"A meeting point of all global players in the lingerie and swimwear industry, Interfiliere Shanghai offered a China-based view of textiles and textile accessories for lingerie and swimwear industry. Organised from September 26-27, 2019 in the Chinese capital city, the event reflected the current fashion trends in China. It featured one of the most comprehensive displays of the best in apparel, textiles, and machinery pertaining to this sector."

A meeting point of all global players in the lingerie and swimwear industry, Interfiliere Shanghai offered a China-based view of textiles and textile accessories for lingerie and swimwear industry. Organised from September 26-27, 2019 in the Chinese capital city, the event reflected the current fashion trends in China. It featured one of the most comprehensive displays of the best in apparel, textiles, and machinery pertaining to this sector.

One of the main focus areas of the exhibition included technological developments in the lingerie industry. Xianming- a luxury brand operating for the last 20 years mapped these developments over the years. Its spokesperson noted, “3D printing technology reinvents the traditional way of making a bra. It enables us to create a seamless bra. People with health issues can wear this lingerie or active wear.”

Colors and fabrics trends

Vanessa Causse, a fashion forecaster predicted the lingerie fashion and social micro trends for the upcoming Spring/Summer 2020 season. “This season will focus on the brown and white colors. This black will be different from the usual black color. Fabrics will be made from new fibers like bamboo or bean or a mix of polyamide with spuntech,” she said further adding that “the global slowdown is certainly affecting the lingerie industry. To tackle this, we need to improve our efforts on sustainability.”

Addressing sustainability with new materials and fibers

The importance of sustainability in the Chinese fashion industry was emphasised upon by Martin Lehpur, a fashion consultant for trends and strategies for brands.”China gives importance to green. It is an eco-conscious country and poised to be the first green country in the world. Also, the lingerie brands in China are quick to adapt to changing trends as they do not have any baggage of the past,” Lehpur said.

Marina Chaboune, a sustainability manager based in Indonesia, looked a ways to create new materials and fibers. “There are materials derived from food and agricultural waste such as mushroom leather, pineapple leather, banana fibers, bioplastics, food waste from oil, cooking oil, the meat industry, potato from the chips industry,” Chabone revealed. However, according to her, all these fibers need a certain amount of time to be introduced into the market until they can meet customer demands and needs. Their performance has to be tested by research and development,” she said. There has to be proper lifecycle assessments of materials. If we process something we need less water and energy and release lower carbon emissions. “A lot of spinning mills are converting to include recycled materials in their production space. This is something already quite big and will be much bigger in future,” Chabone summed up.