Performance Days to feature sustainable ingredients

10 Nov '18

3 min read

Courtesy: Performance Days

Performance Days, to be held during November 28-29, 2018, will have exhibits featuring not only stylish and innovative ingredients, but also more and more sustainable ingredients. The focus of the show will be Water – Our Responsibility, important considering that environment-friendly production is important, especially for the textile industry.

Performance Days is the functional fabric fair launched in 2008. It is the first and only event created especially for functional fabrics for sports and work clothing.

In addition to the tables in the Performance Forum, where the latest fabrics will be displayed, the accessories for this season will be presented on the newly designed Performance Wall. The accessory categories will be highlighted in a new Expert Talk to be given by two members of the Performance Jury - Designer Alexa Dehmel, who is co-responsible for the Performance Forum and journalist Ulrike Arlt, editor-in-chief at SAZ Sports and Fashion, who has long been involved in the communication of the trade fair trends.

Topping the list among the sustainable ingredients are the zippers, several models are even colour-dyed without water. In the dope-dye method, the granules used to spin the fibres are already coloured. Also, the use of renewable raw materials is on the rise for accessories; bio-polyamides can now be made from vegetable oils like the castor bean plant. Another option for obtaining polyamide for zippers or buttons is presented by the use of recycled fishing nets. Even rapidly degradable buttons, hangtags, and labels that disintegrate completely in the soil or water, leaving no plastic micro-particles behind in the environment, will be seen at the trade fair.

The exhibition will also showcase innovative sustainable insulations. Recycled PES made from (post-consumer) PET bottles is used as warm filler in jackets and trousers. It has now become standard. The insulations made from 100 per cent recycled fibres have a surprisingly comfortable feel – there is no longer any difference in quality to the "new" fibres, the so called virgin material. Even wool and wool blends are increasingly used for insulation. This is because these materials are lighter and offer a very good thermal performance. Untreated wool fibres are biologically degradable in any environment.

The Performance Days exhibitors will present a host of innovative, stylish ingredients. The print category (transfer prints) provides many extraordinary and sophisticated solutions. For example, deceptively real-looking lace trims can even be printed on elastic fabrics and delicate all-over florals only reveal their additional benefit - their reflective qualities - in the dark. Even functional shirts also become quite fashionable when printed with velvety surfaces, which is certain to appeal to the female end-customer. Ever more refined are the reflective ingredients like cords and pipings. They have a soft textile feel; no longer feeling hard and synthetic as in the past, which ensures on the one hand that the materials do not become brittle and, on the other hand, that a much finer processing is possible. In the category of labels and patches there are many interesting new models and techniques. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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