From Display to Delivery: Functional Textiles Sector Full of Tools and Short of Systems

Rakstang's argument has a precise technical core. Before a garment can be recovered, sorted, and reintegrated into production, someone in the supply chain needs to know exactly what it is made of, what chemicals it carries, what certifications it holds, and where it has been. In most cases, that information does not exist in accessible form. The garment arrives at the sorting facility as an anonymous object, and the recycling system works around that ignorance rather than through it.

Rakstang frames them as sorting tools first: RFID linked to a Digital Product Passport via a GS1 Digital Link, AI-based visual recognition, woven QR codes. The transparency argument is secondary. The data they carry about material composition, chemical content, and product lifecycle is what allows high-speed sorting to function at the volumes textile recycling would need to reach to matter. Without that data layer, sorting remains slow, inaccurate, and economically unviable at scale.

The implications extend well beyond sorting facilities. If circularity depends on data discipline, on every actor in the supply chain populating and maintaining accurate product information, then the responsibility for recycling outcomes shifts significantly upstream. Brands that do not encode material composition, mills that do not document chemical inputs, certifiers whose records are not digitally accessible, platform builders who have not connected their systems: all of them become points of failure in a recycling chain that moves only as fast as its least-informed link.

Rakstang's framing is politically significant for exactly this reason. Circularity, understood this way, is not a claim about material virtue that any individual actor can make independently. It is a test of whether fragmented actors, operating across different countries, different regulatory regimes, and different commercial incentives, can share reliable information before products reach end of life. The industry's circularity promise is vulnerable not at the point of greatest technological ambition but at the weakest point of coordination.

Data also unlocks something beyond sorting efficiency. Verified material data is what allows recycled fibres to be sold with confidence, trusted by buyers, and scaled into mainstream production. Without it, recycled content carries a credibility discount: the recycler cannot prove what the fibre is, the brand cannot substantiate its recycled content claims, and the buyer has no independent basis for trust. The data layer is the commercial foundation of a functioning circular economy, not an administrative requirement bolted onto an existing system, but the condition under which recycled fibres achieve parity with virgin materials in procurement decisions.

The conversations at Performance Days translated, for Repasdo, into concrete next steps: pilot projects, new use cases, long-term collaboration opportunities. Rakstang noted that the show is one of the few places where people come together not to sell but to solve, and that when the right actors are in the same room with the right orientation, progress accelerates. Whether that progress accumulates into the coordination the industry actually needs is the question the show raised and left open.

The PFC-free DWR conversation at Performance Days carried a tension the show did not fully resolve, and was honest enough not to pretend otherwise. Fluorinated finishes still set the benchmark, particularly for oil repellency. That fact was not disputed on the exhibition floor. What was being argued, by Dryfiber and H&B Materials among others, was that the benchmark itself is becoming the wrong measure, that a finish evaluated solely on peak technical performance, without accounting for regulatory exposure, environmental liability, and long-term commercial risk, is a finish evaluated on outdated terms.

Dryfiber, appearing at the Innovation Area for the third consecutive time, was pushing precisely at the point where PFC-free chemistry has historically struggled. Its fluorine-free solution claims not only strong water repellency but effective resistance to everyday oils, the combination that PFAS-based finishes have long dominated and that alternatives have repeatedly failed to match at industrial scale. The company's proposition is built around scalability: supporting partners from trial phases through to full production, with consistent performance across industrial processes rather than controlled laboratory conditions. That distinction, between demonstration performance and production performance, was a recurring theme in the DWR conversations, and it is where most PFC-free claims have historically broken down.

H&B Materials arrived at the show as a newcomer, a start-up with a bio-based, PFAS-free aqueous finishing technology designed as a drop-in solution for existing production lines. The focus on cellulosic fibres, strong interactions with cotton and related materials, durable water repellency without sacrificing softness or breathability, positioned it as an entry point for brands whose supply chains are not configured for disruptive process change. The aqueous, fully integrated format matters commercially: it removes the need for capital investment in new equipment, which is often the decisive friction point in adoption decisions.

What both companies were navigating, alongside the chemistry, is a buyer environment in which performance is no longer a single variable. A finish must now satisfy multiple conditions simultaneously: technical efficacy across real-use conditions, wash durability beyond laboratory cycles, compatibility with existing production infrastructure, and alignment with OEKO-TEX, bluesign, and GOTS certification requirements, alongside a credible position against tightening European regulation on PFAS. That last pressure is not distant. Heraeus, presenting its AGXX catalytic technology, made the regulatory argument explicit: silver-ion-based technologies face increasing scrutiny, AGXX does not rely on silver-ion release, and early adoption of compliant alternatives reduces future risk for brands whose product strategies extend beyond the current regulatory window.

The odour-control innovations reinforced the same structural shift. Polygiene's OdorCrunch 2.0 works through molecular capture rather than biocidal suppression, binding odour molecules before they are released during wear, and is effective on lightweight 100% polyester, a substrate that has traditionally resisted odour-control treatment. AGXX operates through a catalytic redox process that continuously regenerates without being consumed, delivering sustained performance without the degradation curve that conventional antimicrobial technologies typically follow. Both approaches abandon the logic of masking and heavy metals that defined the previous generation of odour management. Both are positioned explicitly against the regulatory direction of travel in Europe.

The supplier advantage, across DWR and odour control both, is shifting towards those who can demonstrate compliance-ready industrial pathways rather than isolated technical claims. A finish that outperforms in a test but carries PFAS exposure, or an odour-control system that works in a laboratory but fails certification, is a liability in the current procurement environment. The purchase decision has shifted. Buyers are weighing reduced future risk as much as function.

Two years of development, and the Bodywear Area this year had the attendance to prove it: Adidas, Puma, H&M, Marks & Spencer, On Running, and Lululemon alongside Chanel and Emporio Armani. A range that does not assemble around a niche. The category now spans intimates and shapewear, activewear and outdoor, medical and functional wear bleeding into lifestyle through compression and smart textiles, and what it exposes, more sharply than any other format at the show, is how compressed the industry's tensions become when a material has to work directly against skin.

Nichole de Carle, founder of the London Contour Experts Group and curator of the Bodywear Area and Forum, framed it plainly: bodywear is no longer confined to a single category, and comfort, sustainability, and high performance are no longer competing priorities, they are being developed together from the start. The trend directions confirmed that in concrete terms. Natural performance fibres are being repositioned as technical materials in their own right. Ultra-lightweight, packable constructions are becoming a cross-category standard. Seamless and body-mapping technologies are advancing through engineered structures and flexible yarn combinations that allow precision performance without seam bulk. Textile-to-textile recycling is moving into the category as a baseline expectation. None of these are differentiators anymore. They are entry conditions.

A fabric cannot remain a technical swatch in this category. It has to become a garment that fits, moves, feels right against skin, washes without degrading its performance claims, and sits within a design proposition that a brand can sell. That translation requirement is where the bodywear argument connects to the wider show. Carvico brought it through its stretch warp-knitted range: Versailles, Portofino, Croisette, the Revolutional line. Each fabric a distinct proposition. Each one already partly interpreted before it reaches a design team. The Eurojersey and Lycra Company collaboration on Empowered Play made the same move at category level, targeting the crossover between utility sportswear and everyday style through Sensitive Fabrics combined with Lycra fibre, three-dimensional elasticity, targeted compression, second-skin feel.

The Creative Area made the same argument through a different format. Sofia Malatesta, representing TheCube Archive, noted that visitors touched the garments, examined construction details, scanned QR codes, and asked specific questions, the kind of engagement that indicates the connection between function and design was being understood rather than merely observed. Denim drew attention through new tailoring approaches and striking visual effects. Checks were reinterpreted beyond their traditional workwear context. Garment dye and devoré added depth. Material innovations need to arrive in complete looks before brands can understand their commercial potential. March confirmed that demand is there and growing.

Taskin Goec's AI fluency workshop approached the adoption argument from the production side. His position was that AI tools are easy to access and hard to master. Fashion requires precision, identity, and repeatable output, which demands structured workflows, controlled prompt systems, visual references, and continuous quality control. The image, in his framing, is the first product: it shapes perception before a garment is touched. Trade fairs are where industry and creatives meet, and that meeting is where new approaches actually emerge. Performance Days, across its Bodywear Area, Creative Area, and Tech Hub, was functioning in March as exactly that kind of translation platform, connecting material science with design language, marketing logic, category strategy, and the consumer-facing expectations that determine whether an innovation gets adopted or remains a swatch in a supplier's archive.

The System Still Waiting

The question Rakstang's 70% leaves open is not whether the industry can recycle, finish cleanly, or control odour. It is whether the systems required to do all three at scale, the data infrastructure, the compliance pathways, the design translation, can be built before the next wave of materials arrives and inherits the same bottlenecks. Bio-based, plant-based, and cellulose fibres are already being framed at Performance Days as the next frontier, with the Cellulose Forum and the October focus on bio-based materials signalling that the conversation is moving. Rakstang would recognise the pattern. A new category of materials, a new set of promises, and the same question waiting underneath: who holds the data, and can the system be trusted? The anonymous garment at the sorting facility is still waiting for its answer. That problem has not been solved. It has only been named.