Our Intelligence channels offer market intelligence, technical reports and deep-dive analysis of key industry motivators, technologies, materials and impactors. WTiN Intelligence provides detailed analysis of important high-growth areas of the textile and apparel industry. WTiN’s expert team of analysts and network of researchers go beyond the what and the why to look at what might come next, what businesses need to contend with in an evolving global supply chain, and how they can take advantage of the opportunities on the horizon.
Industry insight, market information, and the connections you need to examine and evaluate market trends in the roll-to-roll digital textile printing sector.
By Joseph Link
Market and technical intelligence essential to the activewear and athleisure textile and clothing industries.
By Jessica Owen
By Cara Dudgeon
By Jessica Owen
By Jessica Owen
In-depth intelligence about textiles used in outdoor sportswear, footwear and equipment, as well as textile applications that require protection from external environments - such as workwear and PPE.
By Cara Dudgeon
By Adrian Wilson
By Jessica Owen
By Jessica Owen
In-depth intelligence on the materials, manufacturing technologies and application areas of smart textiles.
By Jessica Owen
By Victoria Nickerson
By Jessica Owen
By Lutz Walter
Providing investors and decision makers in the textile and apparel value chain with in-depth analysis and insight into the digitalisation of manufacturing processes and smart business models.
By Cara Dudgeon
By Otis Robinson
By Joseph Link
Our WTiNews channels take a look at global textile and apparel industry innovation, businesses, technology and markets, provided by WTiN’s in-house team of journalists. WTiNews is set apart from basic news content as it discerns the importance of changes and developments in the supply chain. WTiNews doesn’t only tell you ‘what’ has happened, it also covers impact, the bigger picture and the industry’s response to trends, events and more.
A viewpoint on both natural and manmade fibres and yarns, as seen through the eyes of manufacturers, growers, processors and spinners, with a mix of technical articles, analysis and product innovation news.
By John Scrimshaw
Analysis and manufacturing technology updates for the global fabric manufacturing industries and their supply-chain partners.
By Keith Nuthall
By Jessica Owen
News, analysis and technical information on the important realms of dyeing, finishing, printing (both screen and digital) and coating.
By Joseph Link
News, market insight, analysis and product development updates from the fast-growing markets in technical textiles, covering all applications and end uses.
By Jessica Owen
By Cara Dudgeon
By Cara Dudgeon
By Jessica Owen
Unrivalled coverage of the manufacture and uses of engineered polymer and fibre ‘non-textile’ products.
By Jessica Owen
By Cara Dudgeon
By Cara Dudgeon
Your instant window on the global raw materials prices, trade movements, resources and manufacturing costs that can affect the profitability of your textile products.
By Nitin Madkaikar
By Paul Deane
By Nitin Madkaikar
Digital Textile is the world’s only journal dedicated wholly to textile applications in the rapidly developing field of digital printing.
International Dyer & Finisher is the unrivalled world leader in the delivery of vital sector-specific information for textile dyers, finishers, printers and coaters.
Knitting International is uniquely placed to give a worldwide perspective to manufacturers and retailers in the ever-more globalised and diversified knitting industry.
Nonwovens Report International (NRI) keeps you up-to-date with the latest developments across the nonwovens market. With its team of technical and industry experts, NRI makes use of its close ties with associations, research institutes and market-leading businesses to bring you international reporting that covers areas all over the world.
Previously known as IoTex, the newly relaunched Textile 4.0 journal delivers vital insights into the burgeoning transformation of the textile and apparel value chain. It covers a spectrum of content, from technologies enabling the personalisation trend to supply chain transparency, the latest in fabric gripping robotics, smart clothing and much more.
Twist is read across the textile supply chain, from early stage processors to retailers, with its primary focus the provenance of fine natural fibres such as wool, cotton, silk, linen, cashmere and mohair, as well as rare and speciality fibres.
Future Fashion Factory is engaged in a project to develop a bespoke, online personal shopping experience that utilises 3D simulation technologies. Otis Robinson reports.
Nomad Atelier, a luxury fashion retailer based in Barnsley, UK, is in talks to adopt 3D simulation technologies that will enable a bespoke, online personal shopping experience for its customers.
The University of Huddersfield’s Department of Fashion and Textile has been engaged in the project, which is funded by the Future Fashion Factory, an industry-led collaborative research programme which is part of the Creative Industries Clusters Programme. The University of Huddersfield’s Technical Textile Research Centre is one of the three research centres associated with this GB£5.4m project, along with the University of Leeds and Royal College of Art.
The Nomad Atelier project, titled ‘Web-based digital applications for independent UK fashion manufacturers’, will have secondary benefits including the reduction of waste thanks to a reduction in sampling during early development of garments for customers.
Claire Evans, senior lecturer at the Department of Fashion and Textile, tells WTiN that the initial requirements of the project were simple. Evans says Nomad Atelier’s founder and director Rita Britton was searching for a way to create a better online shopping experience for her clients.
The researchers proposed a unique, digital, personal shopping service that would utilise customer awareness of Britton and their admiration of her skills.
“Rita is the brand, really,” Evans says. “She’s great. People like to have that interaction with her.”
But the project’s pertinence soon strengthened. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the lengths fashion retailers had to go to in order to meet customer requirements. With physical retail restricted and ecommerce booming, the online shopping experience fast became the most important tool to connect with customers.
As such, Future Fashion Factory and the University of Huddersfield has proposed Nomad Atelier utilises third-party technologies – a combination of CLO, Optitex and more – that will allow the team to place garments on customised 3D avatars for customers’ personal shopping experiences.
Garment patterns would be brought into the Cloud through Optitex, then rendered in CLO. The garments are then animated and a 3D suite is used to build upon this function.
Ultimately, after refining, an avatar is produced – a figure wearing the Nomad garment moves around on screen to give an idea of how the garment would look and fit to a person’s own specifications, allowing a personal shopping experience for brand customers.
The sum of its parts would thus act as a bespoke personalised shopping service. Even aside the Covid-19 pandemic, the technologies proposed could help Nomad Atelier enhance its ecommerce solution beyond just the overcoming of lockdown limitations.
“Nomad could embrace, explore, promote and develop a different personal shopping experience for people that can’t come into the store, be it because of Covid-19 or […] clients that were overseas or had moved overseas,” Evans explains, “or even clients in the UK that live a long distance away from London or Scotland.”
However, Evans makes note that customers will not have direct interaction with the platform and will only see the end animated product.
This is because, currently, the technology capable of data input for customisable avatars is not yet accessible online, Evans explains. This is an ongoing race within the industry that many are eager to get to the finish line.
“I get so many questions from people and companies saying, ‘I’d like to put my garments online, and I’d like [customers] to be able to go and try them on’, but the technology to do that isn’t here yet,” Evans explains.
“Instead of that, Nomad will measure their customers (or the customers may measure themselves), and they will make an avatar the size that is needed (speculatively), and then they will put their garments onto that model and show [customers], for example, what they look like in the medium [sized garment].
“It’s very much a bespoke process. We haven’t invented a way of being able to put your data onto a computer and get a garment to ping up for you. That is the million-dollar question at the moment. Whoever can do that, and whoever finds out how do to that, it’s going to be amazing.”
Evans notes that this is a gap in the fashion industry at the moment but remains hopeful it will one day come to fruition and change ecommerce and online retail experiences forever.
“We can make garments, and we can make the figure to put the garment on, but we can’t get them to come together online at the moment. We can get them to come together offline.
“I think it’ll be amazingly revolutionary for online shopping.”
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