The Indian fashion industry is on the verge of collapsing amid supply orders drying up from retailers that are already reeling under mountains of unsold inventories.
Garment manufacturers said they received virtually no order from domestic fashion retailers in May and June, generally a busy time for businesses for the fall season, and that they don’t expect any significant improvement in July either.
On Tuesday, several Twitter users shared a video showing a protest by hundreds of workers outside a Bengaluru factory that produced goods for retailers including H&M. “H&M cancelled orders and refused to pay for (the) work done,” a tweet said.
An H&M spokesperson, in response to the tweet, said, “The drop in customer demand due to Covid-19 will inevitably impact suppliers. However, we are placing orders with this supplier and we fully stand by our responsible purchasing practices. We are in dialogue with the supplier and the trade unions to resolve the conflict peacefully.” With most fashion brands looking to run their unsold spring-summer collections until October without placing fresh orders, garment manufacturers say many factories will be closed and hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs.
“Retailers will be liquidating inventory for the next two months and they will only start placing orders when the cash cycle starts to improve,” said Kulin Lalbhai, executive director at Arvind Ltd that supplies apparel products to both domestic and international clients. “It will mean a couple of months of very low orders… People (retailers) would be cutting down their overall autumn-winter orders by more than 50%
