“Textiles Matter” focuses on circular economy

The Heimtextil Trend Preview 23/24 presented future-oriented design concepts and inspiration for the textile furnishing sector. Under the motto ‘Textiles Matter’, “Heimtextil” 2023 sets the benchmark for tomorrow’s forward-facing and sustainable textile furnishing. Hence, the focus is on circularity. From the Flemings Hotel Riverside Frankfurt, Marta Giralt Dunjó of futures research agency FranklinTill (Great Britain) presented the design prognoses for 23/24. At the coming “Heimtextil” in Frankfurt am Main from 10 to 13 January 2023, the presentations of progressive new products will generate stimulating impulses in the Trend Space.

The “Heimtextil” Trends are a must for international visitors. Based on concentrated analyses and expert knowledge, the Heimtextil Trend Council – consisting of FranklinTill Studio (London), Stijlinstituut Amsterdam and Denmark’s Spott Trends & Business agency – offers insights into the future of the national and international market. The focus is more than ever before on sustainability and the circular economy, the main factors in setting the trends for the season 23/24.

“We are delighted to offer a foretaste of and a guide to tomorrow’s textile furnishings at our Heimtextil Trend Preview 23/24, which reveals opportunities and solutions for the sector on its way into a sustainable future”, reported Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt.

Textiles are an integral part of modern life. The material applications and the manufacturing processes are no less multifarious than user expectations. And this represents a great challenge for the international textile industry, which obtains its raw materials from a broad spectrum of sources and uses numerous processes to make a huge variety of products. This offers a great potential for the sustainable development of the textile industry in the future. The Heimtextil Trends show ways in which this potential can be untilized and sustainable developments promoted. Under the motto ‘Textiles Matter’, visitors can explore concepts for increased circularity, which will generate new impulses for the sustainable market of the future.

“Considering the state of environmental emergency we are currently living through, the textile industry has a responsibility to examine its processes, and change for the better. That is why for this edition of the Heimtextil Trends we are taking a materials first approach, and focusing on the sourcing, design, and sustainability of materials. Textiles Matter showcases the potential of circularity and celebrates design initiatives that are beautiful, relevant and importantly sustainable”, explains Marta Giralt Dunjó of FranklinTill.

The Trend Space at the coming “Heimtextil” 2023 will revolve around ideas and solutions for circularity in the textile sector. How can textiles be produced in a sustainable way? What recycling options are there? What does the optimum recycling of textile products look like? Within the framework of the circular economy, materials are continuously reused. On the one hand, this reduces the need for new raw materials and, on the other hand, cuts the amount of waste generated. In the technical cycle, inorganic materials, such as nylon, polyester, plastic and metal, can be recycled with no loss of quality. In the biological cycle, organic materials, such as linen and bast fibres, are returned to nature at the end of their useful life. This is the basis of the four trend themes: ‘Make and Remake’, ‘Continuous’, ‘From Earth’ and ‘Nature Engineered’.