From the Sector

Bemberg™ opens its new Lining Showroom in New York in the heart of the Garment District. This is the first showroom totally dedicated to unique, high quality Bemberg lining fabrics. The initial focus will be on a homeland supply of Japanese-made lining manufacturers, introducing them to the market in a new and dynamic way.

The showroom hosted by CHH America, whose remit will be to communicate the advantage and values in choosing Bemberg™ for the best linings option, and how its unique, responsible profile can add quality and brand value appeal to tailoring based apparel brands, designers and upcoming fashion students. The unique offer from this showroom is a dedicated new stock service, managed by CHH, where they will deliver even small meterage on demand.

In addition to this service, Bemberg™ is pleased to present a full range of new fabric innovations at Premiere Vision New York. These include manufacturers from around the world including SMI, Sidonios, Ekoten, Ipeker and Silver from the US, as well as the luxury linings already installed at the showroom.

COMSAT is equipping its latest Tecmat sectional warping machine for weaving preparation with the new Eltex EyETM yarn tension monitoring system.

Unlike yarn tension monitors that are fitted solely on the weft insertion systems of weaving machines, the new Eltex technology is for the warping process prior to weaving – and instead of monitoring only the tension of the six-to-eight yarns fed by the weft insertion system the Eltex EyETM keeps a close eye on literally hundreds.

“Several hundred yarns can be fed from the creels during the warping process compared to only a few weft insertion yarns during weaving,” explains Brian Hicks, managing director of Eltex. “Tension monitoring for multiple ends has been a great challenge to achieve for us, but this new system generated tremendous interest at the recent ITMA 2019 textile machinery show and we already have systems in operation and orders on hand. The EyETM allows mills to greatly reduce problems.”

The 2021 Schoeller Summer line makes a light-hearted impression that is inspired by PLAY. PLAY represents dynamic enjoyment and being part of a whole. Schoeller experiments with new innovative ideas and sustainable technologies, bringing lightness to the fabric and displaying huge respect for Mother Nature. The long-lasting, super-comfortable high-tech fabrics play around with the natural look but offer the functionality of synthetic materials, delight with fresh colouring and always stand for responsibly-produced textiles from Switzerland.

NATURAL TRAIL
Natural looks, warm sand, cactus or denim shades and bio-based technologies whet the appetite for an active summer. Totally uncomplicated, versatile and functional all describe the elastic, matt, light schoeller®-dynamic polyester quality in a linen look in shades of gold, green or blue. The comfortable, somewhat more compact schoeller®-dryskin double fabric in iceberg blue or sandy beige is reminiscent of linen but, thanks to its functional fibres on the inner side, surprises with outstanding moisture transport. Both are finished with the sustainable ecorepel® Bio technology, making them waterproof and feel equally comfortable worn during outdoor activities or in the city.

• With a turnover of EUR 513 million, the CHT Group achieved a 12% increase in sales
• The result was impaired by high raw material costs and currency effects
• Investments remain high - approximately 13 million EUR invested in production sites and new technologies worldwide
• The acquisition in silicone specialties is bearing fruit despite a shortage of raw materials on the market
• 2019 - moderately optimistic business expectations in a difficult market environment

The situation on the world market deteriorated further in 2018, not least due to the intensification of the trade conflict between the USA and China. However, the CHT Group was again able to close the financial year with an increase in turnover. With consolidated sales of 513 million EUR, the previous year's success in the Group was exceeded by 12%.

• This new version of Modaris speeds up the time to market for collections

Paris – Lectra launches Modaris® V8R2, the latest version of its patternmaking, grading and prototyping 2D/3D solution. This new version of Modaris, the most widely used modeling solution by leading brands in fashion and apparel, offers greater speed, efficiency and precision in product development. With its powerful 3D simulation and collaboration tools, patternmakers are developing patterns faster and speeding up their decision-making procedures. By reducing or eliminating physical prototyping, product development is less expensive and the time to market is as close as possible to trend detection.

To preserve and strengthen its position as a market leader of product development software, Lectra, with this upgrade of Modaris, is giving particular focus to 3D virtual prototyping. Patternmakers can now share with their partners, 360-degree videos, accessible on any device. Designers in response are able to visualize, comment, and approve the style and fit using the new 3D Style module.

New advances have made it possible to reduce the number of physical prototypes by up to 50%. Modaris V8R2 improves the quality of the solution’s 3D simulations and expands its library with new assets (fabrics, 3D top-stitching effects, realistic scenes, lighting studios, Pantone® and Natural Color System®©,…). The solution is now compatible with Vizoo, a high-quality scanner that brings forth a heightened realism to the appearance of fabric swatches, and with other 3D solutions such as Maya, 3DS Max, Iray to make the digital renderings of the prototypes more true-to-life and accurate.

One of the innovative developments of Modaris V8R2 is a special dart feature to help patternmakers add dimension to their garments with ease. Thanks to this new feature, modifying a dart requires half the usual time, resulting in a 50-90% increase in overall patternmaking speed.

Another highlight of this solution, and important nod to the globalized workforce of the fashion industry, is its ability to manage different units of measurement. With Modaris V8R2, Lectra has made it possible for patternmakers and external suppliers the guarantee of size compliance, regardless of the measurement systems used in the countries where production occurs.

Modaris V8R2 is already gaining traction among its pilot customers. Italian womenswear company GGZ was the first to endorse Modaris V8R2. “GGZ is a fast-fashion company and time and quality are of the essence for us. Modaris’s new dart feature helps us save up to 50% of pattern modification time. Additionally, 3D prototyping helps us ensure that pattern volumes and proportions correspond to our designers’ expectations early on, dramatically reducing our lead times,” attests Majla Gottardo, Patternmaker, GGZ.

“We are entering the information age, and we are catering to patternmakers who are dealing with consumers with different tastes, of all body shapes and sizes. Our patternmakers have hundreds of collections to deliver and no time to spare for errors. What we are aiming to do is making their everyday work environment easier for them, by providing the tools to streamline the development process and reduce the number of reworks to achieve the right fit the first-time,” states Céline Choussy, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Lectra. “All this is possible with Modaris V8R2.”

Oerlikon’s new eAFK Evo texturing machine, which was unveiled to selected clients at the ITMA trade fair in Barcelona, has proven to be a breakthrough in the manufacture of yarns. This is evidenced by leading global yarn producer, Unifi Manufacturing, Inc., who placed a significant order for these revolutionary machines yesterday, the first day of the trade fair.

Unifi collaborated with Oerlikon to develop a specially-designed eAFK Evo pilot machine that has been operating for the last eight months, using it to manufacture various Unifiber virgin and REPREVE®-branded recycled polyester and polyamide yarns. Unifi has obtained exclusive rights in the Americas to their unique design, which enables the new machine to operate at considerably higher texturing speeds, delivers consistently high-quality yarn across a broad range of products, and enables new, innovative performance yarns.

After an intense dialogue and a series of meetings during the past year between the ZDHC Board of Directors and the GCIRT, an alignment was gained on ZDHC organisational commitments and a mutual understanding of the role of chemical suppliers within the ZDHC Programme. This opens the doors for broader, more active distribution of chemistry expertise and implementation support of textile dye and leather chemical manufacturing industry in the ZDHC Programme.

The Global Chemical Industry Round Table (GCIRT), sent an open letter to ZDHC in May 2018 and is a group of the leading chemical solution providers in the textile and leather industry with the collective aim of driving the industry further to become more sustainable. GCIRT’s signatory’s engagement into the ZDHC Programme will support a faster transformation of the industry by taking complexity out of the supply chain and to find appropriate solutions for the industries’ requirements.

The GCIRT members are: ARCHROMA (Switzerland); CHT Germany GmbH (Germany); Colourtex Industries Private Limited (India); DyStar Singapore Pte Ltd (Singapore); Huntsman Textile Effects (Singapore); KISCO (Korea); Pulcra Chemicals Group (Germany); RUDOLF GmbH (Germany); TANATEX Chemicals B.V. (Netherlands).

A new generation of ecological PU coatings with water vapour permeability

Today, nearly all “breathable“ PU direct coatings are applied from solvent systems. These products partly contain very harmful and environmentally hazardous solvents.
To solve the “solvent“ problem, RUDOLF GROUP developed ECO-VENT®:

A water-based coating solution that opens up new perspectives for numerous coated fabrics, which are permeable to water vapour and, thus, breathable.
The optimum PFC-free, waterproof and breathable protective clothing can be finished with RUDOLF’s cluster of supreme technologies:

• Outer fabric finished with BIONIC-FINISH®ECO
• Direct coating made from ECO-VENT®
• Lining with moisture control due to hydrophilic HYDROCOOL®

Mayer & Cie. (MCT) is premiering the OVJA 1.1 EETT at the industry’s leading trade fair, ITMA. A premium jacquard machine, it is part of the focus on sports of the company’s “Stay a winner: With Mayer & Cie.” presentation in Barcelona. The industry leader developed the OVJA 1.1 EETT especially for the manufacture of shoe uppers now that “fabrics” are in demand for sports and leisure footwear. The OVJA 1.1 EETT comes with double electronics and double transfer technology, which is reflected in an extra variety of patterns and, in particular, in innovative hole structures.

“The OVJA 1.1 EETT is yet another machine in our portfolio with which customers can claim to be on the winning side in keeping with our ITMA slogan ‘Stay a winner: With Mayer & Cie.’,” says Marcus Mayer, Managing Director of Mayer & Cie. in charge of technical development. “The OVJA 1.1 EETT is most definitely a premium machine and the right choice for especially exacting requirements such as multi-coloured spacer fabrics with a 3D effect or a wide range of hole structures.”

STAMFORD, Conn. – At this year's Paris Airshow [Le Bourget, June 17-23] Hexcel will promote a range of carbon fibers and composite materials used to manufacture high-performance weight-saving structures in civil aircraft, engines, helicopters, and space applications.

Visitors to the Hexcel stand will see an Integrated Wing Panel demonstrator and an I-beam, both made with HiTape® carbon fiber reinforcements. HiTape® dry carbon reinforcements were developed for the automated lay-up of preforms and to complement a new generation of HiFlow™ resin systems, producing high-quality aerospace structures using the resin infusion process. The reinforcements incorporate a toughening veil to enhance mechanical properties and meet the structural requirements for aerospace parts. The I-Beam was manufactured using C-RTM (Compression Resin Transfer Molding) and was injected with Hexcel’s RTM6 resin in a process taking less than five minutes.

Hexcel honeycomb saves weight and enhances stiffness in composite structures, and the company provides a range of engineered core solutions that enable highly contoured parts with precision profiling to be produced to exact customer specifications. A sample part made from aluminum FlexCore® that is CNC machined on both sides and formed and stabilized with both peel ply and flyaway layers of stabilization will be on display.

Another honeycomb innovation is Hexcel’s Acousti-Cap® broadband noise-reducing honeycomb that significantly improves acoustic absorption in aircraft engine nacelles. The acoustic treatment may be positioned at a consistent depth and resistance within the core or can be placed in a pattern of varying depths and/or resistances (Multi-Degrees of Freedom and 3 Degrees Of Freedom), offering an acoustic liner that is precisely tuned to the engine operating conditions. These technologies have been tested at NASA on a full engine test rig and meet all 16 design conditions without trade-offs.
Another Hexcel technology to benefit aircraft engines is HexShield™ honeycomb which provides high-temperature resistance in nacelles. By inserting a thermally resistant material into honeycomb cells, Hexcel provides a core product with unique heat-shielding capabilities that allows for the potential reuse of material after a fire.

With 50 years of experience behind its comprehensive range of high-strength, high-strain PAN-based carbon fibers, Hexcel continues to innovate and is introducing two new fibers to its portfolio. HexTow® HM50 combines high modulus and high tensile strength, making it ideal for commercial and defense aircraft and engines. HexTow® 85 was developed specifically to replace rayon-based carbon fiber for ablative applications.

Another area of expertise that uses HexTow® carbon fiber is additive manufacturing, where Hexcel uses PEKK ultrahigh performance polymers and HexAM™ technology to manufacture carbon reinforced 3D printed parts. This innovative process provides a weight-saving solution for intricate parts in highly demanding aerospace, satellite and defense applications. HexPEKK™ structures offer significant weight, cost and time-to-market reductions, replacing traditional cast or machined metallic parts with a new technology.

Later this year Hexcel will open a joint research and development laboratory in Les Avenières (Isère), France with Arkema to develop carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic prepreg tapes for aerospace, space and defense applications. A spool of thermoplastic prepreg tape will be on display on Hexcel’s stand to showcase this cost-effective technology that enables lightweight parts to be produced in faster production cycles for future generations of aircraft.

Hexcel’s stand is located next to Hexcel’s official distributor for aerospace products, Groupe Gazechim Composites. In 2018, Hexcel and Gazechim formed a joint venture, HexCut Services, to provide aerospace and defense customers with customized kitting services that include Hexcel’s innovative carbon fiber prepreg, fabrics and adhesives. Pre-cut kits save customers time and investment, reduce inventory and minimize material losses through scrap reduction.