India’s textile and apparel exports in FY 2024 were Rs 35,874cr, a tiny fraction more than the Rs 35,177 in FY 2020 while imports increased from Rs 8,262cr to Rs 8,946 between 2020-2024!China makes up 40+% of the imports (that include textiles, apparels and handicrafts) with Bangladesh coming a distant second at 11.6%. The number of people trained, upskilled and placed under the Samarth scheme too fell in the same time period. Our share of world’s exports of textiles and apparels, falling steadily since 2015 from 9.7% is now its lowest of 8.6%. Of this 8.6%, the share of apparel and clothing accessories is just 3.1% while the balance 5.5% comprises textiles, yarns and made-up articles (Source).
There are any number of reasons ranging from low productivity to poor infrastructure of electricity and logistics costs to low investments in technology to rent-seeking bureaucracy to not being aware of the market and customer preferences. Designing and producing value added products like finished garments and not just yarn, cloth, textiles and garments for others will be necessary. Thereafter, creating brands that own the designs and customers too should be the goal. Without such thinking, we will be stuck at the low end of the commodity value chain that will further and significantly impact the cause of our textiles and handicrafts.
A country with a storied, enviable, and millennia old legacy in textiles and handicrafts is struggling today. The unparalleled craftsmanship of say, embroidery or hand-block printing, will fade away if this state of textiles and handicrafts continues. Handicrafts require labour and precision in workmanship that naturally make the end products expensive such as a silk hand-made Hermes scarf. Derek Guy has a remarkable thread on this here where he makes the point about “buying a piece of textile art as much as buying a piece of clothing” .
India’s handmade textiles made from hand spun yarns like cotton, linen or wool lead to products that aren’t uniformly identical. There are minor differences that make each product unique. In the age of NFT (non-fungible tokens), isn’t this “bug” in the product then a major differentiation? Kantha embroidery, dating from the pre-Vedic age, has an estimated 30,000
artisans engaged in rural Bengal alone. is being used by top designers today for their designs. Such “textile art” that is unique, demonstrate high quality craftsmanship and are, therefore, more expensive than machine made industrial scale produced material have to become aspirational brands. Only then can there be enough money in the system for those who produce the artisanal and excellent designs with the magic with their fingers.
Aspirational brands, in turn, are created by the entrepreneurial minded. By those who wish to not just be the back-office artists who embellish a dress made by an top brand and displayed by a celebrity like say, Chankya did for Jennifer Lopez’s outfit in 2019 for Versace. “It is no secret that the top fashion brands need the expert touch of Indian embroidery artisans. India held a key role in the development European luxury from the 17th century onwards, but the country’s more recent reputation as a cheap exporter of garments for the fast fashion sector has come to overshadow its long, rich fashion craft history — and the diversity of its current activities in the luxury industry…Indian craft is an integral part of the signature of these brands and they, in turn, sustain artisanal livelihoods season after season….a veil of secrecy has long surrounded the luxury industry’s very real and valuable connection with India. Some brands still seem to fear being seen to source craft from India in case it damages brand equity. This bias panders to a lingering colonial mindset that European culture and its decorative arts are somehow superior to those of its former colonies” (Source).
The situation is much like how Indian IT was perceived not very long ago. Today, Indian IT is India’s most widely known global industry generating over $250B in revenues and employing about 5m people. Customers were attracted to India initially by the low cost but stayed on for the high quality, value-added design and management capabilities. Indian IT firms today are competing globally with their own brands, designs, processes, technology, and management capabilities, entrepreneurial minded Indian players and have created an ecosystem with a tiered structure of successful players. Similarly, all the players, especially the entrepreneurs in the fashion industry, will need to enhance their ambitions and capabilities to become branded retailers that own designs that will ensure the sustainability of the entire value chain from yarns to textiles to garments.
This will require creating an ecosystem that brings together all participants, from policymakers to funders designers to researchers to educational institutions to media to technologists that will empower and enable large numbers of entrepreneurs to build successful branded businesses.
