Roundup & Highlights of the Future Fabrics Expo 9½

9th July 2021 News

From the 22nd June – 2nd July 2021, we hosted the Future Fabrics Expo 9½ in London, showcasing thousands of sustainably produced textiles and materials, all contextualised with sustainability information and open-source tools. We were delighted with the engagement and how the opportunity to physically experience materials was appreciated. The integration of the physical materials in the expo with our digital platform via QR codes, together with visitors joining from all over the world via our online platform was a success. The audience represents the scope of the industry: ranging from luxury brands and high street retailers to start-ups, academics and students.

Thank you to all those who attended our Future Fabrics Expo 9½ both physically and virtually! This interim Expo was a one-stop destination of sustainable sourcing both in-person at our London showroom accompanied also with digital online panel discussions available through our online platform Future Fabrics VIRTUAL Expo.

Our London showroom Expo offered the opportunity to discover thousands of best-practice, sustainably-produced materials in a diverse range of fibre categories, all accompanied with sustainability information and tools, supplier insights, enabling exploration of the latest collections and sustainability initiatives from our featured mills and suppliers. Alongside this our edited innovations display presented a curated showcase of diverse, emerging and commercially available innovations exemplifying key material themes for the year.

The Sustainable Angle’s Future Fabrics Expo aims to inspire, inform and continuously support fashion professionals who are seeking to work not only with a minimal impact by sourcing a wide range of more responsibly-produced textiles and materials but strive to use fashion as tool for creating a more positive future.

ALL PANEL DISCUSSIONS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE FUTURE FABRICS VIRTUAL EXPO. SIGN UP TO THE PLATFORM!

🌍For those who couldn’t join us in person, the physical showcase was accompanied by online panel discussions held on our Future Fabrics VIRTUAL Expo platform, hosting over thirty discussions with over 50 speakers worldwide, from experts and thought-leaders every day. We extend a huge thank you also to our inspiring partners and seminar panellists.

📱Attendees were able to gain premium access to the Future Fabrics VIRTUAL Expo for the duration of the Expo, and discover an edit of over two thousand materials featured on our digital platform. This is a curated selection of those in our showroom, where you can find QR codes on the materials header cards in the Expo, seamlessly connected to our digital platform⁠⁠, enabling you to scan materials and save them to your profile.

**FUTURE FABRICS EXPO 9½ POWERED BY THE FUTURE FABRICS VIRTUAL EXPO**

For the 9½ days, all ticket holders gained Premium Access to all the new features on the Future Fabrics VIRTUAL Expo site, such as:

Save materials to your user profile
Scan materials in our studio and save them immediately to your profile
View all 2000+ materials featured online
Send and keep a record of all messages sent out via our platform
…and more still to come!

You can continue to access these features by subscribing to the platform. The Future Fabrics VIRTUAL Expo showcases over 2000+ commercially-available fabrics and materials that have been sustainably sourced and produced, such as materials from agricultural waste, organic fibres, produced in regenerative agricultural systems, regenerated cellulosics and sustainable viscose, recycled qualities, and more.

LOW-IMPACT AND REGENERATIVE MATERIALS

We contextualised the materials showcased on our platform with informative educational content and industry insights, spotlighting the latest innovations around nature-positive materials grown in regenerative organic agricultural systems, circular production systems and recycling technologies.

We were so pleased to announce the full programme of speakers and panel discussions for Future Fabrics Expo 9½!

WEEK 1

WEEK 2

Watch opening remarks by Cyrill Gutsch, Founder and CEO of Parley for the Oceans:

“We are the material innovators. We are the creators. We are encouraged more than ever now to use that moment and open the door to a New Age, to a new era of materials, to call out the Material Revolution. To let all these harmful toxic ingredients go. And to start a new way of business, a new economy that is based on collaboration and eco-innovation.”

NATURE-POSITIVE MATERIALS DISPLAY: A POSITIVE FUTURE OF FASHION

The Nature-Positive Materials display makes its debut at Future Fabrics Expo 9½ in London! The display spotlights materials that are nature-positive and grown in regenerative organic agricultural systems. Attendees were able to discover Wildlife Friendly Certified® materials, materials farmed with regenerative farming practices, and ‘forgotten’ plant and animal fibres that can play an important role in diversifying the fibre basket and work to restore our planet’s biodiversity.

Listen to the panel discussion with Julie Stein, Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network, Dr. Helen Crowley, Kering Group, and Nina Marenzi, Founder of The Sustainable Angle’s Future Fabrics Expo, on “Nature- Positive Materials: Best Practice with wildlife at the core.”

“It is the sourcing of raw materials that is the direct interface between business and nature. Through sustainable sourcing and reconfiguring supply chains, we can help drive change in agriculture, mining, and forestry, and promote regenerative, wildlife-friendly approaches to production.”

Dr. Helen Crowley, Head of Sustainable Sourcing & Nature Initiatives, Kering Group

INNOVATIONS AT THE EXPO: A NEW MATERIALS LANDSCAPE

On Friday 25th June, The Sustainable Angle’s Curator and Educational Consultant, Amanda Johnson, moderated a panel discussion on: “Demystifying New Materials Innovations” with Dr Amanda Parkes, Chief Innovation Officer at Pangaia, and Suzanne Lee, Founder and CEO of Biofabricate.

“The exciting new generation of bio based synthetics are actually sequestering carbon and inevitably will have a lower carbon footprint, so that they can make a significant contribution to climate change. Currently 45% of fabrics used in fashion products are polyester- that’s almost half of all materials are currently oil derived, so if we could flip that 45% that would be a big carbon impact for the fashion industry.”

Suzanne Lee, Founder and CEO at: