The COVID-19 pandemic has opened up new opportunities for the functional apparel industry and manufacturers from the south Asian countries are the most potential candidates to be benefited.
Due to the unprecedented spread of COVID-19, the textile and apparel industry along with the entire fashion supply chain has been critically affected. But a portion of the industry has shifted their production to functional apparel such as PPE, medical gown, etc. which is on the rise. Those who were clever enough, they have shifted their traditional production to functional apparel manufacturing and for the south Asian manufacturers like Bangladesh and Vietnam are winning the opportunity at this moment.
What is functional Medical clothing?
Functional clothing is a relatively new sector of the apparel industry which is significantly growing. It can be referred to as the protective clothing segment being used by the medical industry and recently, due to the COVID-19, the use of this medical clothing segment has been growing with the utmost need as protection and to fight COVID-19. The functional clothing is specifically produced to assure the predefined performance requirement that actually functions to prevent infectious diseases like the ongoing pandemic. To be precise, the use of functional clothing increased in the wake of COVID-19. Protective masks, PPE, and doctors’ gowns are the most common items that have become inevitable in the prevention of Corona Virus.
A few months ago, due to the global lockdown, the industry had to face a severe consequence and millions of garments workers had to be jobless. According to BGMEA, The second-largest garment manufacturer, Bangladesh alone lost $3.18 billion dollars’ worth of orders from its global buyers. The devastating impact of COVID-19 on the Global Supply Chain has taught the entire industry to adopt a relatively new garment segment, the functional or medical apparel.
The major factor driving this growth is the need for high performance protective functional clothing which had a high demand before but the COVID-19 has significantly pushed this segment forward which is helping textile and apparel manufacturers to gain a new opportunity. From Bangladesh and Vietnamese manufacturers, we have received information regarding the opportunities coming to the manufacturers. On the other hand, those who had a functional clothing manufacturing facility, they are the most fortunate and consistently increasing their production.
On the other hand, a lot of companies are working actively on R&D to develop functional clothing products and they are expecting to capture this opportunity as soon as possible. Though Chinese companies are ahead of any other countries in the world yet all the other manufacturing nations are working to produce protective masks and PPE to support their own. Since the demand is in the rise, south Asian nations are the destination, buyers are sourcing from.
