THE NOVEMBER ROUND UP
The Sustainable Angle
A not-for-profit organisation and founders of the #FutureFabricsExpo.
FUTURE FABRICS EXPO TEXTILE EXCHANGE EDITION
MATERIALS MATTER 2022
We were delighted to have been a Supporting Organisation last month at the Textile Exchange 20th Anniversary Conference: Materials Matter – a pathway to positive impact.
Hosted in Colorado, USA, we showcased a curated selection of must-see sustainably and responsibly produced materials and innovations, all from the Future Fabrics Expo.
Our partnership with the conference aims to generate industry awareness about the increasing imperative for fashion to become planet positive and to highlight the material solutions that are already commercially available.
TEXTILE EXCHANGE CONFERENCE TAKEAWAYS
The following quote from outgoing CEO and Textile Exchange co-founder, La Rhea Pepper was effective in setting the tone for this year's conference:
"We need to move from being islands of good to being forces for change, because partnership is the new leadership."
Thank you to La Rhea Pepper for being a true force for change for 20 years.
Looking ahead, incoming CEO Claire Bergkamp is the perfect appointment to lead Textile Exchange forward into the next chapter, and we are particularly excited for the new emphasis on scaling up the solutions that can drive positive environmental change.
We featured a number of Future Fabrics Expo Exhibitors at our Textile Exchange Conference Edition! Highlights include:
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Bananatex® is the world’s first durable, technical fabric made purely from Abacá banana plants. Cultivated in the Philippine highlands within a natural ecosystem of sustainable mixed agriculture and forestry, the plant is self-sufficient, requires no pesticides, fertilizer or extra water. These qualities have allowed it to contribute to reforestation in areas once eroded due to monocultural palm plantations, whilst enhancing biodiversity and the economic prosperity of its farmers.
Ventile® fabrics are technologically unique as they are spun in such a way that the tightly woven fibres create a finished fabric able to withstand harsh weather conditions. Now produced in Switzerland, Ventile® fabric was first developed by scientists at the Shirley Institute in Manchester in the 1930s. Originally created during WW2 to help save the lives of Air Force pilots flying over the Atlantic during wartime, the fabric was designed to be cool and comfortable on land yet warm and impenetrable if it came into contact with water.
RECYCTEX® is a textile innovation company founded in 2014 by Steven Chueng that focuses on the research, development and production of recycled fabric and bio-based fabric. Since 2007, the founder and his team have been studying transforming rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) yarns into recycled fabric. In 2014, they became the first company to turn recycled nylon yarns partially made from discarded fishing nets into woven fabric and the first company in China to use chemically-recycled polyester yarns for the ultra-light high-density recycled fabric.