Ep. 136: Exploring 2025’s tradeshows

This transcription has been AI generated and therefore may have some inaccuracies.

Ep.136: Exploring 2025’s tradeshows

In this episode of WTiN’s Textile Innovation Podcast we speak with WTiN’s head of content Madelaine Thomas and innovation & consultancy lead Jessica Robe.

WTiN: Hello, and welcome to Textile Innovation, hosted by WTiN. My name is Abi, and I'm the Features Editor and your podcast host. Each month, we will be joined by a special guest. So join me and my colleagues as we deep dive into what's new, what's interesting, and what unmissable innovations have hit the market recently. We cover everything on the podcast, from sustainability to startups and the latest research and development. Plus, we quiz the experts in the field about their products and ideas across the huge spectrum that is the textile industry. So no matter what your interest is, WTiN have you covered, and we can connect you to everything you need to know right here from our central hub in the UK.

Welcome back to WTiN's Textile Innovation Podcast. In this episode, we are joined by WTiN's Head of Content, Madelaine Thomas, and Innovation and Consultancy Lead, Jessica Robe. Maddy attended ITMA Asia + CITME, Singapore 2025, which took place from the 28th to the 31st of October at Singapore Expo. Meanwhile, Jess attended performance days in Munich between the 29th and 30th of October.

During this episode, I speak to both Maddi and Jess about the trade shows and what discussions they were a part of. We touch upon a whole host of themes from textile to textile recycling, digital textile printing and emerging regions. Also, as we draw towards the end of 2025, Maddi and Jess offer insights on what the industry may expect to see in 2026.

Hi Maddi. let's start with ITMA Asia. This was the first time the event has been held in Singapore for 20 years. What's the excitement about this and what do you think this means for Southeast Asia? market and the companies based there?

Thomas: There was so much excitement about it being back in Singapore, obviously the exhibitors and things, but at the opening ceremony they had a guest speaker, Alvin Tan, who's the Minister of State and Ministry of Trade and Industry and Minister of National Development in Singapore and he was a really good speaker, he was really funny actually, but he was saying how Singapore has been working hard to be kind of a hub where goods can just pass through easily, so kind of a gateway for the industry for the Asia -Pacific region, and they're doing loads of development work there at the moment. For example, he was explaining that at the moment, when you get off the plane in Singapore, it takes you eight minutes to get through to a taxi, which obviously, me being in the UK, you being in the UK, we know that this is very unheard of, but they want to reduce that time. I was thinking, you're already doing it in eight minutes, why? what benefit is it from four minutes or something you know but I mean they're just working really hard to make it just a really kind of seamless place to do business and obviously for the textile industry with the issues that we have going on at the moment and the difficulties there are and with like access to countries like China etc it's really opening up Singapore.

And in regards to like what this means for that Southeast Asian region, basically means that countries that have struggled to do business with the likes of China, like India for example, now have kind of that gateway open to them and they did say actually how the Indian population, you know I think I've got that wrong, ago overtook the Chinese population, so now kind of as a growing domestic market, India is absolutely huge. So it's really growing in significance, so we need to find a way to kind of include the Indian market in these global and regional events.

WTiN: That actually ties in really nicely to my next question which is all about India. Reading around the event and from your analysis what you just said it sounds like it's the country becoming such a large presence and it started to have a lot of influence in the textile industry in the new future. Can you tell me any of the discussions that you heard at ITMA Asia regarding India's influence and the market or any discussions that you were a part of?

Thomas: Well, yeah, it was clear that it was very much an event for the Indian market. I think that the largest amount of visitors came from India and then I think that was closely followed by, well, not closely, I don't think, I think it was about 20 % from India and about 10 % from China, you know, give or take a percentage points. So, yeah, it did work in getting the Indian market to there. But then there's also other growing markets around there as well like Bangladesh and Pakistan that had big influence as well. But for the Indian market growing its influence, there is an impact on the textile industry and there was a discussion at the ACIMIT press conference, so the Italian Textile Machinery Association press conference whereby, you know, Marcos Alvarede, the president there, was discussing how the Indian market is now so important and there was an Indian journalist who asked the question or posed the question, I guess, that you say that the Indian market is so important, but your pricing doesn't reflect what the Indian market requires. So you need to reduce your pricing for, to gain Indian customers. Michael Salvati said, look, with all due respect, if you want premium, you have to pay, you have to pay a premium. and there was then obviously a little bit of back and forth and things but it kind of that sentiment did kind of roll out across the event.

I spoke to a number of companies across the sectors that said that there was you know a lot of discussion around pricing, but in an industry that's already struggling, you know, there's so many different challenges out there, kind of financial and logistical etc, that people can't really afford to drop the prices any further. I mean what we've seen in the digital printing market is that some prices are dropping quite considerably because of the competition with China. So you've got SPG for example who had a huge booth there and they had a new machine there that they launched and they are now making, producing those machines in China, and I've had the cost. So they were explaining to me how the machine is faster and it's more efficient, but it costs half it costs half the amount of the previous machine so it's much more accessible to the Chinese market or the Indian market for example. So, you know, there's a growing kind of influence there around bringing prices down and I don't, I think there's a lot of people obviously not happy about that and where do we kind of go from here?

WTiN: That's really interesting. kind of crazy all of that.

Thomas: Yeah, yeah definitely. It was, it was, it was interesting to see kind of all the feedback from different people. Obviously a lot of people were very, very happy about the amount of customers, amount of exhibitors and things like that and they said there was, there was a, in the finishing hall people said that they were surprised at how many people they'd seen from Latin America. which is interesting. So yeah it was really good in all but obviously that kind of pricing thing kind of loomed over everybody a little bit. Yeah it's kind of not surprising but interesting to see like what happens next year.

WTiN: Yeah definitely. And just pivoting away to Performance Days in Munich. Jess, were there any regions that you saw dominating or are predicted to have market influence?

Robe: Yeah, as you can expect, there was a lot of Asian manufacturers there. So that's great to see that they're still finding it worthwhile coming over to Europe and exhibiting and showing the products and that those booths just seem really busy too. Like the show has expanded massively over the last few years. So it's good to see that it hasn't sort of dissipated the energy. There's still a lot of discussions and chitchats happening on those booths. I did notice a lot of Taiwanese companies, which I suppose isn't abnormal, they're very strong in the sports and outdoor space and technical performance generally, so that was good to see. In terms of the more domestic manufacturers and exhibitors, I spoke to a few Italian, a few Spanish etc, so it was really good to see there was some strong domestic presence there as well, but I would say that the representation of those Western companies was a bit higher in certain zones over others, So the innovation area for instance, there's a lot of startups in there who are  you know, based in Europe or America or Australia, etc. And then the sustainability zones as well had a strong sort of European and US presence. So, yeah, definitely sort of pivoting depending on where you looked at the show. There was definitely a regional spread there, but it was it was quite international feeling generally.

WTiN: That's really cool, just kind of going off that, you said it was obviously bigger than ever before, like performance days, and I read that there was new sectors such as body wear, wool, footwear, and you just mentioned some of these. Could you comment on what this brought to the show and why do you think these new areas were included in this edition of performance days?

Robe: Yeah, no worries. I'm literally looking over my extremely battered floor plan from the show that's very well worn. And as I said, it goes over two halls. So there's a lot of different areas to sort of investigate and have a look into. And the fact it's all categorised makes it a bit more consumer friendly in terms of navigating that space. But as you said, there are some newer areas. The intimates one was quite intriguing. I'm a bit biased because that's where my background is. But there's kind of a building team around that zone. And it was interesting to see that they'd kind of like claimed some resources from a trade show that people in the intimate space would know very well, which is Interfilière. Yoss Berry was there helping with that zone this year at Performance Days. And she's historically been very strong at Interfilière. So it's intriguing to see Performance Days kind of shaping and remapping itself out for kind of a wider industry spread.

It had footwear as well which is even wider. So that section especially is only apparently according to Charles Ross with his morning briefings every morning. The footwear area is kind of a mainstay of the autumn show in particular and that has grown. There was kind of a really collaborative area this year where you could go and attend sessions with some footwear designers. They'll kind of like run through different areas of the show. kind of more collaborative zones, so you wouldn't have to just sit there and listen to a half an hour lecture or such. You can kind of speak with other people. There was the opportunity for more sort of panel and little group discussions, etc. So it does feel a lot more collaborative this year. But as well as that, there's also the wool area as well. And it's interesting seeing performance days, as I said, sort of like reshaping itself because natural materials can interface really nicely into sports and outdoor.

But there are some technical barriers there, especially when you look at other natural fibres like cotton and the cellulosics that, you know, maybe the synthetics are preferred. So this kind of working its way out and teasing out how can they showcase these materials that are, you know, sustainable in some metrics and people are obviously interested in them and the innovations that are happening in those spaces. But how can they bring them to a show that is for a performance audience and fits into the categories that the attendees are interested in? So they are having to sort of remap themselves out. We've seen like ISPO, we had an announcement while we were at Performance Days around ISPO relocating next year to Amsterdam. And as I said about Interfilière as well, that it's There seems to be some dynamics at play at the moment in the industry around some of the key cornerstone shows that people would normally go to. And it's interesting seeing that dynamic shift a little bit. So I'll have to see what happens with that and kind of how the dominant shows can compete with each other moving forward.

WTiN: Now, that's really interesting to see how that's going to happen. I wonder if they can take really specific on niche focuses potentially going forward. And speaking of that, you just mentioned, obviously, about wool and how materials are used. And obviously, like textiles, textile recycling is a huge topic, which we at WTiN have covered a lot this year. And I'm right in thinking it dominated at performance days, if that's right to say. If so, what exhibits were you most impressed by? And coming away from the show, what challenges do you think the industry needs to address to see these technologies and this circular material innovation moving by being scaled more rapidly?

Robe: Yeah, it's definitely a massive topic, both for us and the wider industry. This year at Performance Days, this edition, it kind of was the main trend focus for the show. So the trend forum in the middle had a lot of materials and components, etc, that kind of slotted into that theme nicely. There was also the circularity zone, I think it was called, that looked into running as I said, more collaborative, smaller, intimate sessions where it hosted a number of recyclers there. And they'd have a discussion around the tolerances that their technologies can handle, what their current commercialisation stage is at, what their production levels are like, their partners, etc. Because that information is really key if we're ever going to see them scale from this emergent, idyllic idea of, you know, we can we can use our own waste and plop it back into our supply chain. But there's issues there in terms of how do we actually get the scale? How do we actually convert from really, really small scale capsule, really marketable, but not very profitable stage of development to something that we can actually see take off on a commercial scale? And those conversations were really interesting.

I remember being in a group discussion with a few recyclers, but also a lady from a spinning company in Spain, and she was sort of leading their sustainability and innovation efforts. And we were having this discussion around how a lot of the conversation we have around textile, textile recycling doesn't really include that stage of production. So it's all well and good, the brands each getting these exclusivity deals and getting small volumes of production when it's available. But how is that then going to slot into a production pipeline? Are they going to have to shut that line completely, put this new recycled content into it, run a small limited run? and then switch out for another customer that has a different exclusivity deal. So kind of the practicality of how we've built up the funding and scaling of these technologies, I think that needs a deeper look. And we also need a frank conversation around the investment as well. That was a key point that kept coming up. How are we going to actually pay for this innovation? Because it's systems change that's needed for textile recycling to really take off. It's not something we can easily integrate. So yeah, frank conversations around the performance, around the volumes that are available, how long these technologies are going to take to scale to get that performance and the quantity that we need. And then also very frank conversations with our supply chains to make sure that they know what requirements are needed of them. And maybe we could pool our resources, maybe we pool all the exclusivities so we have a bigger volume to run through those lines. So just kind of thinking about the real term implications if we are going to grow this space.

WTiN: Such a lot to consider. And Maddi, did ITMA Asia address circularity and textile -to -textile recycling and did you see any crossover in what Jess has spoken about in any of the areas that she's mentioned?

Thomas: There wasn't that same, obviously with it being kind of machinery, there wasn't the same kind of buzz around the textile -to -textile recycling, there wasn't a lot of that kind of machinery there. I think kind of the mainstay of where we heard about circularity really, obviously there was some more circular machinery that might reuse water and things like that, but kind of the mainstay of where circularity was was at the Sustainability Forum, and that was kind of addressing not just circularity, but everything kind of sustainability in general. and there was quite a few presentations and there was some really interesting panel sessions as well but I think what was similar to what Jess was saying that in one of the panel sessions it was noted that we can't solve the sector sustainability problem you know alone each company can't do it in its silo and there needs to be kind of real collaboration across silos and that's actually something that we discussed in our own W10 circularity week just last week actually that was kind of a common theme that kept coming up and And there was a panelist from IKEA, Mukesh Sharma, who is a senior material innovation developer at IKEA, and he was on that same panel and he kind of agreed with this, but said that also there's a there's this big need to unlearn things.

Like, yes, we definitely need to learn new things, of course, and we need the systems changed, but we also need to unlearn things, like we need to unlearn these bad habits that we've got into. And, you know, with the industry being so traditional, you know, we think because we've done something for 100 years or whatever, that it's the only way that we can do some things. The industry has been so kind of slow to uptake on these kind of new innovations or these new materials that Jess might discuss. we're just so set in our ways and in an industry where the margins are so small, where is that flexibility to go and explore and learn new things? So that was kind of a really interesting point and yeah just going circling back to your question, not the same level of circularity in textile -to -textile recycling but definitely a big push towards sustainability.

WTiN: I know that like digitalization and sustainability were the main themes coming from Ip Man Asia and am I right in thinking that there was talk about legislation as well as collaboration that might push this further on in terms of sustainability?

Thomas: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so a lot of this is, you know, a lot of the development in the industry is led by legislation and this was particularly true in kind of that, in the finishing hall. But again, going back to Tan in the Open Ceremony, you know, he did a big piece around digitalisation and sustainability. And he said that it was, you know, innovation and technology -driven products that are kind of the only way forward for us with digitalisation and sustainability. and so he was saying that textile companies need to invest in circular design, zero -waste production and digitalisation so that we can kind of move forward in a sustainable way. Definitely kind of the key theme throughout the halls and digitalisation I think is seen as kind of one of the keys to unlock greater sustainability within the industry.

WTiN: Cool and just can I jump in away from that for a minute, like you mentioned earlier on about digital textile printing and I know that the digital printing hub you mentioned previously to us at WTiN was particularly popular. If you actually managed to get near, do you think we're going to hear more about digital print printing and design in 2026? I think it's quite interesting what you said about like obviously having to like drop prices as well, like how all that could potentially like marry up in the future.

Thomas: Yeah definitely, I mean it was as I said, the Digital Printing Hall was really popular and I think that was even more surprising given that Printing United was so close, I think it was the week after or something like that, so they were really close together if not almost overlapping. So yeah, especially seeing you know people from Latin America there especially and it was cool to see that it was so busy because I know as an industry it's still growing but it's not growing in the way that it has been you know over the past say 10 years but importantly it is still a really growing industry and in that hall in particular there was there was a few new developments, for example I mentioned the new SPG machine and then there was some new inks as well, like JK Group had a new ink and then there was a lot of Chinese digital printing technologists there as well.  Some hybrid machines, a little bit of DTF, not as much director film as I had thought there would be because that's been a really kind of fast growing area and lots of new machines coming out in that space in the last couple of years. So whilst that was still there, there wasn't as much as I had anticipated. But what was your original question? Sorry, I just got in my head about DT.

WTiN: It was basically that. Oh, do we see more of it? Yeah, just by the DT market in general. Any comments on it?

Thomas: Well, I think obviously we have our own DT data, so do visit WTiN.com to the listeners if you are interested in finding out more data on the DT market. We have our market tracker tool where we can do and forecasting, but we also have we have partners with in the machinery and ink OEMs where we have where we get the official sales data and we then kind of track the market through that. So what we're seeing now, as I said, is that the market is slowing, but there's some really kind of promising areas out there and lots of new opportunities for the market as well. Lots of opportunities for growth. You know, we talked about India, we talked about China and also the US as well is a really promising market. That's really interesting about the Esmond. I know myself, things that I've covered this year, DT, especially direct -to -film, there do seem to be lots of innovation coming out, and even more recently seeing stuff with inks as well. Yeah, definitely, and we've got, sorry to jump in, I know I'm hogging the limelight a bit, sorry Jess, but we've got an event at the The end of the first quarter next year, so in March, I think it's around about, I don't know, I think it's like the 24th, 23rd to the 27th of March, something like that, we're going to be running a digital textile printing week where we're going to basically look at everything in the whole digital printing market. So that's not just roll to roll, but dye sublimation, direct to film, direct to garment. So we're kind of going to go through everything. We're going to look at new technology, you know, from machinery, ink, software, transfer paper, etc. But we're also going to kind of take a deep dive into mapping growth in the market, looking at established markets and any kind of growth areas there, but also the emerging markets and analysing their future potential. and also look at any kind of key trends that are shaping demand for digitally printed textiles. So what do the print service providers actually need from their OEMs? So we kind of want to listen to the market and keep our ear to the market for that. And then we also kind of want to look at, you know, with the whole influence of AI, look at how intelligent workflows are driving digital printing and driving kind of the technological breakthroughs here and what could be possible. And then obviously legislation we want to look at and we want to look at circularity as well and how we can kind of design in the future for digital textile printing looking at circular production, sustainable materials, maybe some bio -based innovations and do some cost and performance analysis on those kind of new innovations. So well it's like yes here's the technology and then here are all the markets and then here are the business models and how we can diversify our applications to maximize on revenues in the industry. So no mouthful but I just wanted to get that in there because I'm really excited about it as an event. It's We have covered, you know, we've done DT events in the past, but our last couple have just been on the direct -to -film market, and I think this is kind of, we're going to be a really cool, like, all -encompassing week for everybody that's interested in the DT market, obviously.

WTiN: I that you're not the only person at WTiN who's very excited about that. Imagine that a lot of people in the content team who are very happy about this. Well going back to performance days as we round this up, Jess is there anything that we haven't spoken about that you would like to highlight or you think the industry should be aware of as we move into 2026?

Robe: I feel like I'm crashing the party a little bit after all of the DT speak, but something we did, we did cover a bit during Circularity Week as well, extended producer responsibility. So myself and Steve both attended Performance Days, Steve's our Managing Director, and we both went to Day Zero as well, which is the conference that they sort of hold prior to the show. and that was like a more intimate setting, a small group of people from across the textile supply chain and we were sort of chatting around looking at the sustainability problem a bit more holistically and kind of like small actions that we could we could do to sort of address those challenges.

So yeah, extended producer responsibility seems to be a really big one and it sort of ties into that whole traceability question and the transparency issues as well. that a lot of brands and people working in the industry are having to kind of grapple with. Eco -modulation was a big one that sort of ties off from EPR. So the idea of if EPR comes in or when, it's probably a better way of putting it, are there going to be eco -modulation rules where if you use sustainable materials, then those fees will be reduced for you or kind of help subsidise or incentivise the use of more sustainable materials. So kind of working out how that's going to look, how does that change some of the ecosystems we're seeing, like textiles, recycling or biobased materials, etc. So those are all kind of key themes. But from that, there's two main ones, really. How do we verify the content that's in those supply chains. We're really going to have to double down on the traceability and the transparency angle so we can actually verify that what we're using is what we say it is. Apparently, this is a big issue in the textile recycling space already where there's fraudulently labeled recycled content that's actually not. I can imagine this will only become a bigger problem and we're going to need more verification tools and systems in place to catch that. There's also this idea around kind of who's paying for the innovation or who's paying for this systems change. So when you speak to innovators, they'll tell you quite openly how how tricky the funding landscape has gotten.

We've seen a lot of leather, alternative leather producers, for instance, kind of fall by the wayside recently. And it's been a real shame because some of them were kind of the largest and have been going for a really long time. So it's just evident that, you know, that the innovation ecosystem in our industry is is really on its on its knees and we've kind of relied maybe too much on external finance sources. Everyone's going to have to get involved at some point if you want to see this the change come around and we can't just keep relying on the same systems and processes and materials that we've been relying on for you know hundreds of years potentially. So there is the idea around kind of getting more people involved, where can other sources of finance come from, can companies pull together their resources and kind of accelerate growth in new innovative spaces like textile recycling.

Because without that collaboration and that coordination of resources, I think we're going to really struggle to see the change that we need, which would be a massive shame because it looks like it will incur costs, it will incur lots of stresses for lots of different teams, sustainability, product, innovation, it's really challenging. out there. And if it's going to become a financial burden as well, the industry is already in a tough spot. So let's, it'd be good if we could avoid adding any more woes.  There's also the worry that if it does get too difficult and you know, there's no criticism here that, you know, we've seen EU and UK regulation kind of roll back because it's as you said it's too much of a financial burden it's too difficult particularly for small medium businesses to hit these targets so then the targets are just moved and instead what we should be doing is kind of helping these businesses to to meet these targets and incentivizing them to to finance you know financially incentivizing them to to meet the targets so that we can actually get to this more sustainable more circular place whereas at the moment what we're doing is saying oh we've put these targets in place actually they were probably a bit too much for companies to handle financially and too much systems change for them at the moment so we're just going to roll them back by a few years and then they'll be more prepped in a few years time you know so that then it'll be fine but in reality they're just going to end up rolling back and back and back.

Thomas: Yeah I completely agree and it's not even just going to impact the sort of time scale that we see this change happening in. It will reduce people's ambitions as well, 2030, 2050 goals. If the goalposts keep moving, then companies will do the bare minimum they think is going to be required. So you're either going to have a big scramble where people are trying to then adjust because actually the requirements are a lot more than they thought initially, or you're just going to have a really plateaued, like no incentive to do more than is necessary. And that will reduce the impact that we see actually happening in terms of sustainability and having these circular ecosystems in our industry. So it's a really tricky one, but seems like there's a lot of conversations happening around around these issues.

WTiN: Definitely, I think we could literally do a full podcast or two episodes on this.

Thomas: I'm not sure people want to listen to us moan on about it for too long.

WTiN: It is interesting that I literally yesterday I was working on two features with two different brands and what you've both said were things that came up about. costs and integrating certain materials into the supply chain that in some ways is easier for smaller brands to do this than the larger ones. But anyways, as we get to the end of the podcast, is there anything that either of you would like to add or comment on from ITMA Asia or performance days that we haven't discussed?

Robe: I have a short point, I guess, around kind of similar to this integration issue. When I was speaking with some textile recycling companies, they were sort of saying that a lot of the industry has been really focused on building out massive new capacity for these new materials, like new giant facilities that are super expensive. One of their points was around, you know, maybe there needs to be a pivot where companies are just integrating better across different industries. So looking at chemical suppliers and manufacturers, are they going to be more keen to take on new innovation? Are they looking to make their portfolio more sustainable? And do they have equipment and facilities that are already there? So kind of looking at the capacity we have versus do we need to build more capacity on because we probably don't. That's the capacity already existing in the space. So let's just pivot that to be more intelligent and, and kind of feeding into what we actually need in terms of sustainable materials, etc. Rather than having these really big ambitious gigafactories, megafactories that are being built out everywhere. It might work for some of the innovators out there.

But with the funding landscape being as tricky as it is, and investors are starting to get a bit wary around the timescales needed to scale these innovations, as we've just seen in the leathers space, the all leathers space. Yeah, being a bit more, maybe less ambitious is key, being a bit more strategic with who you're partnering up with. And maybe there are key proponents you can find in the plastic space or the chemical space or, you know, automotive has touched in and out of these of these material spaces as well. So kind of being a bit more open in terms of who can propel these innovations. And, and that's from both the innovator side, but also maybe the brands to being a bit more open about who you can collaborate with.

Thomas: That's a really nice point, Jess. My point is, isn't as technical, I kind of just wanted to say that the visitor and the exhibitor feedback that we've had from ITMA Asia was really positive and it kind of tees the event up for Hanover in 2027, which is obviously the big ITMA in Europe that's every four years, so we're very much kind of looking ahead now to Hanover, but obviously in between that next year there is ITMA Asia, the original Imara Asia or CITME, that will be in Shanghai next year as well.

WTiN: Well, thank you both so much for coming on the podcast.

Thomas: Been a pleasure. Thanks so much, Abi.

Robe: No worries. Thank you.

WTiN: Thank you so much for listening. If you have any questions or want to learn more, you can follow us on LinkedIn at World Textile Information Network, or you can contact me directly at content at WTiN .com. you are interested in sponsoring an episode of the podcast, please email sales at WTiN .com. Thank you and we'll see you next time.