Apparel Online Bangladesh Magazine November Issue 2018 | Page 40

BEYOND BD HAVE YOUR SAY BREAKING NEWS Tell us your news by emailing at [email protected] To read the latest sustainability news, go to https://apparelresources.com/business-news/sustainability/  Fashion is the emerging power-player of Sri Lanka's new creative economy Fashion – frivolous by-line for the self-indulgent or, a power industry? For Sri Lanka, definitely it is the latter. In the wake of one of the first discussions ever to form a national strategy for Sri Lanka’s creative economy, fashion has come to have a deeper significance for the island. It has infact become the evolved, creatively-driven future of its most potent export industry – apparel manufacturing. With apparel’s mature infrastructure, widespread channels, fantastic technologies and investments to develop a creative workforce, Sri Lanka’s fashion sector is entering this arena with a winning formula already in place. In fact, the Export Development Board Sri Lanka proposed directing a special focus towards fashion in its first creative industries’ strategy, as a sector ready-to-roll-out. Respected around the world for pioneering sustainable manufacturing practices in South Asia, Lankan apparel makers form an industrial superpower nearing US $ 5 billion value, bringing in 45 per cent of export earnings, and presenting 5 per cent of employment opportunities available in the country. But, it’s not only the manufacturing industrial power that makes Lankan fashion so ready to take the lead in an emerging creative economy. The interest and commitment they have displayed towards harnessing innovative thinking and creative culture at work is the key reason why Lankan fashion is well-primed. Most major manufacturers in the island have been investing in developing creative teams, design departments, tech-fashion integrators and innovation labs for well over a decade. Brandix’s Fortude and ‘Disrupt Unlimited’, Hirdaramani’s H One and Twinery- Innovations by MAS are few examples. Taking a closer look at Sri Lankan apparel industry’s interest in nurturing creativity, Apparel Online invited Thishan Rambukwella, Head of Design at MAS Active to share his ideas. Thishan mentioned that Sri Lankan apparel industry is interested in design and creative innovation because this is what sets the clear difference between Sri Lanka’s value proposition and cheap needle destinations that compete with price. “We need to do much more than just manufacturing – most apparel companies know this. Design and the ability to innovate are a part of Sri Lanka’s unique offering. In fact, now we have clients who are keen to source design and ideas from us. They collaborate with us to get the product right,” Rambukwella said. He further noted that this openness to collaborate has resulted in a much more fluid production process where manufacturing and design intertwine, where one inspires the other in many ways, and designers, material engineers and textile technologists work together to create a high-value product. “There is no more clear-cut separation between the manufacturing process and design; it’s one and the same. This has also influenced the Sri Lankan apparel to move from a manufacturing industry to a creative one based on ideas and intellectual property,” he noted. Thishan explained. He also stated that MAS’s own group is focusing on design thinking, innovation, and using creativity for radically new inventions throughTwinery- Innovation, which is responsible for advanced mergers between tech and wearables such as the Firefly© glow-in-the-dark material. Thishan reflected on how this natural evolution was expedited by the Lankan apparel makers’ unified decision to not compete at low price levels, even during the toughest economic turmoil and the former years without the GSP+ advantage. He noted that although this has earned Sri Lanka a reputation of being a costlier choice, it has also contributed in creating well-deserved esteem as a high-quality manufacturing destination with the added advantages of creative thinking and the capacity to innovate. “We are known as an expensive destination, but we often find that it is more and more welcomed as long as we can offer creativity, design, and ideas that can reinvent fashion in some way or the other,” As Sri Lanka plans to lock in a national policy for its creative economy to take shape, its powerful apparel industry seems to be perfectly positioned to reap in the benefits. What it will offer the world, is a design and innovation-driven fashion manufacturing destination with strong sustainable practices. For the South Asian region, it becomes a new kind of destination within the region, where fashion brands, businesses, and even designers can work with an industry that understands trends, aesthetics, creative thinking, innovation and the value of intellectual property. How this unusual fashion destination will evolve with a focused creative industries’ national policy will be interesting to observe in the next few years. 40 Apparel Online Bangladesh | November 2018 | www.apparelresources.com