Asahi Kasei’s Roica brand exhibited its range of stretch innovations at the recent edition of Interfilière Paris. General manager of Roica’s Global Marketing department, Kaoru Nozaki, explains more.
Interfilière Paris, the world’s leading trade show for fabrics and accessories for lingerie, swimwear and activewear, returned to Europe’s fashion capital on 7-9 July – connecting the industry’s key players.
Roica fibre can be knitted or woven into almost any fabric
Asahi Kasei’s Roica brand exhibited a range of stretch innovations, from shapewear to soft compression, that can enhance designs. Roica is a premium stretch fibre with excellent stretch and recovery properties based on Asahi Kasei polymer science and is used in a variety of collections to ‘create pioneering solutions for the modern wardrobe’.
For instance, Iluna Group, an Italian producer of lingerie, lace, beachwear and bridal products, collaborated with Roica brand on a swimwear collection using GRS-certified fibre made from the Roica Eco-Smart family of fibres – sourced from pre-consumer recycled material. And fellow Italian textile company Stip partnered with Roica on BeHot – a patented unique fabric structure system that creates real heat through the continuous action of stretching and recovery.
Discussing Roica’s attendance at Interfilière Paris, Kaoru Nozaki, general manager of Roica’s Global Marketing department, says: “Visitors were impressed in discovering our 3 Modern Wardrobe concept zones to witness advanced innovation related to Roica brand and its partners.”
Within those three concept zones, Roica offered:
- Roica Lab Zone – a zone in which visitors were navigated towards the latest hi-tech ‘modern wardrobe’ solutions with Roica Eco-Smart family and Roica Feel Good family, designed to ‘exceed contemporary business and consumer desires’.
- Roica Innovation Gallery Zone – an area dedicated to premium stretch Roica fabrics for autumn/winter 2019/20 that are shared by Roica textile partners’ innovations to inspire endless possibilities, says Roica.
- Roica Lifestyle Zone – showcasing a selection of current wardrobe offers made with Roica and represented by international brands including: Wolford, Hanro, Cosabella, Simone Perele, and Daquini. According to Nozaki, “they have all communicated with us the Roica responsible innovations adoptions into their collections.”
Roica finds application in many modern wardrobe ranges including
fashion, intimates, athleisure, hosiery, sports and swimwear
Roica serves the global knitting and weaving industry, but at Interfilière Paris, it mainly focused on its European key partners as, during the last few years, “we have experienced big growth in Europe that resulted in real partnerships of excellence,” says Nozaki. Roica’s European partners at the show included: Italian companies Giemme, Iluna Group SpA, Maglificio Ripa SpA, Tessitura Colombo Antonio srl, and Piave Maitex; Spanish companies Indesmalla and Sportswear Argentona; German companies Penn Textile Solutions GmbH, TVB, Lauma Fabrics/LE Textile GmbH, and Taubert Textil GmbH; French companies MG2 and Sofileta; and Slovenia’s Inplet Pletiva.
According to Nozaki, Roica also has strong ties with final brands such as Wolford, which used Roica fibre in its Cradle-to-Cradle Gold-certified Aurora line. It is said to be the world’s first yarn belonging to the Roica Eco-Smart family with a Cradle-to-Cradle material health certificate and Hohenstein Environmental compatibility – certifying that it can smartly break down without releasing harmful substances into the environment.
“Wolford is dedicated to increasing this collection each season,” says Nozaki. “The designs are developed with the intention to bring the ingredients back to the cycle. Instead of taking new materials, they simply borrow them for the lifetime of the product.”
Expanding on the sustainable credentials of Roica fibre, she says: “Our R&D strategy has a never- ending approach and will definitely bring us to challenge ourselves every day to reach new levels of responsible innovation. Our aim is always to develop products that answer the specific needs of final consumers, and as sustainability is becoming more key, we have worked and will continue to work in order to deliver solutions that can fit the different needs of smart innovation.”
Crystal by Maglificio Ripa swimwear collection
According to Nozaki, Roica fibre can be knitted or woven into any fabric, describing it as the “secret and magic stretch ingredient inside everything in your modern wardrobe”. She says: “It improves and refines clothes, giving pleasure, quality and confidence every day, and bringing new value to the demands of the contemporary consumer, where stretch performance from standard fibre is now a speciality.”
Prized for its advanced stretch capabilities, Roica fibre is considered superior to others on the market. Explaining why, Nozaki says: “Roica premium stretch fibre comes in superior engineered functions and innovation effects designed by Asahi Kasei, who created these custom-designed smart stretch fibre innovations with quality, comfort and new values for customers looking for real contemporary innovations.”
She continues: “Asahi Kasei from Japan has engineered speciality innovations into Roica premium stretch fibre. It is in an unbroken DNA line drawn from Japanese dedicated research to the final consumer that sees Roica delivering on unique, smart speciality yarns with functions that match every contemporary need. That’s why Roica comes in five different families reflecting different needs – all very important for everyday contemporary life.”
These include: Roica Colour Perfect for colour solutions; Roica Contour dedicated to shape innovation; Roica Resistant developed for multi-level resistance; Roica Eco-Smart for premium sustainable solutions; and Roica Feel Good to support well-being.
Daquini activewear
Nozaki adds: “Roica advanced premium stretch fibre can be customised for specialities that match a variety of demands for contemporary clothing today. Some yarns are selected to deliver a targeted performance, while others can be used for many different applications by virtue of their smarter, functional templates.”
In future, Nozaki says that Roica will continue to be present in all aspects of everyday clothing, to “shape performance, refine fit and balance comfort with control through new standards in quality and unique functions”.
She concludes: “Roica moves stretch from standard to speciality, transforming fabrics and clothes from ‘basic’ to ‘special’, ‘ordinary’ to ‘clever’, and ‘standard’ to ‘smart’. Roica is already present in all different aspects of the modern wardrobe such as as fashion, intimates, athleisure, hosiery, sports and swimwear. Our strategy is to offer the perfect solution for each of these ranges, and we will do it more and more to suit all contemporary consumer needs.”
