LONDON TEXTILE FAIR, SUSTAINABILITY AND THE FUTURE OF FASHION
Standfast and Barracks offer Design Prep, Sampling and Digital Production. Min order just 50m...
Owens and Kim: Design Studio and Digital Print Service...for Fashion Clients Worldwide...
The Sustainable Angle....Responsible Fabric Sourcing exhibit at the London Textile Fair
TEXINTEL REVIEW: The London Textile Fair, July 2018
The London Textile Fair, with over 470 exhibitors, closed yesterday, after yet another successful show. With a truly International offering of Suppliers and Designers, showcasing fabrics and prints from across the globe at the Business Design Centre, London.
As the issue of Sustainability gains momentum, the TLTF featured a new showcase:
The Future fabrics Expo: Focussing the Buyer’s mind on sustainable sourcing, an essential agenda for all Fashion businesses.
The Four Cornerstones of the Sustainability Exhibit were:
- Reducing of Water Useage
- Recycling Liquid and Solid Waste
- The Carbon Impact of the Textile Production
- Preservation of Bio-Diversity in the Textile Supply chain
Hosting this mini exhibition was the action group ‘Sustainable Angle’ promoting a variety of suppliers committed to reforming the Textile Supply Chain www.sustainableangle.org
Prominent among the exhibitors in this section was Chemiefaser Lenzing a leader in promoting, not only its Tencel Fibres, but also its commitment to the cause of sustainability.
Moving on through the Exhibition, but still following the issue of Sustainability was the presence of an ever growing number of Digital Textile fabric printers. The Textile industry is the 2nd biggest polluter, next to Oil, of our planet. Traditional Textile process uses a staggering 20% of the Worlds water!....Digital printing offers a sustainable print process that is both viable and economical in the use of scarce resources.
One of the most prominent of these was the Standfast and Barracks group, who featured a broad offer, including design conception, sampling through to full digital production, backed up by their extensive investment in Digital Printing technology.
Internationally, there was a new Digital printing Company Intechdigital from Hong Kong. Specialising in customised products, offering 7 day delivery on digital printed sewn product, such as bespoke tea towels.
On the fine fabrics front, Biddle and Sawyer were exhibiting, not only their extensive range of printed and dyed Silk fabrics, but also their new, enhanced, Digital Print Section. Here, B & S specialise in reactive Silk Printing for a wide range of Fashion, and Home Décor clients. Read more about B&S in our Digital Print Directory
Finally, having negotiated the 100's of International Fabric Suppliers, Texintel found a veritable jewel in the Design Exhibition. The Design Studio Owens and Kim who specialise in Fashion the sector and also offer an in-house Digital Textile Print Service. Serving many of the premier names in the Industry, O&K provide a complete and original design service, as well as a first class express sample service, to cater for urgent samples.
The London Textile Fair attracts over 6,000 visitors. The Trade only show offers a varied and relevant mix of International Designers and key Suppliers to the Textile Industry. Offering a unique opportunity for Professionals, Buyers and Specifiers alike to connect in central London.
Colour Is Too Important to Leave to Chance
Print will always be the part of the garment people see first.
But the sum of all parts — the fabric, the trims, the fasteners, the finish — is what determines whether a design actually delivers on its promise. Brands that continue to treat colour as a single creative decision, rather than a coordinated technical discipline spanning their entire supply chain, will keep paying for it in re-dips, delays, and disappointed design teams.
A Century of Textiles, and an Ever-changing World
Few companies can trace their roots back more than a century and still count themselves among their industry's innovators. Texia, headquartered in Monistrol de Montserrat, Spain, is one of them.
But the story of Texia is not simply one of longevity.
It is a story of continual reinvention. As the textile industry has grown more global and competitive, Texia has repeatedly reshaped its business, investing in technology, developing its own brands, and placing sustainability at the centre of its mission. In doing so, it offers a compelling example of how a heritage manufacturer can lead rather than follow through a period of profound industry change. Image Credit: Texia
What are we craving Ultimately?
The instinct to slow down while simultaneously optimising every measurable aspect of life isn't a passing curiosity. It's a structural response to a world that feels increasingly unstable, and it's reshaping what people expect from their homes, hotels, workplaces and healthcare environments alike.
For the design and manufacturing sectors, this means rethinking both product and process.
The Structual Shift is Real and its Already Here
Volumes are moving east, where digital production is accelerating rapidly. Consumer behaviour has shifted.
Demand is now driven by personalisation, shorter buying cycles, and an expectation of near-instant responsiveness. Regulatory pressure is intensifying, with supply chain transparency now a legal and commercial fact in many markets. And margins? They are under sustained, structural pressure.
This is not a temporary disruption. It is a fundamental reordering of how textile manufacturing must operate.
The Challenge: Standing Firm as the Industry Shifts
The wallpaper landscape has changed dramatically. Digital printing has lowered the barrier to entry, spawning countless direct-to-consumer brands and pushing much of the market towards faster, cheaper production.
At the same time, manufacturing in the UK has grown steadily harder - rising minimum wage, national insurance, energy and substrate costs all bear down on margins. Surface Print have embraced all of these challenges - and stand resolutely prepared for the future.
From Helsinki's printing mill to Paris's Le Marais, discover how Marimekko is scaling a design-led brand with purpose, craft, and bold innovation.
But what makes Marimekko's story compelling is not just its aesthetic legacy?
The word "toxic" carries weight. It conjures danger, harm, and things best avoided.
“Yet in the textile industry - Where between 3,000 and 10,000 chemicals move through the supply chain, a reflexive fear of the term is one of our biggest obstacles to progress.”
This article distils the key takeaways and what buyers, designers, and brands should be asking right now.
What Is the Digital Product Passport?
At its core, a Digital Product Passport is a digital record attached to a physical product - For a printed textile product, this means the DPP would capture data on the substrate, inks and dyes used, the printing process and technology, chemical compliance, environmental impact (including water and energy use), supply chain traceability, and end-of-life instructions.
The Market Gap that Changed Everything
Future Fashion was founded in 2019, timed deliberately to coincide with a pivotal moment in global textile technology: the commercial launch of the EFI Reggiani BOLT Single-Pass digital printing system.
The founders recognised that single-pass architecture had fundamentally changed what was industrially possible - and that Pakistan's domestic market had yet to catch up.
Print is no longer defined by the inefficiencies that once characterised it…as advances in production processes and technology have significantly improved its environmental performance.
Taran Rai, Corporate Sustainability Manager at Epson explains why?
The story of what happens when young designers access digital technology is still being written.
What once was a theoretical sustainability goal seems to have shifted into an active regulatory reality.
Is the Textile Market Finally Recovering?
After a difficult few years, there are genuine reasons for optimism. Duncan was candid about the challenges: "The market for textiles has been very difficult over the last three years. I'm not going to hide the truth there. But the tide is turning.“
A profound shift is currently reshaping the sector
Changing consumer expectations demand greater design diversity, faster turnaround times, and sustainable manufacturing practices.
To thrive, interior brands must adapt their supply chains, bringing production closer to the end consumer and moving away from bulk manufacturing.
Digital textile printing offers a definitive solution to these operational bottlenecks.
Digital transformation doesn't announce itself.
It accumulates - one innovation at a time - until an entire industry looks back and realises the ground has shifted beneath its feet. That's precisely where textiles stands today.
The conversations happening now about AI, automation, sustainability, and digital product passports are not theoretical. They are shaping decisions being made on factory floors and in boardrooms right now.
“By leveraging advanced digital textile printing, Marylene Madou has successfully merged traditional craftsmanship with cutting-edge technology. Her approach offers a blueprint for how independent designers can scale their brands globally while maintaining a minimal environmental footprint.”
The textile industry is undergoing a vital transformation. As the insights from Techtextil and Texprocess reveal, the path forward relies on a combination of sustainable hardware, intelligent chemistry, and seamless digital workflows.
From Zimmer's industrial-scale energy reductions and Stratasys's on-demand 3D embellishments, to Kornit's single-step technical printing and the unified digital ecosystems of NedGraphics and Optitex, the tools for change are here. To stay competitive, brands and manufacturers must adopt these innovations, moving away from fragmented, wasteful processes towards a truly connected, circular economy.
Friedmans stands as a testament to the power of combining traditional textile knowledge with forward-thinking innovation.
“Operating from their UK headquarters, Friedmans now serves a diverse array of sectors, including swimwear, dance, entertainment, sportswear, interior decor, prosthetics, and even pet apparel. With a strategic supply chain that reliably serves clients worldwide”
The apparel decoration industry is decisively moving away from isolated, analogue production tools toward connected digital manufacturing environments.
"Kornit’s unwavering commitment to transformative technology continues to disrupt the status quo. For business leaders and innovators ready to capture the future of apparel manufacturing, the path forward is clear”
The Urgent Need for Sustainability at Scale
The transformation at Coats provides a vital blueprint for the wider textile and apparel sector. True sustainability cannot be achieved in silos. As Dearing emphasised:
“Cross-industry collaboration is the engine of meaningful change. Brands, machinery suppliers, chemical providers, and fibre producers must act as an interconnected ecosystem”
Today’s customers demand superior product quality, real-time data visibility, and lightning-fast turnaround times.
For large-scale garment decorators, managing these expectations while balancing seasonal demand fluctuations - such as the massive surges seen during Black Friday - presents a monumental challenge.
"Relying on transactional vendor relationships and outdated legacy equipment is no longer sufficient to secure long-term stability and growth.”
Printing method is never a secondary detail. It shapes the entire life cycle of a product, from concept to customer. In today’s fashion industry, where margins are tighter and speed matters more than ever, technical knowledge has become a competitive advantage.
“The future of textile design belongs to professionals who can combine creativity with execution, aesthetics with practicality, and vision with production reality”.
Friedman’s is a UK-based wholesale specialist. Offering stretch textiles, digital print & foil effects, supplying designers and brands worldwide.
Print On Demand fulfilment platform enables anyone to create a drop shipping business, with integration into the most popular e-commerce platforms.
Prinfab® is an award winning textile print on demand service. Using industrial Epson™ print tech to deliver a high quality and consistent service to 30,000+ customers worldwide.