From the Sector

Archroma is again partnering with ISPO Academy to inspire promising young design talents in a four-day Masterclass held alongside ISPO Munich 2023 to explore this year’s theme, “CIRCULARITY – Create | Adapt | Revive.”

ISPO Munich is a leading trade fair for the sports industry. It is expecting to welcome more than 50,000 visitors and over 2,000 exhibitors to the Trade Fair Center Messe München from 28-30 November.

Conceived as a bridge between education and industry, the ISPO Academy Masterclass gathers top students from design and fashion schools to collaborate on new sportswear concepts. The aim is to encourage multidisciplinary thinking and future-oriented approaches. The event includes support from industry innovators, including Archroma’s Color Management business, and culminates in a public presentation in which the Masterclass participants present the workshop results to the ISPO audience on November 29.

Sponsoring the Masterclass for the fifth time, Archroma will equip the teams with The Color Atlas by Archroma® to enable them to use a library of 5,760 colors for cotton and polyester fibers to develop their concepts in compliance with leading international eco-standards. The Color Atlas will help the students to both explore new perspectives at the design stage and prepare their presentations with colors that accurately communicate their vision.

EasyCut Studio, a developer of sign-making software solutions, has launched a new enhancement to its vinyl cutting software, Easy Cut Studio, which now includes true shape nesting.

This new feature enables all users to reduce their material waste in average by 40%. The option improves the arrangement of multiple objects per job by rearranging the objects based on their actual shape.

In addition to the new nesting feature, this update also includes more than 10 new cutter drivers, the official support of macOS Sonoma, several bug fixes, compatible with several new vinyl cutters and improvements to the stability and performance of the software, enabling users to design, print and cut more efficiently.

RUDOLF HUB1922 makes a move in response to the escalating demand for genuinely sustainable technologies, particularly from forward-thinking segments within the textile and apparel industry. In a showcase at Denim by Premiere Vision Milan, RUDOLF HUB1922 presents a pioneering range of textile chemistry that embodies true evolution.

This chemistry marks a milestone in addressing the pressing need for sustainable solutions. By harnessing raw materials derived from organic waste, plastic waste, and renewable feedstock, RUDOLF's latest textile innovations stand poised to transform the industry, promising a substantial reduction in its environmental footprint.

Alberto De Conti, Head of RUDOLF HUB1922, emphasizes the radical nature of evolutionary textile chemistry, stating, "RUDOLF's approach tackles the challenge of waste generation head-on by transforming waste materials into valuable resources". The diversion of waste and renewable feedstock away from landfills and incinerators to fuel textile chemical production is a game-changer, that diminishes the industry's reliance on non-renewable resources and endorses a circular economy model.

The successful integration of chemicals derived from organic and plastic waste, as well as renewable feedstocks, necessitates effective communication and education. Herein lies the significance of fostering collaborative efforts within the industry. De Conti underscores this point, stating, "Collaboration among scientists, fashion designers, and manufacturers is paramount. It propels a collective shift towards sustainable practices, making eco-friendly fashion the standard and minimizing the industry's environmental impact".

From 6 – 8 March 2024, the Spring Edition of Intertextile Shanghai Home Textiles will make its  return to the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai. Showcasing home textile products, encompassing everything from floor to ceiling, exhibitors will be prepared to capture buyers’ attention during China’s traditional peak sourcing season. Suppliers can further benefit from a wider visitor scope, with many buyers crossing over from the co-located fairs Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Spring Edition, Yarn Expo Spring, CHIC, and PH Value. The comprehensive textile platform provides key opportunities for industry players to connect and explore new possibilities.
 
While the growth rate of the global economy remains slow, the domestic market in China has shown promising figures after the Chinese government implemented measures to encourage household consumption. These include providing support to both the home industry and consumers, to develop sustainable, intelligent and healthy living environments. Loan procedures for home refurnishing and funding for related industry sectors have also been optimised. Against this backdrop, for the first eight months of 2023, China Customs recorded a 7% year-on-year increase in consumables retail sales, reaching a total of RMB 3 billion (around USD 410 million). Homing in on the textile sector, profitability is regaining momentum, driven by both the local market and the success of international trade agreements such as Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Across three days, the 2023 spring edition attracted 26,538 trade visitors and 283 exhibitors from five countries and regions. The upcoming fair in March will showcase a full range of home textiles to meet buyers’ needs, including bedding & towelling, rugs, table & kitchen linen, home textile technologies, textile design, and many more. Exhibitors, meanwhile, are set to benefit from the concurrent textile fairs, with the apparel fabrics, yarns and fibres on offer to attract additional segments of the textile value chain, and facilitate sourcing on a wider scale.

Sustainable fashion and sportswear must be high on the political agenda:
Three University of Manchester academics who specialise in fashion and textiles have criticised the Government for failing to take action to boost sustainability in the UK fashion and sportswear industries.

In an article published by the University’s policy engagement unit Policy@Manchester to coincide with the 20th annual Recycle Week, Lindsay Pressdee, Dr Amy Benstead and Dr Jo Conlon highlight that, of the one million tonnes of textiles disposed of every year in this country, 300,000 tonnes end up in landfill or incineration with figures suggesting 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions may come from the fashion industry.

And they warn that the damage inflicted by discarded sportswear is often overlooked, “despite an over-reliance on polyester garments, which are harmful to the environment as the fabric releases microfibres and takes hundreds of years to fully biodegrade.”

Pressdee, Benstead and Conlon stress the importance of establishing “sustainable behaviour throughout the supply chain” and praise the European Commission for proposing an “extended producer responsibility (EPR)” for textiles in the EU which “aims to create appropriate incentives to encourage producers to design products that have a reduced environmental impact at the end of their life.”

This contrasts with the UK where, they argue, “tackling sustainability in the fashion industry has lost its place on the political agenda.”

"We are calling on the Government to reintroduce textiles as part of the school curriculum to engage young people in sustainable materials and equip them with the basic skills required to repair clothes.”
Lindsay Pressdee, Dr Amy Benstead and Dr Jo Conlon

The University of Manchester academics contend that there has been “disappointing lack of progress from the UK Government” following the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee’s Fixing Fashion report in 2019.

They continue: “This report included a call for the use of EPR as well as other important recommendations such as a ban on incinerating or landfilling unsold stock that can be reused or recycled and a tax system that shifts the balance of incentives in favour of reuse, repair and recycling to support responsible companies. We urge the Government to think again and drive forward the Committee’s recommendations in order to put sustainable fashion back on the political agenda.”

Pressdee, Benstead and Conlon also criticise Ministers for abolishing the standalone GCSE in textiles which provided many young people with the ability to mend clothing such as football kits instead of throwing them away.

They write: “We are therefore calling on the Government to reintroduce textiles as part of the school curriculum to engage young people in sustainable materials and equip them with the basic skills required to repair clothes.”

The University of Manchester has launched a new project dedicated to tackling the impact of textile waste in the football industry through the provision of workshops tasked with transforming surplus football shirts into unique reusable tote bags, whilst educating local communities on the environmental impacts of textile waste and how to extend the life of garments. The initiative aims to provide a fun, responsible way to keep kits in circulation while shining a light on the problem.

Dibella will present its circular bed linen “Versailles” at the Sustainable Design Summit and the Cruise Ship Interiors Design Expo in London. Dibella is thus once again underpinning its reputation as a pioneer in the field of sustainability.

The Bocholt-based company is presenting its new innovation for the first time at the Sustainable Design Summit on 28 November 2023 at the Museum of London Docklands. International visitors from the cruise, hotel and aviation sectors will have the opportunity to find out more about the first circular bed linen "Versailles".

At the subsequent Cruise Ship Interiors Design Expo from 29 to 30 November 2023 at ExCeL in London, Dibella will be exhibiting for the second time after a successful start in 2022. Under the motto "Almost too good to get out of bed", Dibella will be presenting its new innovation "Versailles", its multi-certified products, the company and its customised services and benefits.

With "Versailles", Dibella is realising its vision of a closed-loop economy. The specialist for sustainable contract textiles has succeeded in recycling old, no longer usable bed linen into new fibres and weaving them into new bed linen.

The adoption of composite parts based on flax fibres by the Marine Industry continues to grow, with major OEMs as well as smaller shipyards now aiming to take advantage of the reduced carbon impact and impressive mechanical properties they can provide.

“Over the last ten or fifteen years, several innovative flax fibre boats have been built and the fibre has started to gain significant traction,” says Julie Pariset, Innovation & CSR Director at the Alliance for European Flax-Linen and Hemp. “In addition to the environmental benefits, manufacturers are realising significant technical and processing gains with flax fibre composites.”

“Flax is a very low-density fibre, with a high specific stiffness,” she explains. “It can be used to manufacture composite laminates with mechanical properties not dissimilar to typical E-glass composites and the coefficient of thermal expansion of a flax fibre epoxy part is also quite close to that of a carbon fibre part.” This allows the materials to work well in combined assemblies with carbon fibre composites and the flax parts are also highly impact resistant.

Flax fibres also provide acoustic and vibration damping in composite applications, as well as providing a warm and aesthetically pleasing appearance below decks.

ecoRacer30
As a member of the Alliance for European Flax-Linen and Hemp, Bcomp, headquartered in Fribourg, Switzerland, has this year been working with Northern Light Composites (nlcomp), based in Monfalcone, northern Italy, on the creation of what is billed as the first fully recyclable nine-metre-long sailing boat – the ecoRacer30.

The boat is based on nlcomp’s proprietary rComposite technology – a combination of thermoplastic resins and BComp’s ampliTex high-performance natural fibre reinforcement fabrics and patented powerRibs technology.

It was built in a collaborative effort with the help of Barcelona-based Magnani Yachts, which took care of the composite manufacturing, and Sangiorgio Marine, which provided technical assistance as the boat was being assembled at its shipyard in Genova, Italy.

Magnani Yachts has subsequently become the first shipyard to hold an rComposite license and others are now being encouraged to adopt the technology.

The second ecoracer30 is currently under construction and has already been sold and nlcomp is planning to build a fleet of eight of these boats in time to enter a series of regattas in the summer of 2025.

Flax 27 Daysailer
Greenboats, based in Bremen, Germany, is another specialist in building boats from natural fibre composites and has this year launched the Flax 27 daysailer.

The lower hull of this vessel is also made from Bcomp’s ampliTex technical fabrics in combination with a sandwich core of recycled PET bottles. Using a vacuum infusion process, the fibres were integrated with a plant-based epoxy resin in order to further reduce the CO₂ footprint of the vessel.

The light structure and modern shapes of the lower hull of the boat result in very fast, sharp and agile handling on the water.

Greenboats has also recently announced significant new backing from alliance member Groupe Depestele, which manages 13,000 hectares of flax land in Normandy, France.

Blue Nomad
A project in Switzerland has meanwhile proposed the use of flax fibre composites in solar-powered habitats designed for comfortable living on the oceans – as the world grapples with the frightening implications of climate change and rising sea levels.

As envisaged by students from Institut auf dem Rosenberg in St Gallen, Switzerland working with Denmark-based SAGA Space Architects, Blue Nomad structures would form modular blocks to establish large communities and oceanic farms.
 

HeiQ AeoniQ™ becomes an active brand partner of the Canopy initiative with eleven other companies to address the growing climate and biodiversity crises by committing to keep Ancient and Endangered Forests out of our man-made cellulosic fiber supply chain.

The commitments that HeiQ AeoniQ™ is making are part of solutions-driven non-profit Canopy’s Pack4Good and CanopyStyle initiatives which currently represent collectively 950 brand partners. Together, the initiatives are shifting supply chains away from vital forests to low-impact, circular Next Gen Solutions.

“We must rapidly replace oil-based polyester in the textile industry causing microplastics, global warming, landfill and ecosystem degradation. Cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer in the world and is best suited to replace polyester. However, we must pay attention to cellulose feedstock sources. Our forests, a potential cellulose feedstock, are one of the most important solutions to addressing the effects of climate change. Approximately 2.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, one-third of the CO₂ released from burning fossil fuels, is absorbed by forests every year. Around 12.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions (5-10 GtCO₂e annually) come from deforestation. We are losing forests at an alarming rate. Every year, around 10 million hectares of forests globally are destroyed. We need immediate action to increase forests again. Canopy is our go-to partner to replace polyester with circular & sustainable cellulose feedstock for our innovative HeiQ AeoniQ™ fiber revolution.” said Carlo Centonze, HeiQ Group CEO.

Paper packaging is also a key driver of forest loss globally, as 3.1 billion trees are cut down annually to produce the boxes and bags in which products are packaged and shipped. Paper packaging production has increased by 65% over the past two years.

“The range of companies and sectors represented in today’s announcement reflects the breadth of market response to the growing climate and biodiversity crises and intensifying supply chain disruptions,” said Nicole Rycroft, Founder and Executive Director of Canopy. “Today’s brand partners add significant momentum to global conservation efforts and the movement to transform ‘take, make, waste’ supply chains to be lower-impact and Next Gen.”

Today, as part of Pack4Good, HeiQ AeoniQ™ committed to:

• Eliminate Ancient and Endangered Forests from our paper packaging supply chain.
• Reduce material use through design innovation.
• Maximize recycled content.
• Explore and scale alternative Next Gen fibers (such as agricultural residues).
• Where virgin fiber is necessary, use FSC-certified fiber.

Hexcel will continue to celebrate its 75th anniversary and highlight its latest developments for the Marine market at METSTRADE 2023 on November 15-17. Hexcel will showcase innovative advanced lightweight material technologies including new intermediate and high modulus fiber HexPly® M79 prepregs and present example high-performance superyacht and windship components developed by customers using Hexcel materials.

The new intermediate modulus prepreg combines the low temperature curing and simple processing of the DNV GL accredited HexPly M79 resin system with the market-leading stiffness of HexTow® IM2C fiber, creating a uniquely optimized composite material for highly loaded components. Originally developed to provide best-in-class performance for America’s Cup and IMOCA hull and deck structures, the new combination minimizes structural deformation under load in parts such as rigs, foils, and other appendages.

For a high modulus solution, HexTow® HM54 fiber is also now available with the HexPly M79 resin system. The unique mechanical properties of HexTow HM54 fiber allow structural designers to achieve higher safety margins for both stiffness and strength critical applications. Both products can be manufactured with Hexcel G-Vent technology for out-of-autoclave processing, delivering a reduction in process time and cost without compromising mechanical performance.

Hexcel will also display customer products that have benefited from the performance and processing gains provided by HexPly materials. A section of a Solid Sail mast made using Bureau Veritas (BV)-approved HexPly® M9.6 prepregs will be exhibited at METS. Such masts are used for wind propulsion and, by harnessing the power of ocean winds, they reduce reliance on engines, reducing fuel usage and emissions.

Visitors to the Hexcel booth will also see a section of a radar arch part from luxury motor yacht builder Sunseeker made using HexPly® XF surfacing technology and HexPly® SuperFIT semi-pregs. The part is lighter in weight and stiffer than versions made using resin-infusion processes and de-molds with a pinhole-free surface that needs minimal preparation to be ready for painting. Sunseeker has recorded an overall reduction in process time and material costs of around 30% against traditional prepreg parts, using Hexcel composite materials.

Die Jury des German Design Award 2024 hat die fünf Finalist*innen für die Auszeichnung „Newcomer“ ausgewählt: Leonie Burkhardt, Justus Hilfenhaus, Nicolas König, das studio formagora (Finn Blankenberg, Esra Heuermann, Nick Potter) und Sebastian Winter haben die Jury mit ihren Portfolios aus den Disziplinen Textildesign, Produktdesign, Architektur, Partizipatives Design und Digital Design überzeugt. Mit innovativen Lösungen für aktuelle soziale wie ökologische Fragestellungen und zukunftsweisenden Ideen, Projekten und Produkten auf hohem Niveau beweisen sie, welch entscheidende Rolle jungen Designtalenten für die erfolgreichen Transformationsprozesse unserer Zeit zukommt.

Der Award belegt damit die Bedeutung von jungem Design für die Wettbewerbs- und Zukunftsfähigkeit mittelständischer Unternehmen und der (deutschen) Wirtschaft – als Motoren der Weiterentwicklung sind Jungdesigner*innen mit ihren Future Skills für deren Innovationskompetenz maßgeblich. Kollaboratives Arbeiten, interdisziplinärer Austausch, Offenheit, Experimentierfreude und Forschergeist ziehen sich durch die Portfolios der Finalist*innen. Sie alle setzen sich mit Chancen von Veränderungen auseinander, reagieren auf eine sich immer schneller wandelnde Welt, arbeiten sowohl konzeptionell als auch experimentell und wagen sich an spielerische Lösungen für komplexe Herausforderungen. Die große inhaltliche Bandbreite, Diversität an Perspektiven und deren jeweilige Umsetzung in die Praxis hat die Jury des German Design Award 2024 überzeugt. Sie erhalten die Chance auf die mit 15.000 Euro dotierte Auszeichnung des German Design Award, die am 26. Januar 2024 in Frankfurt am Main vergeben wird.

Mit der Auszeichnung stärkt die Stiftung Rat für Formgebung die Sichtbarkeit junger Designer*innen durch die Möglichkeit, sich und ihre Arbeiten der internationalen Design-Community, Industrie und Wirtschaft sowie der Öffentlichkeit zu präsentieren. In einer Reihe von exklusiven Anlässen des Rat für Formgebung haben die Finalist*innen zudem Gelegenheit, Mitglieder der Stiftung Rat für Formgebung kennenzulernen und wichtige Wirtschaftskontakte zu knüpfen. Zu den ehemaligen Preisträger*innen gehören zahlreiche heute namhafte Designer*innen wie Eva Marguerre, Marcel Besau, Sebastian Herkner und Christian Zanzotti.