Even more international, bigger than ever: The latest edition of the trade shows Techtextil and Texprocess (14 to 17 May 2019) set new records. Once again the trade fairs showcased a strong feel for the industry’s major trends and mustered a cross-industry mix of pioneering producers, users and processors of textiles. The next edition of the trade show duo will be held from 4 to 7 May 2021, again in Frankfurt am Main.
“Four days, a full programme and an impressive variety of textile materials for all applications. I am repeatedly impressed at how innovative, creative and successful the technical textiles sector is. And the world knows, too, that this sector exhibits in Frankfurt every two years, in all its concentrated dynamism and energy. Nor has there ever before been such international participation,” says Detlef Braun, Member of the Executive Board of Messe Frankfurt. From 14 to 17 May 2019 the successful trade show duo Techtextil and Texprocess showcased the diversity of textile materials with an international ensemble of exhibitors and an extensive supporting programme. Bigger than ever before: compared with the previous edition, the number of exhibitors increased by 1.6 per cent to 421 (Techtextil) and 317 (Texprocess). After Germany, the two nations with the most exhibitors were Italy and China. With 42,500 visitors, mostly from Germany, Italy, Turkey and France, including visitors from Texprocess, and a level of international participation of 63 percent, Techtextil was also more international than ever before.
More individual, flexible, sustainable and faster: around a third of the exhibitors at Techtextil were suppliers of functional apparel fabrics for fashion, sports, outdoor and work and included major industry players such as Schoeller, Freudenberg and Lenzing. For over 80 years the latter has been producing cellulose fibres from wood, which appear in the collections of brands such as Levi’s, Asos, Esprit or H&M. The judicious use of resources and greater transparency along the entire supply chain are playing a growing role in the fashion and apparel industry. With “Sustainability at Techtextil and Texprocess” both trade shows put their exhibitors’ approaches to sustainability explicitly on the agenda for the first time.
Software solutions and smart systems likewise support the realisation of sustainable processes: “Micro-factories have an important role to play, particularly with regard to sustainability. Because what they produce is exactly and only what the customer is actually going to buy, micro-factories save on both waste and resources,” says Professor Meike Tilebein from the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research in Denkendorf (Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf DITF). The total of five micro-factories at Texprocess therefore focused on digitisation and the associated networking of processing technologies.
The Fashionsustain conference in the framework of the Texprocess Forum and numerous lectures presented at the new Techtextil Forum pursued the question of whether sustainability is key to textile innovations. According to speaker Micke Magnusson, co-founder of the Swedish start-up We are Spindye, sustainable textile innovations are in fact a matter of survival for the industry.
The special zone “Urban Living – City of the Future” showcases possible futures for the industry and society in collaboration with Creative #olland, who represent the Netherlands’ creative economy, with innovative solutions and visionary designs for urban living in the future
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