\n\tMoving to Brussels, she added, was also driven by opportunity. When she discovered that 36,000 square feet sat empty next to the Textiles Recycling Expo\u2019s venue, she moved quickly to secure the space.<\/p>\n
\n\tMost exhibitors and visitors were already traveling from outside the U.K. when the fair was held in London, so shifting to Brussels and sitting alongside a show dedicated to textile\u2011to\u2011textile recycling made sense, particularly as travel budgets tighten.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor Marenzi, that convenience served a bigger purpose, as the climate crisis, extreme weather, and price volatility have turned sustainability from a reputational issue into a core management concern.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAnyone who\u2019s ever talked about sustainable fashion for sustainable fashion\u2019s sake went down the wrong path,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s about integrating sustainability where you can, starting small, with a small percentage that you require to replace conventional ones with more sustainable ones, and then you drive real progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMarenzi believed the momentum is already there, just poorly communicated.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA lot of these innovations actually have positive business cases that really work for the business long term, make them more resilient, and uncover inefficiencies,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019re actually looking at what is good for the business \u2014 being more efficient, using less water, using less energy, having a more diverse fiber portfolio, not dependent on petrochemicals and fossil fuels,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\n\tWith fertilizer costs and fossil\u2011linked agriculture under pressure, she argued, regenerative practices and diversified man-made cellulosic fibers are becoming financially attractive.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAll of a sudden, these things have price volatility issues, and you don\u2019t have that dependence on these inputs, so it\u2019s a real game changer now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYet currently we\u2019re not really moving the dial. Brands are too slow; there\u2019s not enough acceleration,\u201d Marenzi added, even as she expects momentum to build as climate impacts and pricing shocks hit home.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Future](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-wwd-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFuture Fabrics Expo in Brussels.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tOn the ground, that acceleration is what the fair\u2019s chief design officer Amanda Johnston was trying to engineer. The Brussels edition was built for openness and what she called a \u201ccross\u2011pollination of ideas to lift things off the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe layout was deliberately open and welcoming. \u201cYou don\u2019t put them in a box; you make it super open, like collaboration this way, so it\u2019s designed purposefully to feel like the place you\u2019re going to spend all day. There\u2019s a free-flow feeling. You want people to concentrate on the information,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Innovation Hub and Innovation Hive spotlighted lab\u2011scale concepts and businesses ready for commercial partnerships, respectively. Early\u2011stage innovators begin in the Hub, and once they attract brand or investor interest, they \u201cgraduate\u201d into the Innovation Hive, a cluster of booths that signal readiness to scale.<\/p>\n
\n\tFunding is built into that progression. \u201cWe do collate the investors together with various presentations, so that they can see what\u2019s going on in material innovation,\u201d Johnston said, noting that exhibitors flag on their posters when they are seeking capital.<\/p>\n
\n\tStrategically, Johnston said Brussels was part of a broader pivot to reach new decision makers. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to always be speaking to the same audience,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\n\tA partnership with Munich-based Performance Days sees a curated Innovation Hub dropped into fairs in Munich, New York, Portland and Shanghai, giving early\u2011stage material companies recurring exposure to multiple markets throughout the year.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFuture Fabrics Expo in Brussels.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tClaire Weiss, head of innovation at Future Fabrics Expo, singled out algae as one of the clearest themes this edition. One table alone gathered four innovators using algae or seaweed as feedstock, from algae\u2011derived silica for glass to high\u2011seaweed\u2011content fibers and cosmetic applications.<\/p>\n
\n\tDye innovation was another hotspot. Weiss highlighted Wtrlss by Lab Denim, whose digitally dyed denim eliminates multiple stages from the traditional process.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt basically eliminates most of the water and most of the chemicals in the process, so it\u2019s really an exciting one,\u201d she said, adding that several bacterial dye start-ups are testing new color ranges using strains from Brazil\u2019s Amazon and beyond.<\/p>\n
\n\tStretch fibers, one of fashion\u2019s most fossil\u2011locked categories, were also seeing breakthroughs. Hyosung\u2019s sugarcane\u2011based bio\u2011elastane sat alongside a seaweed\u2011based stretch fiber. \u201cI think we\u2019re finally seeing a lot of innovation in stretch,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n
\n\tBeyond drop\u2011in replacements, she was watching entirely new biobased polymers designed from scratch. Some innovators, she noted, are using captured CO\u2082 to make polyester\u2011like fibers, while others, such as Solena Materials, are developing \u201can entirely novel combination of monomers to make a new polymer that hasn\u2019t been used in textiles before, that\u2019s entirely bio\u2011based.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFashion\u2019s attachment to synthetics is about performance, not oil, she argued. \u201cThere\u2019s a functionality there that we\u2019re drawn to.\u201d The emerging biosynthetics aim for the same level of performance as polyester, but without petroleum input, enabled by advances in chemistry and fermentation.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFuture Fabrics Expo in Brussels.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tFor exhibitors, Brussels was a live test of whether those \u201cbetter than\u201d products could finally reach scalability. <\/p>\n
\n\tChristopher Suarez, cofounder of A Blue World and formerly cofounder of Nicholas Kirkwood, believed the previous sustainability wave hit a wall because \u201cgreen did not sell products. It became polarized,\u201d leaving only a very small addressable market willing to pay a premium.<\/p>\n
\n\tBy contrast, he is positioning seaweed\u2011 and ocean\u2011derived inputs around visible health and wellness benefits. Clinical studies on Smartfiber\u2019s zinc\u2011oxide fiber, which A Blue World now controls, showed that garments containing 20 percent of the fiber \u201ccan reduce inflammation by wearing just the garment,\u201d he touted, citing 100 percent success in a study of 40 NHS pediatric patients with skin conditions.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn the farm side, Future Fabrics Expo was pushing brands to treat soil health as a design parameter. The U.K.-based label Nobody\u2019s Child chose regenerative cotton as its first major step beyond organic, which already accounts for more than half of its raw materials by weight.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt just felt like a natural first step for us,\u201d said sustainability lead and manager Philly Grogan. The brand spent two years developing the collection and visiting farms in India. This year, the brand brought a team to Brussels \u201cso that we can just be really efficient in feeding back to the team and trying to use even more innovative materials and roll out regenerative cotton across more of our collections.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFuture Fabrics Expo in Brussels.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tBritish Pasture Leather cofounder Sara Grady said they have been working on adding traceability to leather.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re only taking the hides of cattle that are pasture-fed and that come from farms following regenerative principles,\u201d she said. Typically, \u201cwhen a brand or a designer is choosing or sourcing leather, there\u2019s little or no information about the agricultural practices in which the animals were raised.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWorking within a 100\u2011mile production radius has limited scale so far, but interest is growing. \u201cWe are seeing a bigger reach here in terms of European brands and luxury brands,\u201d Grady said, pointing to a recent collaboration with Mulberry as a vote of confidence in the model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRUSSELS \u2014 After more than a decade in London, Future Fabrics Expo, the largest showcase of sustainable fashion,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,14433],"class_list":["post-24683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-brussels","tag-sourcing-journal"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116834052714040909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}