From the Sector

As the role of lingerie in fashion and athleisure continues to augment, the desire for garments that will meet a new set of values for contemporary consumer lifestyles will flourish.   
ROICA™ takes this year’s Interfilière visitors on an inspirational journey, aimed at encouraging weavers, designers and brands to “engineer” their portfolio of products in new and exciting ways. The company sets a whole new standard in how creativity and responsibility can come together for a new generation of wardrobe solutions dedicated to the contemporary consumer, carving out a new kind of fashion future.
 
For Interfilière 2019, ROICA™ tells the story of its five unique yarn families brought to life through a precious partnership system and exploring three key themes: heritage, innovation and lifestyle.

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.

• Operations, Product Development, Sales and Technical Support Growth

Celine Huang 黄秀蔚 is named Chief Executive Officer for HeiQ Greater China and Ming Wen Liang 梁銘文is named Chief Executive Officer HeiQ Taiwan. Huang, with her background as a general manager of a large player in the same industry brings a total of over 20 years of solid testing lab, agent and country strategies management expertise with an excellent relationship skills with customers, distributors, dealers and end users. She has a chemical engineering degree in dyeing and finishing from China Textile University. Huang has worked in both Australia and China in senior management positions. Huang will lead the group’s Greater China business from the newly created Shanghai office (瑞士海屹科新材料有限公司上海办事处).

Liang will manage mill relations, technical support and distribution at HeiQ Taiwan. She brings close to 20 years of experience in textile and garment production supply chain focusing on sales, material innovation and development, sourcing and production. Liang holds a Bachelor of International Trade from the National Taipei University of Business, Taiwan, speaks Chinese, English and Spanish and has lived in both Taiwan and Argentina. And will be based in the new office in Taipei (瑞士海屹科有限公司).

HeiQ continues to increase its global footprint with the creation of HeiQ Shanghai and HeiQ Taiwan. In addition to HeiQ Hong Kong, these offices aim to provide dedicated technical support in the Greater China area, further broaden its geographical reach in strategic locations and support HeiQ’s brand partners’ manufacturing activities in the region.

ROICA™ marks its first presence at Denim Première Vision in Milan focusing on its premium sustainable stretch offer and key partnership with Candiani.

The City of Milan, the cool atmosphere of Superstudio Più, and Denim Première Vision are the perfect show-window for ROICA ™ to introduce its key eco - high tech premium stretch stories and partnerships in the market able to offer real advanced denim experiences to visitors.Let’s start from the ROICA™ and Candiani partnership: shared vision, aligned mindset and DNA that reveal a common deep commitment to reach a new level of innovation that embodies responsibility with amazing look and touch! These were the premises that lead to the partnership between ROICA™ and Candiani which generated a very special ROICA™ yarn realized only for Candiani. A premium stretch yarn that is boasting a GRS  (Global  Recycled  Standard)  version  4  certification,  thanks  to  its  high  percentage  of  recycled  content  and appropriated process of transformation.  This ad hoc ROICA™ sustainable stretch solution perfectly fit the  new  amazing  Candiani ReLast line,  the  range  of  market  fresh  responsible  denim  products  whose  objective is to introduce a 100% transformed innovative solution.

• High speed Sample Warping Machine suitable for yarn range between 5 to 500 Tex
• Sectional Warping Machine has user friendly advance software & data management
• Single End Sizing Machine offers 4, 8, 12 and 16 spindle configurations

India based and innovation driven company, Rabatex Industries has lined-up the latest and innovative weaving preparatory technologies including battery operated material handling equipment in a 72 square metre stall at ITMA 2019 in Barcelona in Hall no. 4, Booth no. D215.

The technologies on display include an Automatic Sample Warper, Single End Sizing Machine, Advanced Sectional Warper, Battery Operated Material Handling Equipment and also an Ultrasonic Reed Cleaning Machine. The Rabatex high speed Automatic Sample Warping Machine model RI 6001 is primarily for production of samples and short production warp at very high production rate. The RI 6001 has a robustly constructed warping drum, suitable up to widths of 2400 mm and for warping lengths between 21 and 450 metres (depending on thread density) and suitable for yarn range from 5 to 500 Tex.

The RI 6001 comes with a heavy duty rotational creel with a maximum creel capacity of 16 colours and is suitable of attaining maximum speeds of up to 1,200 metres per minutes. The Rabatex Sectional Warping Machine RI 112 is a state-of-the-art technology which produces high quality warp beams with higher productivity. The RI 112 comes with user friendly advance software and data management, which offers all online data of warping operations. It also offers graphical display of all events and breakages and also loss end memory control.

The ergonomically designed Single End Sizing Machine RI 8001 offers 4, 8, 12 and 16 spindle configurations and produces sized yarn of the highest quality to ensure trouble-free and smooth weaving operations. The RI-8001 is suitable for cotton yarn in the range of 10’s to 120’s Ne and polyester yarn in the range of 30 to 210 deniers, with option of dry steam or electric heater drying system. Rabatex operates four fully functioning manufacturing units, dedicated to producing state-of-the-art machineries and technologies. Another plant covering an area of 50,000 square metres is under construction, which would be devoted for manufacturing material handling and storage equipment.

“All our technologies, including those on display at our ITMA 2019 stall are very robust and so require very less maintenance. We have developed these technologies through our in-house R&D team and go through rigorous tests before being launched in the market,” Mr Haresh Panchal, Managing Director of Rabatex Industries said. “We have grown in double digits in the last few years, thanks to the continuous launching of new technologies and also due to the excellent after sales service support, which we provide to our customers,” Mr Panchal added.

Paper Converting Machine Company (PCMC), part of Barry-Wehmiller, received the prestigious Technical Innovation Award from the Flexographic Technical Association (FTA) for its recently introduced SteadyPrint print-stabilization technology. This award was presented May 5, 2019, at the FTA Forum 2019 awards banquet held in New Orleans.

SteadyPrint, now part of PCMC’s Fusion and ELS Max flexographic presses, couples innovative patented mechanical designs with cutting-edge disturbance-cancelling algorithms that suppress disturbances associated with the hard edge, largely removing the impact of bounce in flexographic printing. The press automatically learns when the disturbance occurs on each job and implements the cancellation algorithm to minimize or eliminate the impact on print quality.

“We are extremely excited to be a recipient of the 2019 FTA Technical Innovation Award,” said Rodney Pennings, PCMC’s Printing, Coating and Laminating Sales Director. “The entire PCMC team has worked very hard in developing SteadyPrint over the past couple of years. It is an innovation that we are quite proud of, and we appreciate the accolades that showcase SteadyPrint within the package-printing industry. Winning this award in the year we are celebrating our 100-year anniversary is also incredibly meaningful.”

Two successful events made in Bangladesh where fashion and innovation have, once more, come together to champion change and foster sustainability.

Bangladesh has a mission: to fetch its share in the global 130 billion dollars market of smart apparel by 2025. To reach this goal, the country aims to foster modern, innovative, technology-driven apparel manufacturing and to constantly engage in supply chain conversations.

A fitting stage for these conversations was the 2nd Bangladesh Fashionology Summit that took place on day 1 of the Bangladesh Denim Expo – held on 02-03 May 2019 at the International Convention City Bashundhara. This was a platform for thinkers, innovators, experts, educators to share innovative ideas on this edition’s main theme: “Digitalization – the Next Destination”. Sessions were provided to learn more on how innovation, specifically digitalization, fits in the world of the fashion industry.

Further to an increase in cost of production, the industry is even more compelled to focusing on finding added value for products. Here is where the smart clothing market comes in, an opportunity on which a thriving community of thinkers will commit to lead the “current-generation” garment production into the “next-generation” apparel manufacturing by using latest digital technology.

The Summit has also provided a Tech Innovation Zone (Tech Innovators: Trustrace, Shimmy Technologies, Infinited Fiber, Seachange Technologies, Reverse Resource) in collaboration with Fashion For Good, a platform for innovators to meet with the other components of the eco system, and an Exhibition Zone (Exhibitors: Pivot88, Lectra, Sindabad.com, Pacific Associates, Earlycavehuman, Foursource Group GmbH, A2i-Access to Information, GoBlu, Rudholm Group, QuizRR, BRAC, SNV, SR Asia, Swiss Contact) for companies to showcase their latest innovations, paying special attention to information sharing.

Revolutionizing textile finishing by enhancing sustainability and total process control

Baldwin Technology Company Inc., a member of TMAS, the Swedish textile machinery association, is pleased to announce the launch of the TexCoat G4 at the ITMA trade show in Barcelona from June 20-26, 2019. The TexCoat G4 is the next generation of the company’s revolutionary non-contact precision application system for fabric finishing.

The system enables a continuously high quality and productive textile finishing process with zero chemistry waste and drastically reduced water and energy consumption. TexCoat G4 will be demonstrated by Baldwin in Hall H2, stand A204.

“We are immensely proud to launch the TexCoat G4 at ITMA 2019,” said Eric Norling, Vice President Precision Application Segment, Baldwin Technology. “This is an opportunity to experience an innovation that drastically improves both the process and product quality, while saving time, valuable resources and contributing to a sustainable future.”

The non-contact spray technology brings numerous advantages compared to conventional methods of applying finishing chemistry. The chemistry is uniformly distributed across the textile surface and is applied only where it is required – on one or both sides of the fabric. This is highly beneficial e.g. when applying water repellants on laminated fabrics, as it eliminates the problem of chemistry affecting the quality of the adhesion layer. Furthermore, the non-contact technology eliminates chemistry dilution in wet-on-wet processes, allowing full control of maintaining consistent chemistry coverage rates. Additionally, with no bath contamination during the finishing process, there is zero downtime during colour or fabric changeovers.

Bemberg™ to be selected for the “Sustainable Thinking” project by Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, an initiative that explores Ferragamo’s sustainability from the pioneering spirit of its founder in his use of natural, recycled and innovative materials to the experimentation with sustainable materials and techniques along with an artistic/cultural perspective on the vital issue of sustainability.

Sustainable Thinking turns to a wider public, aiming to inspire reflection on the increasingly crucial and contemporary issue of environmentalism, using the language of fashion, art and materials. Materials are the common theme throughout the exhibition: the suggested itinerary begins with the research into materials in the 1920s, including hemp, cellophane and fish skin, to then explore the stories behind luxurious materials that, after reaching the end of their first life cycles, are transformed into quality products, becoming tangible  examples of a circular economy. Installations created using ancient crafting techniques present both the art of recycling and the rediscovery of handcrafting traditions, fundamental aspects of sustainable thinking. Through experimentation, smart technologies open the door to change, leading to a virtuous rediscovery of natural fibers in an inexorable return to nature.

At Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, will be showcased the circularity of the Bemberg™ story:  its  source, manufacture and end-of-life credentials. In this way Bemberg™ adds value to its premium position on responsible issues.

Garmon Chemicals confirms itself as a pioneer in chemistry specifically applied to garment treatment, at the forefront in terms of product research and active promotion on the sustainable issue. The Dutch show is the ideal stage to present a preview of the latest innovation born out of Garmon’s volcanic R&D department. It is Avol Lime, the revolutionary and ecologicallyadvanced neutralizing agent. Used in combination with Avol Oxy White (the bleaching agent that represents the safe alternative to potassium permanganate), it allows to obtain a fully safe and sustainable bleaching process.

white&green: solutions for eco-bleaching
white&green is the ultimate solution to obtain a safe and sustainable jeans discoloration process. The new line provides two avant-garde solutions: two highly performant products, both representing a safe and conscious alternative.
Two souls presenting unique characteristics:

The “white” soul

• the hightest level of whiteness
• superior bright shades
• stylish vintage looks
• extraordinary contrasts

The “green” soul

• safe alternative to dangerous products
• significant energy savings
• classified in ZDHC gateway (from level 1)
• greenofchange® approved