From the Sector

Freudenberg Performance Materials (Freudenberg) will present surfacing veils and core materials for lightweight fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) parts at JEC in Paris, France. Freudenberg will also be showcasing Enka® Solutions flow media and spacers for efficient vacuum infusion, resin transfer and foam injection molding processes for applications in the composites industry, etc. at the international composites show.
 
Freudenberg’s solutions for the FRP industry include a variety of glass, PAN and PET nonwovens, as well as core materials for the production of lightweight fiber reinforced plastic parts. These products are designed for anti-corrosion coatings in piping and tank construction, smooth UV resistant surfaces for facade panels, and other applications for a diverse range of end products. Products made from fiber reinforced plastics must be equipped with surfacing veils to provide abrasion resistance, corrosion resistance, smooth surfaces and mechanical strength. Freudenberg offers high-tech nonwovens that can meet these challenges.
 
Enka® Solutions products are characterized by their typical 3D entangled polymeric filament structures. Thanks to this structure, they are exceptionally suitable as flow media and spacers when producing composite materials.

The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), representing the full spectrum of the U.S. textile industry from fibers through finished sewn products, welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris’ announcement of $585 million in new textile and apparel investments and sourcing commitments in Central America.

“Over the past year, well over $1 billion of new textile and apparel investments have been announced in Central America and the United States,” said NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas.  “The $585 million of investments and sourcing commitments announced today in the region will continue to build on the strong momentum of growth of nearshoring and onshoring these critical supply chains.”

“The investments and sourcing commitments announced today continue to build on the robust textile and apparel co-production chain between the U.S. and Central America,” said NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas. “We sincerely appreciate the administration’s commitment to this critical manufacturing sector that has contributed to the backbone of economic development in Central America and the United States. And we look forward to working with our retail and brand partners to continue to expand our vital manufacturing sector.”

Over the last year, substantial investments have been flowing into Central America, predicated on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) and the co-production chain that facilitates $15.1 billion in two-way textile and apparel trade and supports more than one million workers in the U.S. and the region.

“We saw apparel imports largely containing U.S. textile inputs from the CAFTA-DR region jump 24 percent according to the latest government trade data and we have seen well over $1 billion in investments in the region,” Glas said.

Several NCTO members previously joined the Vice President last year to announce their investments and sourcing commitments, including Parkdale Mills, Unifi, and SanMar.

“These are just a few of the key investments in the region, which illustrates how this co-production chain is continuing to make sustainable investments that strengthen supply chain resilience, create job opportunities and investment in the U.S. and the region, and ensure transparency in our supply chains, as momentum grows for onshoring and nearshoring textile and apparel production,” Glas said. “That is a win-win for our industry and the region.”

The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), an independent and impact-creating organization that brings together around half of the apparel industry to enable positive social and environmental impact at scale, announces its strategic partnership with the Bangladesh Apparel Exchange (BAE) for its fourth edition of the Sustainable Apparel Forum. The event aims to bring together stakeholders to discuss and exchange ideas on how to advance sustainability within the textile and apparel industry.

Taking place on March 15 and 16, 2023, this year’s Sustainable Apparel Forum will focus on five key subject areas of the apparel and textile supply chain: circular economy, climate impact & action, renewable energy & green funding, skill development and green job prospects & challenges. Delegates in attendance will include, garment manufacturers, brands and retailers, development partners, foreign missions and embassies in Bangladesh, impact creating organizations, apparel and textile associations, industry leaders, government officials, secretariats and ministers.

The first day of the forum will be geared towards roundtable discussions and workshop sessions on circularity, while day two, the main conference day of the event, will feature panel discussions, presentations & keynote speeches along with strategic guidelines from government officials and industry leaders.

Vidhura Rapanawe, Board Director, Andrew Martin, VP, Membership and Stakeholder Engagement, and Joyce Tsoi, Director of Collective Action Programs, along with other team members, will represent the SAC, including participation in a discussion on decarbonization and what it will take for the industry to achieve the necessary reduction of carbon emissions. The SAC will also actively participate and organize a special workshop for manufacturers as part of their continued stakeholder engagement efforts.

Carbios has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Martine Brisset as Senior Vice President from 1 January 2023. Martine will manage the Biodegradation Division and supervise the Human Resources, Legal, Regulatory, Project Management, Quality Health and Safety departments. Martine Brisset joins the Group’s Executive Committee, as does Delphine Denoizé, who remains Innovation Programs Funding, Regulation and LCA Director with an expanding team.

Martine Brisset has over 30 years of General Management experience in international groups within the plastic and paper packaging industry, most notably at Amcor, Huhtamaki, Linpac and Klockner Pentaplast.  Since 2021, she has held the position of General Manager of Carbiolice in order to integrate this high-potential subsidiary dedicated to biodegradation within the Carbios Group. In her new position as Senior Vice President of Carbios, her main mission will be to successfully deploy the biodegradation technology, facilitate the international expansion of Carbios’ activities, organise the recruitment and training of the Group’s employees. With numerous recruitments planned throughout the company in 2023, building Carbios’ attractivity will be a strategic topic.

After several years working in innovation within the agricultural industry, Delphine Denoizé joined the Carbios in 2016 and was one of its first twenty employees. Initially in charge of Innovation Funding and Regulation, then Project Management for PET biorecycling, she now oversees all the Group’s projects. Her responsibilities include French and European public funding for innovation, regulatory compliance of processes and products around the world, and assessment of their environmental impact through specific tools such as Life Cycle Assessment.

From April 2023, OEKO-TEX® will officially launch its new ORGANIC COTTON label. Two initial pilot customers have already been certified by the testing service provider Hohenstein: the Indian textile supplier Milan Group and the Turkish cotton producer Akasya.

The new organic label ensures that all requirements for labeling as organic cotton are met. In addition to testing in accordance with OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100, it ensures that the cotton contains less than ten percent genetically modified material, complies with pesticide limits and guarantees its organic origin.

Textile companies whose products have been certified with the OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 can now have their certificates extended to an ORGANIC COTTON certificate after ensuring ecological production.

"A combination with OEKO-TEX® MADE IN GREEN is ideal," explains Ivonne Schramm, Head of OEKO-TEX® at Hohenstein. "This ensures environmental friendliness, transparency and socially responsible conditions in a single certification."

The certificate can be used for ready-made articles (e.g. T-shirt, bedspread, etc.) as well as for textile intermediate products (e.g. intermediate products such as raw fibers, yarns, etc.). Mixtures of organic and conventional cultivation are not permitted.

The AVK Working Group SMC/BMC and the European Alliance for SMC BMC are jointly organising SMCCreate 2023 - a conference on designing with SMC and BMC composites. The event, which offers insights into the entire product design process from idea to part manufacture, is aimed at both experienced designers and those new to the use of these materials.

Around 60 participants from all over Europe attended the first SMCCreate design conference, which took place in Antwerp in June 2022. SMCCREATE 2023 will take place in Prague (Czech Republic) on 7-8 November 2023 at the Vienna House by Wyndham Diplomat Prague; conference language is English. After a successful launch, AVK and the European Alliance for SMC BMC are looking forward to the second edition of the event and invite speakers to apply with their presentation proposals by 27 February. (Mail address: info@avk-tv.de).

The aim of the conference is to help designers and engineers choose the best material solution for their applications. Presentations will focus on best practices and industrial solutions, SMC and BMC component manufacturing, material selection and product development throughout the product life cycle, from design to sustainability.

(Mail address: info@avk-tv.de).

For the third time, nova-Institute awards the “Cellulose Fibre Innovation of the Year” award in the frame of the “Cellulose Fibres Conference 2023” (8-9 March 2023). The conference advisory board nominated six remarkable products, including cellulose fibres from textile waste, banana production waste and bacterial pulp, a novel technology for producing lyocell yarns and a hygiene product. The innovations will be put to the vote of the conference audience on the first day of the event, with the awards ceremony taking place in the evening. The innovation award “Cellulose Fibre Innovation of the Year 2023” is sponsored by GIG Karasek (AT).

Here are the six nominees
Vybrana – The new generation banana fibre – GenCrest Bioproducts (India)
Vybrana is a Gencrest’s Sustainable Cellulosic Fibre upcycled from agrowaste. Raw fibres are extracted from the Banana Pseudo stem at the end of the plant lifecycle. The biomass waste is then treated by the Gencrest patented Fiberzyme technology. Here, cocktail enzyme formulations remove the high lignin content and other impurities and help fibre fibrillation. The company's proprietary cottonisation process provides fine, spinnable cellulose staple fibres suitable for blending with other staple fibres and can be spun on any conventional spinning systems giving yarns sustainable apparel. Vybrana is produced without the use of heavy chemicals and minimized water consumption and in a waste-free process where balance biomass is converted to bio stimulants Agrosatva and Bio Fertilizers & organic manure.

HeiQ AeoniQ™ – technology for more sustainability of textiles – HeiQ (Austria)
HeiQ AeoniQ™ is the disruptive technology and key initiative from HeiQ with the potential to change the sustainability of textiles. It is the first climate-positive continuous cellulose filament yarn, made in a proprietary manufacturing process and the first to reproduce the properties of polyester and nylon yarns in a cellulosic, biodegradable, and endlessly recyclable fibre.
HeiQ AeoniQ™ can be manufactured from different cellulosic raw materials such as pre- and post-consumer textile waste, biotech cellulose, and non-valorized agricultural waste, such as ground coffee waste or banana peels. It naturally degrades after only 12 weeks in the soil. Each ton of HeiQ AeoniQ™ saves 5 tons of CO2 emissions. The first garments made with this innovative cellulosic filament fiber were commercially launched in January 2023.

TENCEL™ LUXE – lyocell filament yarn – Lenzing (Austria)
TENCEL™ LUXE is LENZING’s new versatile lyocell yarn that offers an urgently needed sustainable filament solution for the textile and fashion industry. A possible botanical alternative for silk, long-staple cotton, and petrol-based synthetic filaments, is derived from wood grown in renewable, sustainably managed forests, and produced in an environmentally sound, closed-loop process that recycles water and reuses more than 99 % of organic solvent. Certified by The Vegan Society, it is suitable for a wide range of applications and fabric developments, from finer high fashion propositions to denim constructions, seamless and activewear innovations, and even agricultural and technical solutions.

Nullarbor™ – Nanollose & Birla Cellulose (Australia/India)
In 2020, Nanollose & Birla Cellulose started a journey to develop and commercialize tree-free lyocell from bacterial cellulose, called Nullarbor™. The name derives from the Latin “nulla arbor” which means “no trees”. Initial lab research at both ends led to a joint patent application with the patent “production of high-tenacity lyocell fibres made from bacterial cellulose”.
Nullarbor is significantly stronger than lyocell made from wood-based pulp; even adding small amounts of bacterial cellulose to wood pulp increases the fibre toughness. In 2022, the first pilot batch of 260kg was produced with 20 % bacterial pulp share. Several high-quality fabrics and garments were produced with this fibre. The collaboration between Nanollose & Birla Cellulose now focuses on increasing the production scale and amount of bacterial pulp in the fibre.

Circulose® – makes fashion circular – Renewcell (Sweden)
Circulose® made by Renewcell is a branded dissolving pulp made from 100 % textile waste, like worn-out clothes and production scraps. It provides a unique material for fashion that is 100 % recycled, recyclable, biodegradable, and of virgin-equivalent quality. It is used by fibre producers to make staple fibre or filaments like viscose, lyocell, modal, acetate or other types of man-made cellulosic fibres. In 2022, Renewcell, opened the world’s first textile-to-textile chemical recycling plant in Sundsvall, Sweden – Renewcell 1. The plant will eventually reach 120,000 tons of annual capacity.

Sparkle sustainable sanitary pads – Sparkle Innovations (United States)
Globally, around 300 billion period products are discarded every year, resulting in millions of tons of non-biodegradable waste. Since most conventional sanitary pads contain up to 90 % plastics, they do not biodegrade for around 600 years. Sparkle has designed sustainable, plastic-free, biodegradable and compostable Sparkle sanitary pads. From product to packaging, they are made up of around 90 % cellulose-based materials with top sheet, absorbent core, release paper, wrapping paper and packaging made of cellulose-based fibres. Whether Sparkle pads end up in a compost pit, are incinerated or end up in a landfill, they are a more sustainable alternative compared to conventional pads that contain large amounts of plastics, complex petro-chemical based ingredients and artificial fragrances. When tested according to ISO 14855-1 by a leading independent lab in Europe, Sparkle pads reached over 90 % absolute biodegradation within 90 days in commercial composting conditions.

Art meets sustainable fashion in the third edition of the project "CirculART", the initiative that sees companies, artists and fashion designers working together with Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, showing how new balanced forms of production, design and sharing can be explored through a careful choice of materials and of sustainable supply chains. Three key concepts underpin the circularity of sustainable fashion and therefore this project: Reduce - reducing the consumption of raw materials, Reuse - reuse of raw materials, Recycling - regeneration.

The project CirculART is conceived and developed in collaboration between Fashion B.E.S.T. and UNIDEE Residency Programs, and led by the Foundation's team of curators.

Fashion B.E.S.T. - Better Ethical Sustainable Think-Tank, Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto’ sustainable fashion office, was created by artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and Franca Sozzani. Since 2009, B.E.S.T. has been working on the development of sustainability in the textile sector, to lead to a contamination between art, which assumes social responsibility, and the world of fashion, which is looking to define a new ethical and sustainable model.

CirculART proposes a new link between fashion and art, engaging both in a conscious and innovative combination of sustainability, sensitivity, beauty and union. The project links territory and production factories, bringing together actors from the different sectors making up the textile supply chain that work on the basis of a circular economy with companies that have chosen to embrace the ideal of sustainability and develop an innovative business model.

The protagonists of this year’s edition are two international artists and two international fashion designers, selected through an open call launched by Cittadellarte: Augustina Bottoni, Lucia Chain, Huge Sillytoe and Rebecca Sforzani, young talents called upon to create a work with fabrics produced by partner companies, focusing on dialogue and on the enhancement of the textile industry production chain.

In early 2023, the programme will give the four selected artists the opportunity to visit and work actively with the partner companies that have joined the initiative.
These are: Achille Pinto S.p.a, manufacturer of textiles and textile accessories for the main international fashion brands; Albini Group, Europe's largest manufacturer of cotton fabrics for shirts; Erica Industria Tessile, a leading company in the creation of textile prints, original and customised designs; Filatura Astro, eco-sustainable regenerated yarns; G2B S.r.l., a chemical and environmental analysis laboratory working with vertical cultivation from which indigo is obtained; Lampo by Ditta Giovanni Lanfranchi S.p.A., leader in the creation and production of zips for fashion; Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti, a Biella-based weaver for haute couture; Lenzing, world leader in the production of fabrics made from fibres derived from renewable wood raw material; Milior, a producer of high quality fabrics; Officina +39 – Chemistry plus creativity, a chemical company with thirty years' experience dedicated to research and chemical application in textiles; Tessuti di Sondrio, a factory inspired by the century-old local textile tradition of processing cotton, linen, hemp and wool; Tintoria Emiliana, garment-dyed production and sustainable practices; Zegna Baruffa Lane Borgosesia, a manufacturer of 100% Made in Italy fine combed and carded yarns.

Kornit Digital LTD. (NASDAQ: KRNT) ("Kornit" or the "Company"), a market leader in sustainable, on-demand digital fashion and textile production technologies, announced its partnership with VORN – The Berlin Fashion Hub, Zalando, and Unity – creating an "alliance of the willing" to transform the industry via "phygital" fashion with a circular approach.

Nine designers were challenged to create fashion capsules in eight weeks utilizing the latest technology innovations from the three alliance partners – combining digital product creation, web3-based design, digital printing, immersive circular design, 3D rendering and avatar development. All collections are on display exclusively at Berlin Fashion Week from Wednesday, January 18 to Friday, January 20 at Bikini Berlin.
 
The challenge follows standing room only Kornit Fashion Week events across the globe, displaying how on-demand, digital production creates a fashion world of nearly endless creativity. Hosted at the Impact Hub Berlin, the VORN Academy Program offered creators access to a holistic technology toolset - including the advanced Kornit Presto MAX single-step solution for direct-to-fabric sustainable printing. Some of the prominent designers taking part include costume and fashion designer Alexis Mersmann, Judith Bondy, AR and NFT artist Ann-Britt Dittmar, Berlin-based director Tanja Bombach, Nina Jurcic, Olga Boncheva, digital artist, and fashion designer Schirin Negahbani, Johann Erhardt, and Israeli designer Idan Yoav.
 
"This collaboration across four industry leaders is so unique because the result is a sum so much greater than each of its individual parts. It's a true 'alliance of the willing' that opens doors to 'phygital' collections built at the intersection of digital fashion, 3D design, and on-demand production," said Omer Kulka, Chief Innovation Officer at Kornit Digital. "We're honored to team with VORN – The Berlin Fashion Hub, Zalando, and Unity during Berlin Fashion Week to demonstrate what's possible as the physical and virtual fashion worlds come together."
 
"When we launched the Berlin Fashion Hub, our intent was to create a B2B environment to spark unmatched fashion and sustainability innovations. As Berlin is one of the world's most important fashion and textile centers, there is no better place to demonstrate economically succesful circularity in the fashion industry," said Professor Marte Hentschel, Co-Founder at VORN – The Berlin Fashion Hub. "Together, we're changing fashion to drive sustainability and harness the creative power of both the physical and virtual. We're proud of what's been accomplished in conjunction with an incredible group of designers, creators, and partners."

For the SS24 Iluna focuses on the most precious lightness and intangibility with its Ultralight series of jacquardtronic laces reminiscent of the delicacy of Leavers.
This season, responsible developments did not stop at responsible ingredients and processes; in fact, the company focused on the circular economy! The stylistic research started from the company's historical archive, to give life to a collection that revisits the proposals in a "modern classic" key.
 
The company's design team recreated the iconic designs of the line, the heart of the Black Label proposal, ILUNA's signature line offering the finest laces. Focusing on upcycling, the team reworked archival stocks, creating new value through finishings, and reweaving from scratch only the missing widths in order to present a complete, coordinated underwear/nightwear range from allovers to galoons.

For the SS24 season the Iluna team continues its developments with GOTS-certified organic cotton in its galoons and allovers, to add a natural touch to its Green Label line.
Among the ingredients chosen by Iluna Group are: Renycle® and Q-NOVA®, both GRS-certified pre-consumer recycled polyamide yarns in addition to the recycled stretch ROICA™ EF by Asahi Kasei. Among the new technical developments on laces, Iluna then worked on variable elasticity modules, resulting in reinforced edges or zones of differentiated elasticity that can be variously positioned within the laces.
All this results in a comfortable, ultralight product that remains true to a high value of creativity and responsibility. The option is applicable to all the Iluna laces, with modular solutions at the customer's request on fashion items as well, where research continues on FSC-certified pre-dyed viscoses and unexpected metallic gleams with lurex.

Moreover, the continuous path through the new dimension of responsibility continues in several directions: experiments with 16 different natural dyestuffs; and continued investment in technologies that can ensure significant savings in water and energy consumption, including GREENDROP, the new GOTS-certified digital pigment printing system.
From athleisure to fashion, through lingerie to the world of high fashion, Iluna's lace continues to expand its applications, confirming its extreme versatility, remarkable performance and inimitable beauty.