Visitors from more than 60 countries around the world registered in advance for the three international conference formats taking place during Frankfurt Fashion Week. They mainly came from Germany, France, Switzerland, Russia, the USA, Spain, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and Brazil. But the contents of Frankfurt Fashion Week also reached visitors from Israel, South Africa, Botswana, Thailand, Tonga, Mexico, India, Oman, Finland, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Portugal, Australia, Greece, Malaysia, Denmark and Sweden, the organisers said in a press release.
The discussions held during the conference were on topics ranging from the state of the industry to innovating the industry, state of retail and special cotton and denim.
As a starting point for the discussion on repercussions of COVID-19 on textile and fashion production, Mariska Schennink, sustainability manager at Euretco Fashion, talked about the imbalance in the industry. For Andreas Bothe, head of CSR & sustainability from Bay City Textilhandels GmbH, it is essential to ensure transparency along the supply chain: “You have to give people, consumers, the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes – to see where and how things are produced.”
The German supply chain law, or Due Diligence Act, is one of the approaches providing transparency along the textile value chain. Standards and certifications also play a key role in that – such as the German government’s textile standard Grüner Knopf, or Green Button: “For the Green Button, sustainability and innovation belong together,” said Dr Gerd Müller, Germany’s federal minister of economic cooperation and development.
ISKO, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of materials for the denim industry, debuted a new technology at Fashionsustain that uses a process to separate cotton and polyester blends so the recycled raw material can be used to make a variety of new products, ranging from clothing to cosmetics, the release said.
Patric Spethmann, COO at Marc O’Polo said at the event: “We strive to work in an even more agile way and to standardise and automate our processes. To concentrate our energy on value-adding activities, and to develop a technology landscape that supports our strategic vision for the foreseeable future.”
“Product development has become a DNA of the denim industry,” said Michael Kininmonth, business development & project manager at Lenzing AG, in a panel by the Transformers Foundation. But there is also potential for innovations in the finishing of denim products: “There is space for improvement and adoption, especially when it comes to certain technologies like ozone and laser,” said Maurizio Morosini, global marketing manager at Tonello. Ozone finishing is a bleaching process for denim that reduces environmental impact and processing costs as well as processing time.
The conference also discussed the state of the retail industry. The retail sector has undergone a huge transformation, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic – digital offers have accelerated the change in the industry, which has had to adapt to new customer needs very quickly. It’s no longer a question of physical or digital: phygital is the solution.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)