Sweden

With only a fraction of all textiles being recycled today there is an urgent need to change that and a doctoral thesis at the Swedish School of Textiles contributed unique knowledge about mechanical recycling: which processes and materials give the best results.

The Gothenburg-based brand WeftSide is spanking new, founded only this year. A spokesperson tells texfash about the minimalist approach that the pursuit of endless growth entails, favouring simplicity and quality instead.

Here’s a weaver-designer deconstructing and redesigning everyday garments in a new way, pushing too for an equal division between the textile-making process and the fashion design process, as very often, the textile maker is rather invisible compared to the fashion designer. texfash in conversation with the Swedish Kelly Konings of the eponymous Kelly Konings Textiles.

A research group, led by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, has come up with an ordinary silk thread, coated with a conductive plastic material, that shows promising properties for turning textiles into electricity generators.

As fast fashion and necessarily overproduction and overconsumption of clothes continues, fashion brands are going all out to woo the mindful consumer (read, women mostly), increasingly employing “woke” marketing tactics that illustrate a political and social awareness around race, LGBTQ+, feminism and the environment.

Ongoing work on ‘textile muscles’ has been further strengthened as researchers develop haptic sleeves that give an extra boost during heavy lifting, enable ‘remote’ hugs, help the visually impaired navigate the urban environment, and also complement VR in gaming.

The Circulose pulp has got a fresh lease of life with Swedish investment firm acquiring the remaining assets of Renewcell. Circulose pulp, the innovative solution for textile-to-textile circularity, will remain at the forefront to create a sustainable future for the fashion and textiles industry.

Renewcell, the bankrupt textile-to-textile recycling company, has sold its Kristinehamn pilot plant to Swedish bio-based innovator Biosorbe which produces oil-absorption materials.

A start-up with a meteoric rise almost and a sudden burn out, bankruptcy-hit Renewcell, now awaits investments to put it back on track. texfash.com talks to its Chief Commercial Officer Tricia Carey to know more.

Sweden. France and Denmark have issued a call for new global rules for exporting textile waste under the Basel Convention, in the backdrop of EU's exports of used textiles tripling in the last 20 years to countries in Africa and Asia who do not have the capacity to ensure proper waste management.