From the Sector

TINTEX presents a new and fresh campaign with contemporary images that signal the launch of the Autumn Winter 2019 Jersey collections presented by CEO Mario Jorge, who describes the new ‘Naturally Advanced’ position as moving on from making beautiful organics and natural materials to the next level with advanced hybrid nature/hi-tech smarts, with added value creativity, thanks to focused investments that will serve and secure our customer demands both now and in the seasons to come.

THE COLLECTION. Come and see the autumn range of more than 80 new qualities and style and discuss your own tailor made needs designed to fit the Fashion, Sportswear, Athleisure and Underwear sectors. The TINTEX Collection uses at least 60% of more sustainable materials, such as Tencel, Organic cotton, Naturally organic linen, recycled and recovered smart materials including polyesters, nylons and now a new recycled stretch elastane too. Out of preference, and in keeping with its ethos of creating low impact fabrics, the major part of the collection eschews the use of animal based fibers, with the limited exception of some organic wool, silk and cashmere blend qualities.

Composites use in Building and Construction will be highlighted at JEC newest event dedicated to this specific Composites Industry next month in Chicago, IL, USA. The numerous and diverse benefits that these innovative materials bring to the Building Industry will help overcome the coming challenges such as, urbanization, increase of natural disasters (floods, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes…), along with the decrease of non-renewable raw materials and the high standard levels set by the society in terms of lightness and fluidity. Composites Materials bring answers and opportunities to tackle those issues in sustainable, durable and reliable manners. Solutions like ease of fabrication (Owens Corning), structures durability (Biteam), anti-seismic reinforcement (DowAksa), use of end-of-life products such as recycled bottles of water (Premier Composites Technologies), aerial forms (Optima Projects Ltd) or again energy saving (Armageddon Energy).

Following its strategy to address every Composites End-user, the JEC Innovation Awards will reward these 6 Composites Innovators in Building & Construction that will change the way we build.
If the majority of submissions relied on glass fibers, which is common in the Construction field, we see an increased interest in carbon fibers, especially for structural applications. And similarly to all sectors of the composite industry, thermoplastics are gaining in importance in Construction. Therefore, to promote the growing use of composites as a construction material, 6 categories are awarded, covering a large panel of applications and possibilities.

Any uncertainty about the state of the global apparel fabrics and accessories industry in the coming year was widely dispelled at last month’s Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics – Spring Edition, with many exhibitors reporting strong increases in the number of contacts and enquiries they received compared to last year. While the visitor number was up slightly on last year – 71,450 from 103 countries and regions attended (2016: 71,163 from 100 countries and regions) – what was clearly evident in the feedback from exhibitors was that the quality of buyers sourcing at the fair continues to increase. Many exhibitors also commented that they received a healthy spread of buyers to their booths, both from China as well as from key markets in Asia and Europe, and that a satisfying proportion of these buyers were new potential customers.

Reflecting the fact that Intertextile Shanghai’s reputation as the industry’s leading event to conduct business each March & October has been steadily increasing over recent years, the exhibitor number grew by 5.9% this edition to 3,341 from 26 countries and regions (2016: 3,155 from 27 countries and regions). New exhibitor countries included Denmark, Malaysia and Poland. The top 10 visitor countries and regions, excluding Mainland China, were Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, the US, Taiwan, India, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia and the UK.