Unraveling Global Threads: Pandemic, Geopolitical Conflict, and Resilience in Fashion and Textile Supply Chain

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how COVID-19 and geopolitical conflicts have disrupted global fashion and textile supply chains, highlighting the need for resilience and digitalization to recover and adapt.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive content analysis of recent disruptions caused by pandemics and conflicts, proposing strategies for supply chain resilience in the fashion industry.

Findings

COVID-19 caused order cancellations and factory closures

Geopolitical conflicts had significant second-order effects

Digitalization and automation are key to resilience

Abstract

Several noteworthy scenarios emerged in the global textile and fashion supply chains during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The destabilizing influences of a global pandemic and a geographically localized conflict are being acutely noticed in the worldwide fashion and textile supply chains. This work examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russo-Ukraine conflict, Israel-Palestine conflict, and Indo-Pak conflict on supply chains within the textile and fashion industry. This research employed a content analysis method to identify relevant articles and news from sources such as Google Scholar, the Summon database of North Carolina State University, and the scholarly news portal NexisUni. The selected papers, news articles, and reports provide a comprehensive overview of the fashion, textile, and apparel supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, accompanied by discussions from common supply chain perspectives. Disruptions due to COVID-19 include international brands and retailers canceling orders, closures of stores and factories in developing countries, layoffs, and furloughs of workers in both retail stores and supplier factories, the increased prominence of online and e-commerce businesses, the growing importance of automation and digitalization in the fashion supply chain, considerations of sustainability, and the need for a resilient supply chain system to facilitate post-pandemic recovery. In the case of the Russo-Ukraine war, Israel-Palestine war, and Indo-Pak war, the second-order effects of the conflict have had a more significant impact on the textile supply chain than the direct military operations themselves. In addition to these topics, the study delves into the potential strategies for restoring and strengthening the fashion supply chain