From the Sector

IFFT/Interior Lifestyle Living has wrapped up three successful days of business at Tokyo Big Sight’s South Halls. From 18 – 20 October 2021, a total of 11,147 visitors found their way to the fairground. Assembling again for the first time since the pandemic began, 300 exhibitors from five different countries and regions welcomed visitors with an extensive and diverse selection of products in 10,390 sqm of gross exhibition space.

“As the place where designers set trends and decision makers meet, IFFT/Interior Lifestyle Living has once again proven to be the premier trade fair in Japan for the entire living space,” says Mr Yasushi Kajiwara, Managing Director of Messe Frankfurt Japan Ltd. “After last year’s fair was deferred due to the pandemic, we worked hard to present industry buyers with new impulses and ideas at this edition. This included an additional focus on up-and-coming designers at dedicated zones for new talent.”
 
Fresh talent and green living
With products for the entire living space assembled at the fairground, trade buyers were once again spoilt for choice, but a number of product zones in particular were worthy of special attention.
As a new initiative for 2021, the renowned Japanese architect Mr Keiji Ashizawa gathered prospective new interior designers and their products at the highly anticipated '+Talents' Zones.
 
To maximise connections, a series of fairground tours were also arranged to bring architects closer to the best new designers and their interior products for the Japanese market. A new 'Ethical' Zone was also introduced to spotlight green living, up-cycling, fair trade, and more.

Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles concluded its 27th autumn edition in early October. Held alongside four other concurrent textile shows, the fair was the only major event for this sector able to take place in China during this season, providing a much-needed business platform for 735 exhibitors and 20,106 trade buyers. The fair was held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai).

Ms Wendy Wen, Senior General Manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd expressed: “Due to the valuable cooperation of many parties and the continued support of our exhibitors and other partners, we were able to hold the fair as scheduled despite a number of challenges. Since the pandemic situation was brought under control in China last year, we have expended considerable resources to ensure our textile fairs still take place to provide trading platforms that connect the global industry. This edition was especially important as it was the only major fair to take place in the country at this time.”

While a number of international exhibitors participated this year with individual booths, the Belgium Pavilion presented home and contract products and five Chinese regional pavilions from Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Huzhou, Haining, and Tongxiang also featured. Two trend forums also provided inspiration for 2022, while the IKASAS Japanese Home Design Gallery, New Voices of Top Youth Upholstery Designers City Roving Exhibition and China International Fiber Art Exhibition gave further insights into various aspects of the industry.

Fair’s fringe programme highlights sustainability, design and more
As with all of Messe Frankfurt’s textile fairs around the world, sustainability is a big focus. A number of events under this focus took place in the fair’s fringe programme, including a half day forum titled How Sustainable Fashion is Reshaping Lifestyles, with a range of innovative companies and prestigious universities participating as speakers.

The Design Talk session featured a series of presentations from leading international designers, including from China, Japan and Europe, to share their design insights. And a new concept this year, titled New Voices of Top Youth Upholstery Designers – Intertextile Upholstery Design and City Roving Exhibition, showcased the work of six groups of young local designers from across China who presented the interior design ideas of their generation through displays and a forum. And reflecting the changes that continue to accelerate in the industry, a number of e-commerce and cross-border trade events took place, including sessions from the likes of JD Home, AliExpress and Tmall.

The 2022 Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles – Spring Edition will take place from 9 – 11 March, while the Autumn Edition is scheduled for 23 – 25 August 2022.

• Hightech textiles for future-oriented construction projects

Building shells, bridges, staircases, façades ... construction projects are exposed to enormous mechanical loads. Often there are also considerable climatic or environmental influences. This has prompted the increasing use of fibre-reinforced materials in construction projects. After all, besides many other exciting properties, they offer high mechanical rigidity, low weight and excellent corrosion resistance.

Tapes, tubulars, sections and 3D woven textiles by vombaur form the perfect basis for these innovative building materials. The seamless round or shaped woven narrow textiles made of high-performance fibres are extremely loadable because they have neither seams nor welds – and therefore no undesirable breaking points. Their surface properties are identical over the entire length. In challenging tasks, composite textiles by vombaur offer a lightweight solution that is as reliable as it is durable.

Safe and durable solutions for challenging applications
The potential applications for lightweight components in the construction industry are as numerous as the project ideas of the planning and construction teams.
•    Ropes and tensioning elements made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP)
•    Reinforcement of building structures made of concrete, steel, wood or other materials
•    Sustainable restructuring of constructions and urban districts for bridges and buildings
•    CFC slats as reinforcements in case of repairs
•    (Filled) GRP pipes made of seamless round woven tubes by vombaur as columns/pillars
•    CFRP sections as steel girder substitutes
•    Hollow profiles with individually designed cross-sections
•    Glass fibre reinforced connecting elements for glazing to minimise expansion differences between the connecting element and the glass
•    Individual light wells

Implementing visions – with composite textiles by vombaur
As your development partner, vombaur facilitates innovative composites projects for challenging applications. In innovative and safety-sensitive industries such as automotive and aviation, chemical and plant engineering.  The composites experts at vombaur develop, create samples of and manufacture woven tapes and seamless round or shaped woven textiles by vombaur – in collaboration with the customer's enterprise development teams and individually for the respective projects. This is how novel and unique lightweight components made of high-performance textiles are created for visionary lightweight construction projects.

"Fibre-reinforced composites are the ideal material for future-oriented construction projects," explains Dr.-Ing. Sven Schöfer, Head of Development and Innovation at vombaur. "Their outstanding technical properties and design possibilities open up new and fascinating perspectives for construction projects. From building construction to civil engineering, from bridge construction to interior design. As an experienced development partner for sophisticated lightweight components, we at vombaur contribute our seamless solutions to these kinds of future-oriented projects."

Laying the bases for a more sustainable world, adopting responsible strategies is no longer an option but an indispensable and compulsory structural revolution today and for the future to come. This topic is the subject of the Smart Voice "The Circular Stories of C.L.A.S.S.: the journey of Bemberg™ by Asahi Kasei towards a smart, responsible and contemporary luxury" organised by C.L.A.S.S. eco hub that has taken place on Thursday 27th May at 4 pm CET. 4 unique and complimentary design realities has been sharing  the  Bemberg ™ choice as unique and precious fibre ingredient that gives rise to a performing design incorporating new generation values, for their unique paths of style and fashion to offer to the contemporary consumer.

Specialist and expert of innovative fibres, during the session Ettore Pellegrini, Marketing & Sales Manager-Marketing & Sales Manager Asahi Kasei Fibers Italia, illustrated the history of Bemberg™ starting from its origins to nowadays, reporting its various applications that have been then illustrated in their uniqueness by the speakers of the session.

Paolo Verdoia, Lining research and development raw materials at Ermenegildo Zegna, who has been involved in the development of accessory raw materials for the Ermenegildo Zegna Group for 14 years. During the digital meeting he talked about priority collaborations with responsible and high quality materials such as Bemberg™, the brand's approach to sustainability and future projects.

The session has also been attended by new generation designer Gilberto Calzolari winner of C.L.A.S.S. ICON 2020, who used Bemberg™ in his latest AW 2021-22 collection entitled "At this stage".

Camilla Carrara, founder and zero-waste designer Zerobarracento says "We select Bemberg™ for our creations for two fundamental reasons: firstly, from a stylistic point of view for its extreme versatility: in the various collections we have adopted it to create Kimonos, padded jackets, wrap dresses as well as for the interiors of our garments, which are intended to be soft embraces for total physical and mental comfort. The second but no less important reason is that this fibre has circular values in line with our zero-waste commitment."

“By choosing to work with Bemberg™, we have made an exclusive and sustainable choice in order to offer tailors, designers, brands and garment manufacturers who believe in and are committed to responsible but at the same time premium and exclusive fashion a new business opportunity" says Alessandro Ivaldi Director Business Unit of Carnet, a division of Ratti Group that produces and distributes worldwide fabrics for the creation of made-to-measure garments for men and women.