At This Fabrics Show, It’s All About Sustainable Swatches
Consumers have made it increasingly clear that they’re watching their favorite brands when it comes to sustainability. As brands scramble to keep up with expectations and make good on their ESG commitments, the gold rush for sustainable materials has spurred a spotlight on non-conventional fabrics and textiles.
That’s why The Sustainable Angle decided to bring its Future Fabrics Expo to New York City this year, a first for the U.K.-based not-for-profit, which also stages a larger-scale version of the show in London each year. Small-time designers, mega brands, educators and other industry players descended upon Manhattan’s White Space Chelsea for the two-day expo.
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The New York version of the show highlighted over 5,000 materials that have a lower environmental impact than traditional offerings in the mainstream market. Featured swatches included leather alternatives, recycled cotton, regenerative materials and more.
Those materials came from The Sustainable Angle’s collection, which features thousands upon thousands of swatches vetted by the team.
Amanda Johnston, curator of the New York expo, said fashion can’t move forward without fully understanding material makeup.
“From provenance, right through to how circular it is, we are constantly working on interrogating our suppliers,” she said. “Sustainability is hugely complex, is really difficult to communicate [about]. But we’re trying to make it as inspiring as possible.”
Key suppliers featured on the expo floor included Lenzing, Thermore, Bananatex, Parley for the Oceans, Säntis Textiles, Spiber and more.
In a Tuesday night panel focused on circularity, representatives from Spiber, OnceMore, Säntis Textiles and Recyctex delved deep into how more sustainable materials can impact the industry at large.
Callie Clayton, global client relations manager for Spiber, said the Japanese bio-materials startup uses sugar as a feedstock to create a biodegradable material that can also be blended with other fibers.
She noted that some exciting initiatives on the horizon could take the Goldwin partner to the next level, where reduction of virgin feedstock is concerned.
“We have some new initiatives where we have been looking at how we can create an even more sustainable product by upcycling waste—biomass and waste textiles—to use as an input instead of virgin sugars,” Clayton said.
Meanwhile, Södra, the Swedish forestry group, has teamed up with Renewcell partner Lenzing on the OnceMore initiative, which works to recycle blended poly-cotton fabric made up of over 70 percent cotton.
Angeline Elfström, a business development manager for OnceMore, said the technology has the power to reduce textile waste and the industry’s reliance on fossil fuels—two major problems sector players must consider as new climate regulations creep up and 2030 draws near.
“We are an enabler for the fashion industry to make the transformation that is needed to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels,” she said. “This is not just a product or a material, it’s also information exchange that we are doing and connecting the whole value chain.”
And for Säntis Textiles—which has a client book including Mara Hoffmann, Patagonia and Kering—textile recycling runs in the family. Annabelle Hutter, managing director of the cotton recycler, said her father developed the company’s RCO100 technology, which turns cotton waste into 100 percent recycled yarn.
Even as textile recycling becomes an increasing focus, so, too, is using recycled plastics to create textiles. China-headquartered Recyctex has found success in recycling plastic bottles and fishing nets polluting oceans and coastlines and turning them into yarns, fabrics and garment components, Steven Cheung, founder and president, said.
These technologies didn’t come to fruition without some hardships. For some, the issues were related to regulations. For others, scaling was a challenge.
The work is never done, as industry expectations around sustainable technologies continue to heighten and evolve. But one thing remains clear: brands and material innovation companies will need to work together to forge a sustainable future, Clayton said.
For OnceMore, brands must be in it for the long haul to make real progress.
“It’s very important to find the long-term solution—not just doing a capsule collection to get a nice PR thing, but really taking [sustainable materials] into the portfolio, to the baselines,” Elfström said.
Simultaneously, Hutter noted that part of the responsibility around education and adoption lies with the suppliers.
“I will go out myself with the auditors and say, ‘What are you actually looking at? And why do you do this?’ And I try to really explain that to my brands,” Hutter said. “Me and my father bring an authentic way of presenting our textiles, presenting our innovation, so that the end product is equally as cool as the whole journey to get there.”
As brands and suppliers alike continue to work on that journey, consumers can’t be left behind in further understanding that the biggest fashion statement they make may be related to how their choices impact the environment.
Cheung said a big part of Recyctex’s focus going forward will be ensuring stronger consumer understanding.
“We think it’s getting more important… to have more communication with the public,” Cheung said. “We keep a low profile, so many people still do not understand what Recyctex [is], even though we have many clients. So we are doing more communication with the public starting… next year.”
