Over 47,500 visitors (an increase of around 14 percent from 2015) from 114 countries made their way to Techtextil and Texprocess at the Frankfurt Fair and Exhibition Centre from May 9th-12th to discover the most innovative products in the field of technical textiles and the latest processing technologies. The focus of the biennial trade fairs this year was on functional fibres.
Lively exchange of ideas and opinions
Techtextil and Texprocess present all product groups and areas of application for textiles and nonwovens (Techtextil) and processing and finishing technologies for textiles and flexible materials (Texprocess). “Techtextil and Texprocess 2017 were a must for textile manufacturers, users and processors, who wanted to find out about the latest international developments and solutions in the field of intelligent textiles,” said Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologie at Messe Frankfurt. “Although we had extra personnel on our exhibition stand, visitors still had to queue on occasions. For us, the fair was fantastic,” said Dr Jan Zimmermann of Forster Rohner from Switzerland, a Techtextil exhibitor.
Many of the 1,789 exhibitors of Techtextil and Texprocess had similar experiences. “We expected numerous visitors before the doors opened. But that there would be so many was a great surprise. On occasions, we even had trouble in answering all inquiries,” said Texprocess exhibitor Sebastian Feges of Efka. Following Germany, the three main visitor nations at Techtextil were Italy, France and Turkey, while at Texprocess, they were Italy, Romania and Portugal. “Techtextil and Texprocess provide the setting for a lively exchange of ideas and opinions, as well as networking between the players, especially from the industry and start-ups, as well as the research and scientific fields,” said German Parliamentary Undersecretary of State Dirk Wiese of the Federal Ministry of Economics and during his visit to the two fairs.
Texprocess: interaction between man and machine
At Texprocess, the degree of interaction between man and machine reached a new level. There were examples of scanning body dimensions of tomorrow’s apparel customer, IT-aided fashion design, automatic cutting, and ever faster sewing and joining, as well as embroidering innumerable parts simultaneously and delivering the garments. “The garment manufacturing and textile industries set course for the future at an early stage and, during the two fairs, once again demonstrated that they rank among the most viable and progressive of sectors,” said Elgar Straub, Managing Director, VDMA Textile Care, Fabric and Leather Technologies, conceptual partner of Texprocess.
Techtextil: trade visitors looked for high‑tech textiles
On all four days, the situation was similar at Techtextil, where international trade visitors jammed the exhibition halls looking for high‑tech textiles to use in applications such as folding textile headlights, smart knee bandages, warming or cooling fashions, not to mention garments with integrated LEDs, fire-resistant fibres, bicycle frames made of carbon and textile membranes for stadium roofs.
Special exhibitions and events
Also very well received were the numerous special exhibitions and events, which offered insights into the whole textile value chain and highlighted the links between the two fairs. Opened by ESA astronaut Dr Reinhold Ewald, the space-travel oriented exhibition, ‘Living in Space’ offered visitors a virtual-reality journey to Mars, materials for use in space and a ‘Space Habitat’ designed by star architect Ben van Berkel.
The ‘Innovative Apparel Show’, which displayed high-tech textiles live on the catwalk several times throughout the fair, was presented by universities for fashion and design. Here they had the chance to show their visionary designs based on technical textiles on the catwalk and explain the processing stages. Showing a complete textile production line in operation, the ‘Digital Textile Micro Factory’ was praised as having been a complete success. 96 percent of Techtextil visitors said they were very pleased with the results of their visit to the fair, while 97 percent of Texprocess visitors said the same.
Textile industry fit for the future
Detlef Braun, Member of the Executive Board of Messe Frankfurt, commented on the biennial event of the trade fairs, “Industry 4.0, smart and functional textiles and digitalisation are no longer tomorrow’s trends. Today, the textile industry is in the thick of it. If any industry is fit for the future, it’s the textile industry. Nevertheless, even in this age of digitalisation, a personal exchange of ideas and opinions is essential. Accordingly, we are delighted that so many visitors came to Techtextil and Texprocess. Anyone who was not here in Frankfurt over the last four days has missed experiencing the dynamic nature of the textile industry for themselves.”
Next shows
The next Techtextil and Texprocess will be held in Frankfurt am Main from May 14th-17th, 2019.
