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Sustainability scores high at London Textile Fair

"It was a great platform for companies eying to connect with British brands, at the recently concluded London Textile Fair, held at the London Design Centre in Islington. As John Kelley, show organiser and Textile Events owner, says there was a huge range of fabric producers, print studios and accessories and a strong showing of knitters. Exhibitors say they mostly supplied to fast fashion and mid-market brands such as Topshop, River Island, Zara and Marks & Spencer. More specialists and high-end exhibitors mentioned higher brands and independent and start-up designers were visiting their stands."

 

 

Sustainability scores high at London Textile Fair

 

It was a great platform for companies eying to connect with British brands, at the recently concluded London Textile Fair, held at the London Design Centre in Islington. As John Kelley, show organiser and Textile Events owner, says there was a huge range of fabric producers, print studios and accessories and a strong showing of knitters. Exhibitors say they mostly supplied to fast fashion and mid-market brands such as Topshop, River Island, Zara and Marks & Spencer. More specialists and high-end exhibitors mentioned higher brands and independent and start-up designers were visiting their stands.

India connect

London Textile Fair

 

The show attracted Indian companies like Handmade in Rajasthan who represented artisanal weavers, printers and embellishers who are now working with contemporary fashion designers, to Peruvian cotton textile producers. A new exhibitor from Bulgaria, Nitex ideally positioned geographically for short orders and near shore production was also there. The company, ships a lot to Turkey for the German market, and to or three good garment makers in Bulgaria.

Turkish dominance

There were close to 118+ exhibitors from Turkey showcasing products across the range of textiles, including cottons, stretch lace, fancy fabrics and a strong showing of Jacquards. Turkish knitting company specialises in fashion and scuba fabrics, with embossed fabrics as their star turn. Turkish exhibitors said they are still doing bulk, despite the emerging trend for short orders from near-shore providers. Fatih Eraslan of DILEK a producer of stretch fashion and sports stretch fabrics in Bursa, said that they produce 3.2 million metres per year and are are still doing bulk orders especially for Mango, from whom they got an order for 100,000 metres. Among big brands like H&M and Zara, they are using Turkish fabrics for Europe as they are paying a higher tag price. Turkish companies were supported by Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association iTHiB, who payed 50 per cent of the stand fee for exhibitors.

Towards sustainability

Sustainability was in focus at the trade show. Talking about new fabrics, Jason Body of Urban Fabric representing Italian fabric company Primatex and German company Kindermann, said they brought out new collections using wool and recycled cotton from denim, from old recycled denim garments. Jason said they are pushing the manufacturers to do recycle, or organic because demand for these products are increasing.

Carmen Pinto of Vilartex, one of 15 Portuguese fabric companies exhibiting, pointed out things are changing as this is the first time people are asking for organic items. Vilartex has specialist collections of indigo dyed and sustainable fabrics that attracted customers. Carmen feels if fabric producers do not take the initiative about producing sustainable fabrics, the market will change even more slowly.

In cotton, there is BCI certified fiber, which is more a social certification and big brands have goals till 2020 to get all their cotton from BCI, they are interested but the price is always a problem. The big problem for fabric producers, particularly in the UK market, is price.

 
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