Fashion
India’s exports to US drop, to non-US markets expand in Sep: Crisil
The decline followed the Trump administration’s decision to impose a 50-per cent tariff on Indian goods, effective from August 27. Without the frontloading of shipments ahead of the US tariff hike, the fall would have been sharper, it noted.
India’s merchandise exports to the US contracted by 11.9 per cent YoY in September, after recording a 7-per cent YoY growth in August, while exports to non-US markets expanded by 10.9 per cent YoY in the month, accelerating from a 6.6-per cent YoY growth in August, Crisil recently said.
RMG exports contracted—from a YoY drop of 2.6 per cent in August to a decrease of 10.1 per cent YoY in September.
The country’s overall merchandise exports rose by 6.7 per cent YoY to reach $36.4 billion in September, demonstrating resilience despite global economic headwinds and the additional US tariffs. Exports rose for the third straight month, following a similar pace in August.
Exports of organic and inorganic chemicals weakened—from a YoY growth of 3.8 per cent YoY in August to to a YoY growth of 1.8 per cent in September.
Exports of readymade garments contracted—from a YoY drop of 2.6 per cent in August to a decrease of 10.1 per cent YoY in September. Within this category, exports of cotton yarn contracted by 11.7 per cent YoY in the month compared to a contraction of 2.3 per cent in August, and those of man-made yarn contracted by 2.3 per cent YoY compared to a 3.1-per cent drop in August.
The country’s merchandise exports are facing headwinds from US tariff hikes and a broader slowdown in global growth, Crisil cautioned in a note.
Crisil expects India’s current account deficit (CAD) to remain within manageable limits, backed by strong services exports, steady remittance inflows and easing crude oil prices. The CAD will be around 1 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in this fiscal, up from 0.6 per cent in the previous, it projected.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
Published
December 10, 2025
From safeguarding intellectual property to securing their own use of artificial intelligence, the fashion industry is still finding its feet with AI. Unsurprisingly, the topic took centre stage at the Assises Juridiques de la Mode, du Luxe et du Design, held in Paris on December 9 and organised by Lexposia.
“In 2024, we submitted 2.5 million reports of counterfeit content to platforms,” explained Nicolas Lambert, LVMH’s director of online brand protection. “That’s nothing new, but AI has made it increasingly easy to generate infringing content. At the moment, for example, we’re seeing a proliferation of online ads for counterfeit Advent calendars from Sephora, Dior and other group brands.”
Alexandre Menais, general counsel for the L’Oréal group, was also on hand to bear witness to this acceleration. In his view, the growing presence of this new technology calls for fresh thinking about interactions between the company and the machine, and in particular how those interactions are used.
“With an intelligent agent, the question arises of who owns that interaction,” stressed the legal expert. “One of the risks I see is that the rules companies set, which mandate the use of closed AI, will be widely flouted. Many employees will be tempted to test AI outside the established framework.”
Christiane Féral-Schuhl, a lawyer specialising in this field, identified this risk as well. For the former bar chair and former president of the Conseil National des Barreaux, it is urgent to raise employees’ awareness of the differences between a closed AI, trained on creations and data for which rights‑holders have given their consent, and an open AI system. The latter dispenses with rights‑holders’ consent by relying on the “text and data mining” (TDM) exception.
“These AIs are ogres that swallow up all this ‘training data’, and to counter this you can build your own AI system, using protected data within a controlled framework. If an employee prefers to use an open system, they feed the machine and, in effect, share their work and creations with others — including their competitors — who may exploit it to produce infringing works.”
Féral-Schuhl also emphasised the questions to be asked of AI tool suppliers. Some stipulate in their terms that a customer’s work may be used to improve the service for all customers — which, in a creative context, should obviously be prohibited.
Frédéric Rose runs IMKI, which designs bespoke generative AI for brands such as The Kooples and G-Star. The specialist notes that AI is becoming more sophisticated. “It will soon be able to draft patterns and technical execution files,” he estimates. “It’s already getting more and more precise, and is becoming capable of specifying materials, fabric weights (grammage) or stitching types.”
This level of detail now makes it possible to spot counterfeits — for rights‑holders and consumers alike.
“Some AIs have safeguards and refuse to respond, but others give you suggestions on where to find the best dupes,” said Lambert. “Between the AI and the customer, it’s a private channel that I can’t investigate. But maybe tomorrow AI will be able to identify suspicious behaviour. Perhaps we need to imagine, as with YouTube, a DMCA‑style mechanism (a rights‑holder takedown mechanism, editor’s note) preventing an AI from pointing users to a counterfeit product.”
“And if AI is exploited for creative purposes, we also need to define red lists of iconic elements, specific signatures, which could lead a creation to resemble that of an established brand,” said Féral-Schuhl.
She also points to the emergence of “watermarking” (or digital tattooing) of data used to train AI, which could in time be subject to copyright protection and prevent its use in AI agents’ creative processes. This comes on top of “information tagging” that records the date and place of AI‑generated creations.
The vice‑president of French unicorn Mirakl, which develops marketplaces for major retailers, Hugo Weber, for his part, spoke about the contribution AI could make to already highly efficient algorithms.
“Amazon Prime is not a logistics issue: if you’re delivered the next day, it’s because in 95% of cases your purchase was already in shipping, because the algorithm is very efficient,” summarised the specialist.
He also cautioned against turning the Shein case into a trial of marketplaces, pointing out that European, American and Chinese players all have different notions of responsibility.
The Shein case was also raised by Benoît Loutrel, chair of the online platforms working group at ARCOM (Autorité de Régulation de la Communication Audiovisuelle et Numérique).
“We’re moving from preventive action by regulators to enforcement action by the courts. I think that the next stage will involve civil law, particularly in the case of artificial intelligence,” said the specialist.
Faced with the rise of ARCOM equivalents in other European countries, he hopes to see French digital sovereignty anchored within the broader European Union framework now taking shape.
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Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
Published
December 9, 2025
Do you prefer your Christmas in a hot or cold climate? No bother, Farm Rio has both covered with its Holiday Season 2025 campaign.
‘Glad to be together, wherever you celebrate’ is the philosophy behind the fashion retailer’s global campaign “that unites both hemispheres in one vibrant ‘cheers’”!
The campaign fits in well with the brand’s “passion for culture in all its forms” ethos, “design[ing] clothing for life’s happiest moments… that moves effortlessly from sand to snow, from creative winter layers to the ease of summer warmth”.
Set between Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema beach and Europe’s Alps, the campaign “plays with contrasts, remixing local traditions and celebrating the joyful, festive maximalism that defines the season”.
New York, Paris, and London appear as key destinations, each unveiling a limited-edition printed tote bag and T-shirt as “colourful souvenirs of this global spirit”.
But this isn’t all. At the heart of the season campaign is The Farm Rio Gift Shop, a one-stop shop offering over 100 gift ideas including “everything you need for everyone you love”, from bags, scarves, homewares, to cards and mugs.
To complete the season, the brand recently launched its Holiday Capsule featuring “sleek tailoring, bodycon silhouettes, and glossy fabrics featured across bold rose prints and 3D embellishments.
To celebrate the season, selected store windows, including London’s Carnaby Street, also feature luminous installations in partnership with Pirilampos do Planeta co-design project, committed to responsible socio-environmental practices.
Copyright © 2025 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.
Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
December 9, 2025
There may be trouble ahead for Swinger International. The Bussolengo-based company in the Italian province of Verona, which has been producing jeans (and, for some time now, ready-to-wear) for many major fashion houses since the early 1970s, is about to make almost half of its employees redundant.
It will be a particularly bitter Christmas for the employees of the Veneto-based company which, only two weeks after signing an agreement on extraordinary furlough for eight months covering its entire workforce, on November 25 opened collective redundancy proceedings for 70 of its current 148 employees, as reported in the Economy section of the local daily L’Arena.
Swinger International’s situation has deteriorated in just a few months following, according to union sources, the loss of orders from Versace, a brand officially acquired last week by Prada, which on its own generated about 80% of the company’s turnover (Swinger produced the Versace Jeans Couture line, ed).
On the subject, Prada told FashionNetwork.com that Versace had decided to terminate its licensing relationship with Swinger as early as October 2024, when the brand decided to shut down its second line, Versace Jeans Couture, thus before the start of negotiations between Capri Holdings and the Prada Group for the acquisition of the brand.
Prada also clarified that the decision is not related to any offshoring, as claimed by some sources, but to the choice, dating back to last year, to close the Versace Jeans Couture line.
For its part, Swinger International, contacted by FashionNetwork.com, declined to comment for the time being, while indicating that the company’s owners will communicate their response to this serious situation in the coming days.
It is a real shame for a company founded in the 1970s with a small artisanal production of jeans and then apparel, which over the decades grew to secure licences from international brands (such as Roberto Cavalli, Vivienne Westwood, Missoni, and Fendi), especially in the youth fashion and ready-to-wear segments, and which managed to increase revenues from almost 100 million euros in 2020 to more than 175 million in 2023. In 2011, Swinger International acquired the Genny brand, still in its portfolio, appointing Sara Cavazza Facchini as creative director.
On Tuesday, December 9, the first trade union consultation meeting to handle the redundancies was held at the Confindustria Verona headquarters. Regulations provide for a 45-day period in which the company and workers’ representatives can reach an agreement, and a further 30 days during which the Veneto Region is expected to act as mediator, the Verona daily added, noting that negotiations have so far proved unsuccessful.
The Filctem CGIL union did not sign the agreement. Its representatives say that “their requests, which included, among other things, the inclusion of a safeguard clause regarding the effective date of the redundancies, were not accepted,” reports L’Arena. In their view, moreover, “the conditions imposed by the company are absolutely unacceptable, starting with a wholly inadequate voluntary redundancy incentive.” The union has therefore announced that it will individually assist workers who authorise it to do so.
The current difficulties reportedly began to emerge in May, when Swinger International applied for furlough for 171 employees due to a slowdown in production, but matters accelerated at the end of the summer, when 23 members of the company’s workforce had already resigned.
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