Textile Innovation

In this episode of The WTiN Podcast, we talk to Cam Chidiac, founder of the clean tech firm Drywired. Drywired is an award-winning, Los Angeles-based business that distributes nanotechnologies globally. The company’s mission is to harness nanotechnology as a catalyst for change with its eco-friendly protective thin-film coatings that can make buildings more energy efficient, surfaces cleaner, less...

In this episode of The WTiN Podcast, we talk to Per Stenflo, one of the founding partners of Imogo. The company specialises in sustainable production processes, primarily in the textile dyeing industry.   Imogo was founded in 2018, when Stenflo and his partner, Joacim Wellander, were approached about an idea for the technology from The Swedish School of Textiles. The plan is that the process will,...

In this episode of The WTiN Podcast, we talk to Hema Nambiar, founder and CEO of 13-One. The company specialises in performance travel jackets made from Heatsheet technology.  After two massive surgeries to revive a collapsed lung and implement a new synthetic diaphragm, Hema had to relearn how to breathe again. Literally. To celebrate her recovery, she ran her first half marathon, 13.1 miles long...

A Dutch company founded in 2016, Pure Sportswear currently offers sports shirts for men and women made from 100% plastic bottles. The company works with NGOs to collect the waste from coastal areas and then the plastic is recycled into yarn and then woven to make each garment. Not only is the manufacturing process more circular, but the brand also ensures that employees are paid well and kept safe...

In this episode of The WTiN Podcast, we talk to Sophia Scott, co-founder and co-director of the technical and sustainable bags and accessories company, Groundtruth.  After spending more than a decade making feature documentary films within some of the world’s harshest environments, Scott and her two sisters (Nina and Georgia) decided to develop products in response to the challenges of contemporar...

For The WTiN Podcast’s new series we focus on startups in the textile & apparel industry. From sustainable swimsuits to jackets inspired by NASA’s technology, we talk about products, the highs and lows of starting a business, and advice for others interested in entering this space. In this first episode, we speak to Hannah Daykin, co-founder of the ethical swimwear brand Pursuit the Label. Day...

The demand for nonwovens has soared over the last few months, as these materials are vital for producing face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE). In this last podcast on Covid-19, Seán Kerrigan, director for communications and media relations at EDANA, talks about this increase in demand and how the virus has raised the profile for the importance of nonwoven applications.  Elsewhe...

In this podcast, José Teunissen, dean at the School of Design and Technology at London College of Fashion, talks about the way in which the university has had to adapt to Covid-19. For this term, at least, students are having to study online – something that is quite tricky for a course centred around design and practical work. However, Teunissen says that the institution is coping well and has al...

Christian Schindler has worked at the ITMF, an international forum for the world's textile industries, for more than 15 years. In this podcast, he talks about the ITMF’s latest surveys. The first set of results were published in March and showed how orders and turnover were starting to be affected by Covid-19. By the next survey, the results looked much worse as other countries across the wor...

Johnstones of Elgin's CEO, Simon Cotton (who is joined by his dogs – Ted, Mabel and Daisy – part way through), discusses the brand's heritage and how this has somewhat prepared the company for the crisis that the world is currently enduring. Although he says the Johnstones of Elgin has survived the two world wars, he describes Covid-19 as more like a flood or fire, due to the sudden impa...

Founded in 1944, the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA) is governed and directed by footwear executives and is the only trade organisation focused solely on the footwear industry. It serves the full footwear supply chain and boosts the bottom lines of its members through innovative products, training and consulting on footwear design and development, sourcing and compliance, tra...

Nelson Laboratories is a leading global provider of laboratory testing and expert advisory services for MedTech and pharmaceutical companies, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, US. Janelle Bentz is a study director at the company and has worked there for over five years now, while Paul Huish has been a part of the company a little longer and is the senior director of global marketing.  In this episode...

Mark Jarvis has been the managing director at WTiN for more than 10 years now, having led the company through economic crises in the past. In this latest episode of The WTiN Podcast, he explains what it’s like to manage a company during hard times, how WTiN has responded to the situation and how a positive outlook is essential. One way in which WTiN has creatively responded to Covid-19, Jarvis exp...

Kate Hills is a designer and buyer for the textile & apparel industry by trade, and now she is the CEO of Make It British – an organisation that’s been giving a voice to businesses that manufacturer in the UK since 2011. In this latest episode of The WTiN Podcast, Hills talks about how her own trade show – Make It British Live! – has been postponed and how a virtual trade show may replace it....

Keith Fenner, managing director at Coats Digital, has already given his insights on how digitalisation can play a key role in the textile and apparel industry going forward in a recent interview with WTiN. Here, you can listen to his insights in the latest episode of The WTiN Podcast.

Jochen Lagemann, president and managing director Europe of PrimaLoft licensing, chats about the agility of the company, sustainability and how he’s getting to know his own neighbourhood much better now. 

For The WTiN Podcast’s next episode, Rüdiger Fox, CEO at Sympatex, talks about leadership, the company’s virtual Corona Café to encourage social interactions, and how we should reflect on the current crisis to ensure our economic, environmental and social systems are resilient enough for the next eventuality. 

Katie McKenna, a representative for Virus Collective, talks about how the brand is creating Covid-19 themed fashion to raise money for the World Health Organisation’s response fund. 

Megan Eddings, CEO of Accel Lifestyle, explains how the company has switched up its manufacturing to produce face masks instead of sportswear using its proprietary fabric called Prema. 

In the first episode of The WTiN Podcast’s series on the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Flora Davidson, co-founder of SupplyCompass, talks with Jessica Owen about supply chains, reimagining the future, and how she’ll be celebrating after the crisis blows over.

Jemina Pomoell, co-founder and COO at Astrid Wild, talks about the brand’s sustainable outdoor garments that have been designed by women for women. After finding nothing to wear for a hiking trip to Norway, Maria Paulsson Rönnbäck decided to design some of her own functional outdoor clothing. She then met Pomoell at a start-up incubator project in Stockholm in January 2019 and Astrid Wild came to...

Giulio Bonazzi, president and CEO at Aquafil, talks about the company’s Econyl regenerated nylon and its numerous possibilities. The Italian company Aquafil started producing Econyl from ghost fishing nets and carpet waste on an industrial scale back in 2011. Since then, every year the brand produces around 40,000 tonnes of regenerated nylon yarn and has collaborated with many well-known brands in...

Thomas Stanton, a PhD researcher at the University of Nottingham, talks about his research on microfibre pollution, presenting a somewhat surprising conclusion. Earlier this year, Tom and other researchers published a paper in the journal Science of the Total Environment that quantified the abundance of both natural and synthetic fibres found in freshwater and atmospheric samples in Nottingham, Le...

Janne Poranen, CEO and co-founder of Spinnova, talks about the company’s process of converting wood pulp into textile fibre without the use of harmful chemicals. After spending many years conducting research in the pulp and paper sector, and after listening to an inspiring presentation at the University of Oxford, researchers at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland created a process for conver...

Dr Matthew Tipper, business director at the Nonwovens Innovation and Research Institute (NIRI), and David Jackson, consultant and former senior technical leader at Kimberly Clark, discuss all things wipes. Wipes haven’t had the best press recently. There have been reports about them contributing towards large ‘fatbergs’, research indicating that flushable wipes are indeed not flushable at all, and...