California Apparel News

Sourcing at MAGIC Aug. 18–20 at the Las Vegas Convention Center connected designers and brands with global manufacturing entities. The international presence included key participating countries China, Egypt, India, Turkey, Pakistan and a debut delegation from Colombia.

The event’s educational programming included “Intro to the FW26/27 Season: Culture, Materials & Color,” which unveiled emerging trends in fibers, materials, constructions, finishes, detailing and color directions.

“We’re not just showcasing products—we’re fostering the relationships and innovations that will shape the future of the industry,” said Edwina Kulego, VP of men’s, international and sourcing.

The Fashion Technology area featured technologies that streamline business from AI production to inventory management, printing to shipping.

The AI-powered PLM system by Centric Software in Campbell, Calif., helps apparel and consumer-goods brands take their product from concept and design to production, merchandising and marketing. “It’s a tool to have all your teams in one place to save time, have more efficiency, and have better communication internally and externally with vendors,” said account executive Sydney Benda.

New York–based GrandShipper is a free cloud-based program that ships through the United States Postal Service. There are no monthly fees or per-label fees—all you pay for is postage. “GrandShipper connects to major e-commerce stores like eBay, Shopify and the TikTok Shop; then it quotes your ready-to-ship orders, performs the whole cycle, and you don’t have to do any of the manual entry,” said owner Jay Kabigting. The company also offers clients free live support.

The efi Reggiani textile-printing-system machines create a complete ecosystem for companies to manufacture in-house. “If you’re willing to do it in-house, we give you all the tools, the machine, the software, the training, the ink—everything that’s required for you to start your own production,” said Paolo Torricella, global textile specialist for the Italian company.

“We’re cost effective and provide ease of use in terms of integrating with different platforms, and if customers have specific warehouse management systems that need specialty integration we have a team that handles that,” said Aaron Wang, VP of sales for shipbae powered by Gori shipping software in Fullerton, Calif. We’re small, we’re nimble, we can accommodate and turn custom requests fast.”

The high-level inventory-management-system AIMS360 in Los Angeles is now moving from the cloud to the web. “Now we can scan to receive, scan to pack, do cycle counts and inventory adjustments all through a scanner instead of having to log into a computer. All you do is take the scanner, scan the product and you can update the inventory,” said Anthony Passelat, business development and implementation for AIMS360.

London-based Manny AI made its U.S. debut with Seamstream AI for garment manufacturers. “It’s all about fast costing. We can take a photo or tech pack of the garment and quickly give the full operational breakdown, the recipe of how to make it, and also the bill of materials with exact consumptions so factories are able to quickly cost and work out what line they need to produce the product,” said co-founder Simon Johnson.

Sourcing at MAGIC also hosted expanded home, gift and beauty textile offerings. Swim and athletics manufacturing emerged as another dominant trend with exhibitors showcasing innovative technical fabrics, sustainable production methods and advanced-performance technologies.