The VDMA Textile Machinery Association will host B2B forums and technology conferences on November 6, 2017 in Charlotte (NC), USA, and on November 8-9, 2017 in Mexico City. Experts from well-known VDMA member companies will be present practice-oriented technology topics to decision-makers from the local textile industry.

Germany holds the top position in Europe and world-wide with €13 billion in annual sales in technical textiles. The this event is aimed at technical management, production managers, quality and maintenance managers as well as mill owners, among other decision-makers. The event will also focus on sustainability and recyclability.

This year's partner countries are Austria and Switzerland; and the host city for this important European textile conference is Dresden, which is Germany's center for lightweight engineering and one of the leading German locations for new materials. The event will have presentations along the entire textile chain will show how to increase competitiveness by innovative technology, higher productivity, resource efficiency, higher value-added textiles and industrial internet. The networking will be supported by B2B, interactive discussions with the professional audience and by a conference dinner in a comfortable atmosphere.

After a disappointing end to 2016 and a sluggish beginning to 2017, spinners in India are finally beginning to regain some optimism. They have been getting a steady stream of orders for the past five or six weeks and enquiries are on the rise.

Ring-spun and air-jet yarns are getting a lot of attention. Positions are beginning to get a little tight again. Orders for open end yarns, in general, are still a bit light, but are improving. Interest is particularly high in specific categories like organic products, fire retardant yarns and products used for filtering. As the oil industry continues to recover, these categories may continue to grow.

One area that has not revived much, however, is home furnishings. But even here spinners expect business to pick up substantially in the near future. Despite renewed optimism among spinners, there are still a few concerns. Pricing and margins top the list. They feel selling all the yarn they can make is of no use, if profits are low. Margins continue to be a lot thinner than they would like. Spinners are doing everything they can to keep prices as low as possible but in a lot of cases, they have to rely on value-added advantages to create differentiation — quality, delivery and service.

New manufacturing yarn processes and finishes are pushing towards a more sustainable delivery with a reduction of water. The textile industry uses billions of liters of water throughout all processing from dyeing to specialty chemical finishes that are applied to textiles in water baths to scouring, bleaching and softening. Through the Detox campaign Greenpeace has highlighted the damage of water pollution and use from the textile chain has had on the environment.

Greenpeace is campaigning to stop industry poisoning our water with hazardous, persistent and hormone-disrupting chemicals and the textile industry is embracing change in eco-friendly chemical use as well as water conservation. The importance of sustainability was featured at ISPO Texttrends in February and is now become a custom than a passing fad as the textile industry looks to new processes in reducing water and energy.

Textile manufacturer Schoeller and auxiliaries and dyes specialists at Textilcolor have developed Ecodye, a new auxiliary concept used, in particular, in polyester dyeing processes. The technology accelerates the dyeing process and contributes to cutting costs, while at the same time helping to preserve the environment with a low level of demand on resources. Ecodye also improves the dyeing levelness in polyester textiles. Spots and dye agglomeration are almost completely avoided, and the precipitation on the goods that arises as a result of polyester oligomers are no longer evident. On the other hand Ecodye provides good shade stability and avoids reproduction problems from batch to batch, reducing the rate of double staining and increasing the capacity utilization and productivity of the dyeing mill on a long-term basis.

SpinDye, which is a new company exhibits at ISPO this year, the company offers a different approach in the production of synthetics, in particular nylon and polyester. Final laundering of fabrics is becoming a process of the past. An innovative collaboration held at the recent Kingpins Show in Amsterdam for denim highlighted the company’s technology in this area, in creating finishes that have now water or chemicals involved. The Laser Blaze machine creates graphics on surfaces using light, whilst NoStone is a system that create stonewash effects with the use of pumice stones through ozone finishing.

Italian company specialising in high-end fabrics Brugnoli, has launched a new high-quality, zero-kilometer fabric line based on recycled yarn called B.Recycled. In order to guarantee fabrics with exceptional quality and undisputed performance, Brugnoli has a partnership with the Italian company Fulgar.

This zero-kilometer product line means the supply chain is monitored and certified throughout. The creation of B.Recycled by Brugnoli starts with a raw material recycling process carried out entirely at Fulgar laboratories and mills. Work then continues at the Brugnoli plant, where all the fabrics are created, produced and dyed in the same location.

In 2015 Brugnoli broke new ground with the launch of its Br4 technology for the creation of bio-based fabrics. The eco-sustainable production process enables the creation of extremely high-quality fabrics made using Evo by Fulgar, a bio-based yarn obtained from castor bean. Evo by Fulgar is an eco-friendly yarn that aims to provide total comfort and technical performance combined with light weight, stretch, breathability and fast drying, plus naturally thermo regulating and bacterio static properties.