MAM
Top apparel brands at CMAI’s first South India garment fair
BANGALORE: The Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) is conducting the first South India garment fair to be held in Bangalore from 13 February to 15 February.
The objective of the fair is to provide all southern garment manufacturers, distributors and retailers a central convenient location at where they can choose from a large variety of fabrics, designs and accessories and place buying orders accordingly. The Fair will be held at the Komarangala Indoor Stadium, and will present a large range of attractive offerings from several leading national and south based garment manufacturers including well known names such as Zodiac, Madura and Weekender.
The Southern garment manufacturing centers such as Tirupur, Chennai and Hyderabad have already become a major contributor to the readymade garment industry with exports of around Rs. 40000 million, while giving employment to almost 300,000 laborers comprising mostly of women from the weaker sections of society. World brand leaders and also top national brands have opened buying offices in Bangalore with many of them adding manufacturing and marketing facilities to keep pace with rapid expansion of this industry.
Says CMAI’s regional committee chairman Satish Mahajan, “While Bangalore has world class manufacturing facilities and the capacity to double the employment opportunities in the next five years, its growth is slowed by poor labor reforms and high input costs such as taxes on raw materials which make the products more expensive compared to competing neighboring countries such as China, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The first evening of the fair will also bring to Bangalore a very special Fashion Show at the Taj Westend where attractive models will showcase select innovative garment designs of 12 leading brands.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
