Neonyt Fashionsustain forum announces keynote speakers

28
Nov '18

Courtesy: Neonyt Messefrankfurt

Neonyt Fashionsustain, the progressive conference of the global hub for fashion, sustainability, and innovation, has announced the topics and names of the keynote speakers. Technology, sustainability, and innovation help revolution the fashion industry. Fashionsustain, to be held on January 15 and 16, 2019, in Berlin, Germany, is dedicated to these topics.

Top keynote speakers from the industry, civil society, and the textile supply chain, such as from Vogue Australia, WWF, and Spindye, will, together with many other speakers, be proving that the solution-oriented focus on the future use of water as a resource has gained global relevance for the industry.

Four neo-new perspectives on the topic of water will be presented. A global look at water as a resource, a look at cotton from the perspectives of both large-scale and small-scale farmers, a fashion heritage look at denim, and an abstract, global look into the future of fashion will be shown.

With her opening keynote ‘We Are Water. Inspiration & Respiration’, Clare Press, sustainability editor-at-large for Vogue Australia, book author and fair fashion activist, will be starting off the conference day with a strong and emotional appeal.

In the first session, Fashionsustain will then take a critical view of the topic of water and examine it from a global level. Philipp Wagnitz, international director of Freshwater Resources at WWF, will be highlighting and discussing the critical impact of textile production on inland waters together with various players from society, the fashion industry and the field of scientific research.

Throughout the conference, Fashionsustain will also be delving into the high environmental impact of cotton and denim, and asking the provocative question: what would happen if an entire sub-sector of the industry were to really initiate the change towards sustainable value creation. With an eye to finding solutions, a critical and open-ended dialogue will be conducted on the value-based transformation of supply chains and the limits of this change. A case study from Pakistan will also show how a water-intensive supply chain can be sustainably implemented in a country with an acute water shortage.

In the subsequent session, Fashionsustain will zoom in and raise the topic to a higher level of abstraction: cradle to cradle, ocean plastic, the social-economic impact of natural fibres and alternative crops with twice the added value, as well as innovative, technical recycled, and viscose fibres will all be discussed in terms of their water-relevant aspects. The list of speakers includes Micke Magnusson, CEO of sustainable Swedish textile dye company Spindye, and Amira Jehia, co-founder of fair sweater label Blue Ben.

The Thinkathon is a space for open exchange and creative thinking processes during the global hub Neonyt. In this collaborative design-thinking format, twice a year, multidisciplinary teams develop neo-new approaches for the sustainability transformation of the fashion and textile industry.

Industry experts work intensively on the tasks set by leading industry, retail and technology companies as well as associations and organisations, which revolve around the topics of fashion, sustainability, innovation and technology. In the shortest time and ensuring mutual confidentiality, the Thinkathon teams come up with highly innovative and industry-relevant solutions. The result is an interdisciplinary discussion about the future of fashion – today. In January 2019, the Otto Group and Bikini Berlin, among others, will be hosting Thinkathon challenges. By doing so, they will join the ranks of previous hosts from 2018: Fashion Council Berlin, Hugo Boss, KPMG, Microsoft HoloLens, Techtextil/Texprocess, and Zalando.

The Fashionsustain topics will also be covered in a Showcase of Change, where the innovations discussed on the conference stage will be demonstrated visually. Representatives from the exhibiting companies will be on hand to answer questions and continue the conversations in more depth. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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