Interview

While the world scours for makers of natural dyes, here’s someone in India quietly greening the planet one step at a time in a low volume, high value business. The textile-apparel-fashion industry may stand up and take note, not just to source earth-friendly dyes but also pitch in with funding to help them do more for the people and the environment. texfash.com talks to the Co-Founder-Director of BioDye India Pvt Ltd, Dr Bosco MA Henriques, to bring you his voice from the Konkan region of the Western Ghats.

With emerging risks, the demands for functionality and performance from clothing will evolve continuously and spontaneously, and both technology-forward and market-back innovations will come up. Besides, the requirements of consumers are getting more and more diversified. All these issues will drive advances in R&D. Three renowned academicians at the ongoing International Conference on Functional Textiles and Clothing in New Delhi discuss at length.

With the market for functional clothing forecast to reach $244.6 billion by 2025, driven to a large extent by the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming International Conference on Functional Textiles and Clothing (FTC) scheduled for 10 February 2023 is expected to see presentation of some pathbreaking research. This edition of the meet will focus on recycling and circularity challenges in design, manufacturing and supply chain in this category. Prof Sanjay Gupta, Vice-Chancellor of the World University of Design (WUD), under the aegis of which the conference is being held, talks to texfash.com.

Blackwashed much, leather is standing up as a material which is irrefutably a by-product of food production and could well be a waste on a huge scale of a natural material which instead is turned into something useful for society.

The Leather Manifesto was a call to action not just for the COP27 delegates themselves, but for all in the space of sustainable materials production.  As a natural material that is long-lasting, can be repaired or repurposed and at end of life will biodegrade, leather needs to be part of wider discussions towards a circular economy. This industry will continue to push the point that it can be part of the climate solution.

As the leather industry grapples with the question of how it can sustainably play its part to meet ambitious climate and other targets set at a global scale, it is imperative that individual companies in the supply chain focus their efforts in a way that is highly localised to their specific circumstances.

Textile Exchange (TE) has accepted the official ISO 15115 definition of leather, and manufacturers, brands and retailers must make it incumbent on themselves to educate consumers the difference between genuine leather and faux leather, PU leather, mushroom leather, pineapple leather, or any other plant-based leather which cannot be categorised as 'leather'. So, what does industry think?

Natural Fiber Welding— the name says much about NFW’s vision for a world that will be material-rich and plastic-free. The people behind it claim to be “obsessed with leaving the world better than we found it” and so they are on a mission to invent and “manufacture shockingly sustainable materials” from plants. The CEO & Founder of NFW Luke Haverhals tells texfash.com how he is leading his company “a moonshot systems-level shift away” from petroleum-derived products and toxic chemistries.

When cutting-edge technology is applied to fruit waste it creates an all-new world of revolutionary, premium biomaterials — where performance meets possibility. The technology, modelled on nature’s own design, aims for an animal-free, more sustainable future — one cell at a time. And doing this is Mexico-headquartered Polybion as it moves from linear to circular, leftover to constructive, and from leather to Celium. texfash.com talks to Gabriela Irastorza Dragonné, the Head of Communications and Culture at Polybion to know more.The first part of an interview.

The Taiwanese leather sector dates back to more than 70 years and it was in the 1990s that the tanneries began to relocate and set up factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Mainland China and other Southeast Asian countries. Today it produces about 45-60 million square feet of leather per month, exporting almost 98% to some of the best-known footwear makers. Thomas CJ Yu, President of the Taiwanese International Leather Association (TILA) in conversation with texfash.com.