Innovation

The UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT) has come out with a report that aims to encourage innovators, brands, retailers and manufacturers to work together so that the industry can collectively achieve environmental impact reduction goals.

Scientists at the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) have developed a robust yet flexible glove coating using an environmental friendly biopolymer— lignin— in a 3D printing process.

Inspired by the adaptive thermal regulation mechanism in pigeons, a team of researchers in Hong Kong has developed the first-of-its-kind intelligent soft robotic clothing for automatic temperature adaptation and thermal insulation in hot environments, offering superior personal protection and thermal comfort across a range of temperatures.

Fashion for Good has launched a collaborative ambitious initiative aimed at accelerating the next generation of footwear innovations needed to drive circularity spanning four workstreams across the supply chain from materials to end of use.

A €7 million project, BioFibreLoop, kicked off in Germany, will use laser technology to imitate natural structures in order to produce garments with water and oil-repellent, self-cleaning and antibacterial properties — basically develop recyclable outdoor and work clothing made from renewable bio-based materials.

Ever wondered what happens to your hair once you go for your six-monthly chop-chop at the salon? If Human Material Loop, a Dutch start-up, has its way, all of this could well be mopped up to give you an all-new ethical, traceable and high-performing textile fibre, prototypes of which have been developed and the immediate plan is to go commercial. Founder-CEO Zsofia Kollar in conversation with texfash.

Researchers are developing a process with alternative substances that can be used to produce environmentally friendly water-repellent textile fibres.

Consumers could one day get to pick sneakers that fit their personal running style if research on a new model developed at MIT reaches commercial scale.

In what could well be a groundbreaking technology, a Walmart and Rubi Labs collaboration could soon be spinning out affordable clothing from carbon emissions, and the inspiration is nature yet again — the process how trees “eat” CO2!

Quite famously known as the ‘Green City in the Sun’, Nairobi has a bunch of students from its leading university figuring out an “incredible alternative” on how to use agro-waste, specially from maize—the principal staple food of Kenya—and pineapple, connecting the farming community to fashion in a way that both people and the planet not only survive but thrive.