Material for Creative Ideas

Krasnodar, 29 January. The production volumes in the region’s light industry grew by 30% in 2020. At the same time, the textile industry was showing downward trends. 

Presently, clothes factories as well as tailors are seeking for competent workers, and designers – for fabrics; the clothing industry is literally stifles from want of raw materials and good professionals. 

Tatiana Vasilieva, a couturier and ex-Head of the Department of Costume Design of the Faculty of Architecture and Design, Kuban State University in 2008– 2012, says that “fashion is not a sketch or a show on the podium. All begins with the production of fabric. With the fields where the material is grown. And a real specialist must know the entire technology.” 

Last year, the regional authorities began to speak in public about the need to restore the textile industry as a promising sector for the region’s economy. 

The regional Department of Industry confirmed that they are working on the plan on restoration of the regional textile industry. However, at this point the whole matter boils down to looking for an investor that would wish to launch own fabric production in the region, even if it were an incomplete cycle facility. 

“Lots of constituents are needed to let the textile sector become a developed industry. It is like details of a clock: what is needed is the smooth work of all gears, but there aren’t any of them in the region or in the country,” the designer Narine Arutiunyan says. 

She notes that the production of both fabrics and all accessories is running down. It throws the players backwards and makes them uncompetitive before their foreign colleagues: “Raw materials are really headache for designers and couturiers. Yes, we all order them abroad, which, despite all digitalisation of the offers, is very inconvenient.” 

A situation has arisen when it would be extremely difficult for investors to fulfil their plans, even if they are prepared to invest big money in the development of the textile industry in the Kuban region. First of all, they would experience serious problems with the personnel – now the market offers a lot of couturiers but there is want of seamstresses, dress cutters and weavers. 

“The problem is that the educational system in our segment is currently working to create a collection, show it on the stage and forget about it. Well, sometimes to sell it,” Tatian Vasilieva says. “What we lack is a system where we could take raw material, wave fabric from it, and make a collection for thousands of people.” 

Experts of the problem, in particular Dmitri Gangur, Acting Head of the Educational and Methodological Department of the Krasnodar State Institute of Culture, note that a certain model for development and formation of the textile industry has already been shaped up. 

In the past, the Krasnodar Worsted Cloth Factory and Krasnodar Cotton Mill used to manufacture dozens of kinds of woollen, union, cotton and synthetic fabrics, and nonwoven cloth in various colours and patterns. Their production volumes by far surpassed the needs of the region’s clothes factories. It would be useful to turn to the historical experience which shows that it is movement towards cooperation of production, cluster development of the industry, and formation of a completed technological chain – from production of raw materials down to finished products – that may prove promising in the existing situation.

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