Fashion is really just starting to interact with the information technology (IT) world. Today there are already ‘cool’ gadgets and wearables, but tomorrow, we will see whole new domains where fashion can play a key role. The biggest of these is the duality of appearance -- where we may appear one way in the physical world, and have a whole range of digital appearances in the augmented reality and virtual environment worlds. This will lead to many people designing for themselves.

Fashion is often at the forefront of technology usage. Many new materials and technologies are used in textiles and accessories when they are still too expensive or primitive for other uses. With the help of technology, customisable solutions are tailored to the needs of fashion and apparel -- which include accessories, footwear, luggage and leather goods, as well as furniture and furnishings.

The next decades will see the gradual convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive technologies. Typical results will be materials with different tensile, thermal and optical properties, integration of IT into fabrics, and linkage of our bodies to the network for medical and communication purposes, via clothing or skin-wearables.

The Indian Apparel and Textile industry is largely fragmented with the largest player having less than 2 per cent of the market share. Apart from contributing the highest net export earnings (16 per cent), it contributes about 14 per cent to the total industrial production and 4 per cent to the GDP. It is a labour-intensive industry that provides large-scale employment especially for women since it is non-hazardous, thus creating a level-playing field for them in terms of job opportunity. It is the second largest employment provider in India after agriculture.

Fortunately for India, a lot has changed. First, the Indian software industry has come of age and India is widely regarded today as one of the hottest destinations for software engineering. Almost all software majors including IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle have engineering and R&D centres in India today. Secondly, Indian apparel companies have grown from family-run to professionally-organised set ups, giving more emphasis on implementing IT solutions to increase the productivity and also providing considerable domain expertise. Finally, institutions like NIFT, ATDC, ALT, etc., played a pioneering role in training large number of professionals for the industry.

Many believe it is only a matter of time before an Indian company scales to become the largest software company globally catering to the apparel industry. In this scenario, it is only logical that the Indian apparel industry is able to derive benefits of the acknowledged strengths of the Indian software industry.

Indeed it can be argued that investment in software to create a nimble enterprise that responds to external and internal customers in real time to reduce throughput times, costs and improve quality is India’s defense against China's huge factories that derive benefits from economies of scale. This is especially true as India is likely to continue to excel in high value-added styles of smaller order quantities.