Apparel

With today’s tough economy and overall tighter company budgets, it’s no wonder your clients are becoming more demanding and wanting more from you in a shorter turnaround time. With so many balls in the air, and only two hands to catch them all, working with a smart supplier who can truly be a partner to you will make a world of difference.

Runners are on their own to purchase pants, but the T-shirts they wear are another story. Since the early days of the running boom, T-shirts have been the souvenir almost always included in the price of a race entry fee. And runners love them.

In a recent scientific survey conducted among a group of seasoned runners, I learned runners favor tech or synthetic, lightweight fabric T-shirts over cotton—the fabric of choice for so many years. Runners say they fit better, don’t get smelly, breathe, have a nicer texture and stretch enough to “cover a car” according to one respondent.

HanesBrands, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., recently announced that it has closed the acquisition of Maidenform Brands Inc. for approximately $583 million. HanesBrands had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the company in July.

Facebook's mission to secure its status as the world authority in who knows who—a constant, lumbering quest to improve its advertiser-serving "social graph"—involves more than just parsing your status updates and cataloging your relationships. It also, quite simply, means knowing what you look like. The company's flirted with facial recognition for years to this end—it rolled out and then rolled back face recognition in user-uploaded photos in 2010—and a proposed change to its terms of service, introduced last month, would give it the right to use your profile picture in an effort to enhance it's auto-tagging efforts.

When apparel brand Boxercraft was searching for a new supplier for its T-shirts and tank tops earlier this year, it didn’t turn to factories that crank out millions on the cheap. Instead, the 120-employee business, based near Atlanta, chose Industrial Revolution II, a garment manufacturer in Haiti.

Backed by designer Donna Karan, actor Matt Damon, and Joey Adler, CEO of Diesel Canada, IRII started production at its 35,000-square-foot facility in Port-au-Prince in early September.

The rundown of three fitness pieces for the fall.

The fallout from last week’s violent protests in Bangladesh’s key apparel industrial belts could lead to financial losses of around $77 million for apparel makers, higher production costs and heightened concerns from buyers over the country’s reliability as a source of clothes.

Garment exporters say the losses were incurred as a result of production disruption and vandalism during the six days of unrest, which began on 21 September.

A new movement demands 100 percent cotton in all garments. What about high-quality synthetic tech fabrics?

To help customers capitalize early for fourth-quarter market share of the holiday gift season, Bodek and Rhodes announced the launch of the industry's first holiday campaign using ready-to-launch integrated media, through both catalogs and a variety of web-based outlets.

Tri-Mountain, Irwindale, Calif., recently published its 2014 Team Sports catalog, highlighting 135 styles primarily from the Tri-Mountain Performance brand.