From the Sector

Happy New Year 2024! Here's to a year full of innovation and success in the textile and apparel industry.

The Textination team sincerely wishes you a great start: may 2024 be full of health, joy and energy for you.

There are undoubtedly 365 days of exciting encounters, developments, innovations and new trends ahead in our shared world of the textile and apparel industry. We would like to join you on this journey and document the many facets of our industry.

We are convinced that the new year will be just as fascinating and inspiring for our users as the best textile products and designs that our industry has to offer. We look forward to accompanying you through the coming 12 months with the latest news, in-depth analyses and exclusive insights.

Thank you for your continued support and interest in Textination.

Together we will tell textile tomorrow!

Ines Chucholowius
- Managing Director -

With its new Trend and Event Platform, the Premium Group presents a new concept for a progressive community. According to Premium Group classic trade fair formats are over - this summer it's all about (re)connection, real emotions and new perspectives. The emphasis lies on the most relevant trends and the power of networking, but in a more personalised and intimate way.

PREMIUM and SEEK are focusing on a more rigorous curation of promising brands and collections as well as various opportunities to connect. An extensive content programme of keynotes, round tables, live interviews, study presentations and panels on the most important trends will offer two diverse and time-efficient days. The areas of concentration encompass sustainability, technology, fashion, business, lifestyle, and beauty. The repertoire of topics include marketing themes such as LinkedIn and Tik Tok, new tech tools such as ChatGPT or Virtual Dressing as well as news from the metaverse. Sustainability topics such as denim, circularity, re-commerce, vintage and the new Green Deal laws will be discussed as well as cross-industry topics such as female empowerment, Gen Z and modern leadership.
     
PREMIUM marks the first event of the season for womenswear. New silhouettes, design trends, provocation and the current zeitgeist are brought to the forefront with a carefully curated selection of brands. The fashion scene and visitors can look forward to the best of denim, hyper-femininity, beauty, well-being, future Berlin icons and innovations from the tech and lifestyle sphere. New talents will also have the opportunity to pitch their labels to a professional audience. SEEK focuses on heritage, Y2K, modern sportswear, outdoor and sustainable brands, which will be shown in the CONSCIOUS CLUB. Other highlights will include talks and inspiring activations from the community.

"We listen, research and curate the most important trends for the industry. To do this, our team of experts travels across Europe and exchange ideas with representatives from the entire industry. The results of months of work can be discovered in two days," says Maren Wiebus, Creative Director of the Premium Group.

Today, attention is the most important currency for the fashion industry. This is also why, for the very first time ever, the Premium Group events will take place over only two days instead of three. At the same time, generally accepted norms and rules are questioned, taken apart, and put back together again. The organisers of Premium Group invite fashion professionals to discuss the rules and redefine them together.
 
The summer editions of PREMIUM and SEEK will take place on 11 and 12 July at the new old location Station-Berlin in the heart of Berlin.

Asia's largest fashion fair, CHIC SPRING SHANGHAI, will postpone the event planned for March to April 14-16, 2022. The latest worldwide pandemic developments due to the new virus variant Omicron prompted the CHIC organizers to take this step.

With this relocation, the organizers are also taking into account the interests of international exhibitors and visitors. In addition to various international joint stands, Germany will also be represented with a GERMAN PAVILION. The trade fair team is working on innovations at the trade fair with the highest priorities and will now focus the entire marketing on the new date.

CHIC SPRING is the showcase for the latest trend developments in fashion and offers trade visitors a concentrated overview. CHIC SPRING as a fashion and lifestyle fair shows the areas of womenswear, menswear, kidswear, denim, shoes and bags, accessories, designers and streetwear in clear segments at the National Convention & Exhibition Center in Shanghai.

CHIC is organized by Beijing Fashion Expo Co. Ltd. and China World Exhibitions, supported by the China National Garment Association, the China World Trade Center and the Sub-Council of the Textile Industry (CCPIT).

• Deep Insights into the Multifaceted World of Cotton
• Quality, Innovation and Digitalisation are Crucial

From the 21st to the 23rd of March, the international cotton industry came together in the historic Bremen Town Hall, under the motto "Cotton Insights". More than 500 participants from almost 40 countries came to exchange views on the latest trends in the natural raw material as part of the conference organised by the Bremen Cotton Exchange in cooperation with the Fibre Institute Bremen. The 34th International Cotton Conference provided a varied, in-depth programme which addressed the current and burning issues within the industry.

Summarising his visit to the conference, Kai Hughes, Executive Director of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) in Washington said “The Bremen Cotton Conference is unique because it brings the diverse world of cotton together in one place. It is always a great opportunity to learn about the latest innovations, talk to cotton merchants and get an overview of the industry".

Sustainability and Cotton
This year, the conference developed into a whole week of diverse events around the entire cotton supply chain. With the “SUSTAIN” event, which was organised in cooperation with the Weser-Kurier newspaper, it was possible to build a bridge between the issue of sustainability and the end consumer.
With the focus on Africa, the emerging continent, which also has a special significance for cotton, became the centre of attention.

In his opening speech, Henning Hammer, President of the Bremen Cotton Exchange, made it clear that sustainability is also of great importance during the Cotton Conference: "The three pillars of sustainability – the environment, the economy and social issues – were already playing a role in the cotton industry when the word sustainability was far from being on everyone's lips.
Many changes that are being demanded in the sense of responsible agriculture and responsible trade take their time, many are already in the starting blocks and a lot already exists. We have a very alert, active agricultural research worldwide."

The Keynotes
The keynote session, moderated by the journalist Lisa Boekhoff from the newspaper Weser-Kurier, gave participants an overview, with an informative analysis of the current cotton situation. Kai Hughes, executive director of ICAC, emphasised in his keynote address the need to provide credible facts and figures which should be the basis for the entire supply chain. The marketing of cotton and changing consumer habits in a globalised and digitalised world were the subject of lectures by Mark Messura, Cotton Incorporated and Robert Antoshak, Olah Inc. Eugen Weinberg and Michael Alt from Commerzbank took a look at the raw material from a stock market perspective.

Traceability and Digitalisation
Digitalisation is also a cross-cutting issue that runs through the entire supply chain of the cotton industry. In his opening speech, Prof. Axel S. Hermann, Head of the Fibre Institute Bremen, emphasised the importance of digitalisation for the industry. “It enables new approaches in cotton cultivation and textile processing, but also influences consumer behaviour and thus the necessary changes in the textile industry.” The focus is on the status quo of the implementation, as well as the opportunities and risks of digitally controlled, vertically integrated procurement and sales processes and the associated challenges at retail level.

Another current topic is traceability, which is also closely linked to sustainability. More and more buyers want to know whether their suppliers are meeting the promised sustainability criteria for their products, also textile products. Consequently, the conference presented various techniques for testing the authenticity of a cotton provided in the finished textile, such as DNA testing, fingerprint analysis technique, marker methods and block-chain processes.

Cotton Quality
In addition to current subjects such as digitalisation and traceability, questions of cotton quality have traditionally been an essential element of the Cotton Conference, which was further reinforced this year with the "Spinners Seminar". The spinning mill seminar, which was carried out by the Cotton Exchange and the Fibre Institute in cooperation with the ITMF and IVGT associations, far exceeded expectations.

More than 70 participants discussed the handling of impurities in supplied cotton in the manufacturing process.
In addition, in a high-level expert session, there was an exchange of the latest research results which determine the future of cotton production and the processing of cotton into innovative products.