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Traceability in clothing industry: what it is and why it is important

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Reading the word traceability you might have thought to agribusiness, where trademark or origin indications are mandatory. This theme is very important also for clothing universe. How can we track a garment? And why do we need to do this? Today we are here to clear your mind about this theme. Make yourself comfortable and follow us. Let's go to discover all you have to know on traceability on garments.

What is traceability inside clothing industry?

With traceability we mean a method that let the consumer know and learn all the path that a product has made to arrive to his hands. When we talk about garments we refer to all the necessary parts to create it: raw materials, fibers, components, etc... To explain you better this concept, we want to use the definition of Fabbricafuturo: 

"A product is traced if it is possible to reconstruct the whole production cycle, starting from the origin of single elements that compose it to the single production phases, ending with the passage to the consumer".

How does traceability work?

Tracing a garment means to know where it is in every moment. To recognize it among other products it is possible to mark it. Marking can be distinguished into two types:\

• Label Marking
• Chemical-Physical Marking

This is the first requirement necessary to give life to traceability. After this the effort required is quite important. Because tracing an apparel means controlling every phase of its production. We all know that a garment has to pass through several processes before seeing the light: spinning, processing and packaging, just to name some. The productive process of a garment is very fragmented and this leads problems and difficulties to set up a reliable traceability. The latter is important to create a sustainable fashion. Moreover a process like this costs and this is one of the reasons why many companies settle for just knowing where main materials come from. They are free to do so because there isn't any obligation to show origin indications. However, this is really important when we upcycle cotton or recycle cashmere.

Why is it important to trace item of clothing?

Knowing the whole history of a garment is fundamental because the client is the first one to get benefits from this. You should have the same interest you have in knowing the derivation of the food you eat every day also for the garments you wear. If you buy a Made in Italy product you expect the highest quality, right? But what if that garment was created in another Country? You probably wouldn't be happy about that. Moreover giving informations about the traceability of products is an important coscience effort for the producer. Both the producer and the consumer would get advantages from traceability: one respecting its duty and the other receiving what he expected. Tracing a product is important also speaking about transparency. The only way to defeat serious problems like child labor. This is why this theme is so important to us, here at Rifò, as we want to create fair fashion clothes.. We have decided to give life to our products at KM 0, from the textile to the finished product. All we use during the processing is near us. The traceability of our waste is guaranteed from GRS certification, that stands for Global Recycle Standard for providers and the origin of upcycled cashmere. This let us to give life to a transparent and sustainable process.

Traceability Advantages

You might have an idea about the advantages of a traced garment: to be sure you know every of them we've prepared a complete list for you:

• Trasparency of productive process
• Sustainability
• Reduction of children labor
• Clear informatios upon processing places
• Preventions of health problems
• Certainty that the product has been really produced in a certain place.

Conclusions

How you see, product traceability is a process from which everyone can benefit. Unfortunately, the fact that it is still not mandatory, let anyone to carry on with devious processing. We are happy and satisfied with our choice, just like our clients are. Transparency in the fashion industry is necessary! Would you like to have a look at our upcycled fabrics creations? Then visit our online store.