there has been improvement, with new graphics cards coming on the marketplace. He said they are 10 to 50 times faster than the current technology.

David Fowkes, of Morrisville, N.C.–based Assyst Bullmer, said his company also will jump on the 3D bandwagon with a new release at IMB next month.

And New York–based TradeCard debuted its SourceView suite, which manages purchase orders and charge backs and gives users the ability to track vendor compliance and streamline warehouse functions. The system aims to create a paperless environment and give suppliers access to cash to finance procurement of raw materials and other goods. It also enables parties to track and manage production, said TradeCard CEO Kurt Cavano.

A number of technology vendors were notably absent from this year’s show. Some observers speculated that they are saving their money for next year’s SPESA show, a tri-annual event that runs concurrently with Material World. SPESA features equipment and information technology.