Introducing The Mills Fabrica and its innovators to the POC Conference this year, to showcase the fantastic minds creating the solutions to the sustainability challenges that we face and giving us a glimpse into what the future of product creation will be.
After working alongside innovation hub, The Mills Fabrica over the past year, and hosting a successful industry fashion meeting with the POC Community at its offices in London earlier this year, The Mills Fabrica will be joining the POC Conference to continue to share the very latest material innovations that will be shaping our industry for the future.
The Mills Fabrica is a global innovation platform to accelerate start-ups in textile and food sectors with a focus on environmental and social impact. Not only does The Mills Fabrica invest in start-ups, but it opens its doors as a collaborative space for co-working, creating a community of like-minded organisations, as well as showcasing at Fabrica X the cutting-edge innovations being created, to inspire, educate and inform the public and the industry.
The Mills Fabrica’s head of Europe, Amy Tsang, will be joined by three of the group’s innovators: Sophie Vaud, Colorifix; Victoria Mataczynski, Nanoloom; and Benjamin Drouget, Sparxell, each shaping the future with their technologies.
Colorifix is engineering biologically occurring colours in microorganisms to make, deposit and fix colours onto surfaces, such as textiles. With the global textile dyeing industry using more than five trillion litres of water per year, and over 70 different toxic chemicals, Colorifix aims to reduce this and improve the water quality and livelihoods of people in polluted textile dyeing regions.
Also driving forward the world of colour, is Sparxell, the world’s first 100% natural, high-performance biodegradable colour platform. It’s pigments and shimmers utilise the physical structures found in nature that give birds and butterflies their colours, and is made from plant-based cellulose. Sparxell’s innovation has applications across cosmetics, films and foils, packaging, arts and crafts, decoration, fashion, paints and coatings, and food and beverages.
Meanwhile, Nanoloom is bringing a new material to the textile industry: graphene, a strong, versatile and lightweight material which can replace traditional synthetic materials, such as elastane. A non-toxic, chemically recyclable material, graphene can be blended with other materials into existing production lines for a more sustainable and durable alternative.
Brands and retailers are beginning to take action, legal regulations will bring the rest up to speed, and incredible minds such as thee are presenting innovations, each of which are steps towards the goal of a more sustainable industry.
“It’s like we have all the ingredients, but we need everyone in the supply chain, everyone in the industry, to come together, and figure out the best way to work together and collaborate,” said Amy Tsang, head of Europe at The Mills Fabrica.
After each of the innovators have presented their material solutions, Amy will bring them all together for a transparent Q&A discussion, tackling some of the challenges in scaling their products, the support they need from the industry to do so, as well as the answers they already have at their fingertips to the myriad sustainability challenges our industry is facing.
Join us at the POC Conference on 5 November for this and more, on the future of our industry but also its present right now and the possibilities that are waiting to be explored.
Top image: POC’s Fashion meeting at The Mills Fabrica earlier this year, featuring an innovator panel.
