Future Sustainable Fashion Solutions
Dawn Foxall – Textiles Skills Centre, May 2022
“If you want to really learn textile and fashion skills and experience garment manufacturing in the UK, then come to Fashion Enter – this is now the ONLY place to visit and learn. We run regular school visits whereby we encourage students and pupils to have a go at the very latest technologies, both in print and manufacturing. It’s time to stop that negativity towards speed of response fashion!’ Jenny Holloway, CEO Fashion Enter Ltd.
Post covid and 2 years of PPE making, the fashion and textiles industry is back on track to push the climate change issue that is the elephant in the room of clothing manufacture.
The biggest problem is decades of fast fashion which has ingrained in our psyche, making clothes shopping a habit that needs kicking.
Perhaps this post covid recession and the onset of higher energy prices, will start to alleviate the stigma of not having a new top every time we go out, and instilling some real urgency from the industry into find new ways of more sustainable and less energy use in manufacturing.
Technology is definitely showing us the way, with ideas that began their infancy in the 1990’s. Innovative methods of manufacturing now include on-demand digital fashion and textile production technologies from companies such as a worldwide market leader Kornit Digital Ltd.
Watch video: https://vimeo.com/680325879
Kornit Digital recently joined forces with Fashion-Enter Ltd – a social enterprise in North London, which has manufacturing and an academy on-site – and announced a first-of-its-kind Fashtech Innovation Centre in London.
Aiming to bring on-demand fashion and textile mass customisation back to the UK, the Centre is fully supported by Kornit Digital’s revolutionary, direct-to-fabric and direct-to-garment digital production solutions.
30% of textile manufacturing is attributed to overproduction and 95% to water waste, Kornit’s technologies are transforming the industry with more efficient and sustainable processes. The Company’s systems boasting up to 95% less water, 94% less energy and 83% less greenhouse gas emissions, minimising the carbon footprint.
The systems in place at FashTec Centre include direct-to-fabric and direct-to-garment systems, as well as numerous graphic design and workflow tools to enable cut-and-sew operations. These machines enable a designer to print their chosen artwork/designs either as fabric, or a placement print, such as T-shirt printing and have the garments cut and manufactured on-site.
The Centre now serves as a prototype for brands and designers seeking to alleviate logistical complexities and long lead times, by bringing production nearer to the end consumer. This will ultimately eliminate overproduction, with the ability to produce on demand, contribute to local economies and remove transport-related waste.
“This Innovation Centre makes it possible to capture the full, end-to-end production process in one, single location. The beauty of having print on demand means there are no minimums, so we can make one garment, or we can make up to 30,000 garments a week from all locations at the same fixed cost. Here, we can also train future generations on the right way of producing garments for today, responsive to demand, with minimal waste—ethical and sustainable. This is the future of fashion and textiles.”
Jenny Holloway, CEO, Fashion-Enter.
If you’re interested in scheduling a visit to the Fashtec Centre located on
Crusader Estate, 167 Hermitage Road, London
N4 1LZ, please contact: education@fashioncapital.co.uk
https://fcfta.com http://www.fashion-enter.com