SMART MATERIALS AND DESIGN PROCESSES

Poupyrev, Google

Imagine shoes that can understand and measure your athletic performance; a jacket that allows you to control your media, or interact with AI assistants through simple gestures on the cuff; and a backpack that notifies you that someone important just texted. These are just some of the early experiments of what smart apparel can do and that we are exploring with our Jacquard by Google smart fashion platform that helps designers and brands to create connected products. Fashion professionals need to start thinking: what does it mean when their products are connected and new digital functions are embedded into them? What new services and exciting new functionality become possible? How can digital functionality make their products better? The fashion professional should start thinking about their products not just as things we love and wear every day, but as platforms that deliver unique digital services that would delight and help their customers in new ways.

Schmidt, Messe Frankfurt

Wearables and smart fashions that show the level of air pollution or react to music, as offered by start-ups such as Lunative, turn fashion into a channel of communication.

Lebsak-Kleimans, Fashion Consulting Group

Automation and robotics need to be taken into account. Examples include digital production with almost no personnel (Sewbots equipped with robotic arms, vacuum grips and specialized “micromanipulators” from SoftWear Automation, water-soluble solutions for fabric stiffness from Sewbo), but also technologies that replace the traditional production cycle, for example, fabric welding technologies and threadless production (hot-melt, ultrasonic, hot air welding, etc.) Materials will become more important: recycling of secondary materials (material from bicycle tires, ocean plastic, etc.), non-traditional types of organic raw materials (coffee grounds fabric, fabric from Kombucha fermented tea or pineapple Pinatex, etc.), alongside fabrics with improved functionality (waterproof fabrics Nanotex) and fabrics with additional functions (cooling, self-heating, temperature regulation).

Papachristou, International Hellenic University

Some fashion companies are implementing 3D design to reduce waste. New technologies for the gathering, storage and analysis of anthropometric data (i.e., 3D scanners) have boosted the availability of digital anthropometric resources to create better-fitting clothes.

Kronenberg, DuPont

As recycling programs continue to gain popularity among brands, apparel is extending its useful life. About 80 percent of these recycling programs result in either routing these clothes to thrift stores, shipping them overseas, or converting garments into rags, among other reuses. However, what happens at the end of the reuse and second-hand clothing life cycle is just as important. This is where a garment’s ingredients are critical.

When reviewing a clothing label, it is important to know that triexta, elasterell-p, and elastomultiester are all specialty polyesters based on partially plant-based

DuPont Sorona polymer and may be sorted into today’s polyester fabric recycling streams. Training everyone from designers to the material handlers in the recycling facilities that there is a stretch fiber option that can be mechanically recycled in a 100% polyester construction will have a positive impact on the environment. Sorona polymer-based fibers offer the perfect comfort stretch performance without breaking down over time due to heat, UV rays or chlorine exposure, meaning clothes continue to look, feel and perform great each time you wear them. This can not only lengthen the life of the garment for multiple uses, but when it is finally time, it can be mechanically recycled rather than directed to landfill, like Spandex.

Moreover, Koba faux fur by Ecopel has recently been created using Sorona fibers. It is the first commercially available faux fur using bio-based ingredients and features an array of performance attributes including warmth, design, flexibility, durability and dyeability.

Ruth Farrell, Eastman

Sustainability in textiles starts with fiber choice and the responsible sourcing of raw materials for the fiber’s production. With tools around transparency and traceability in textile supply chains, we can educate consumers and instill trust and confidence.

Made with sustainably sourced wood, Naia is offered as a filament acetate yarn. It creates luxurious, soft and easy-to-care-for fabrics that are consumer friendly and give designers more freedom and choice. We are ready to launch a staple fiber that shall be the first ever cellulosic acetate staple fiber. Naia is a very versatile yarn and to expand this, we are working on a number of projects to enhance Naia in fabric design: from pleating and moldability to digital printing.

Wunder, Wunderwerk

For outdoor jackets, we use special fabrics made from organic cotton, which are woven so tightly in Switzerland that water cannot penetrate them. Another brand-new product we are currently testing is a technology that neutralizes the effect of mobile devices on the body, with a focus on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. We are testing this as a clip on jackets and jeans and will make a decision in mid-2020 about which product groups the technology can be used for. The price plays a role in our considerations, but the technology behind it is remarkable.

Catania, Giada SpA

Today, customers are very attentive to environmental issues. Giada has been contributing to the environment for years both through new production techniques and through the use of sustainable materials such as recycled fibers, FSC-certified Lyocell (not common on the market), eco-compatible accessories such as Appleskin and certified washes thanks to the Eim (environmental impact measurement) tool, and Jeanologia's software, the first in the world that certifies the sustainability of washings, thanks to laser washing technologies (without water).

Ricci, RRD – Roberto Ricci Designs

Technology for our brand is linked to material innovation. The way to innovate in this industry is to find technical advances in materials in order to add value to the product.