The LYCRA Company collaborates with Browzwear

The LYCRA Company, a global leader in developing innovative and sustainable fibre and technology solutions for the apparel and personal care industries, has partnered with Browzwear that will provide designers using VStitcher and Lotta, the pioneering platforms for 3D fashion design, the ability to quickly and easily develop products incorporating fabrics containing LYCRA, LYCRA T400, and COOLMAX fibres.

The Browzwear platform enables designers to visualize how garments made with LYCRA fibre
offer a comfortable, lasting fit that will move with the wearer.

The partnership with Browzwear is the latest element of a multifaceted digital transformation that The LYCRA Company began last year with the launch of the LYCRA ONE customer portal, an online marketplace connecting brands, retailers, and garment makers to a global network of partner mills in a virtual capacity. 

The expansion of The LYCRA Company’s digital infrastructure is enabling new forms of engagement with its global customer base, and online platforms, like Browzwear, demonstrate the differentiation and sources of innovation that The LYCRA Company is helping bring to its customers across the apparel value chain. 

With the true-to-life visualizations made possible with Browzwear's innovative software, the industry's leading 3D software for apparel design and development, designers can digitally create activewear, denim, swimwear, ready-to-wear, and intimate apparel fashions using fabrics showcased in the LYCRA Brand Materials Library. The Browzwear platform enables designers to visualize how garments made with LYCRA fibre offer a comfortable, lasting fit that will move with the wearer.

All the materials with digital versions in the LYCRA Brand Materials Library can be sourced directly from one of 15 global mills initially featured on Browzwear. These materials have been tested and certified by The LYCRA Company, ensuring they contain the company’s authentic fibres that are designed to meet consumer needs for comfort, fit and ease of movement. In addition, The LYCRA Company will continue to work with Browzwear to add new resources to the materials library as they become available, further enhancing the digital design capabilities.

Fashion and Sportswear brands take urgent action to utilise recycled material waste

SEAQUAL ™ changes plastic waste to filament yarns.
Photo © Lucia Carpio 2018

There is no time to wait and see with the critical problem we are facing on this planet after many years of not realising the damage that plastics, despite their amazing range of usefulness, have contributed to polluting our environment, our oceans, our cities, our countryside, and affecting the health of all living beings, ourselves, our nature and our wildlife.

The BBC nature programme Blue Planet II had driven the message hard and highlighted the immense urgency we are facing in one of their critically-acclaimed programmes hosted by nature guru and UK national treasure David Attenborough.

One shocking fact we have learned is that less than 50% of the 480 billion plastic bottles sold in 2016 were collected for recycling. It is indeed a responsibility of all of us to take action and tackle this irreversible global crisis.

Sundried sportswear made from
recycled plastics.

While politicians, activists and environmental agencies are reportedly taking action plans to promote recycling and minimising waste, many companies and brands are giving new lease of life to recycled plastic bottles by turning the waste into new ethical and environmental friendly products.

One such company is activewear brand Sundried whose sportswear range is made from 100% recycled materials including plastic bottles.

While helping to clean up the global excess of plastic bottles which would otherwise take thousands or even millions of years to decompose naturally Sundried are also reducing harmful emissions and water waste used to create new textiles.

Sundried was founded by personal trainer and triathlete Daniel Puddick. His goal was to create a brand that his children would be proud to be associated with in years to come.

Puddick says: "Being a parent makes you think about the bigger picture for the world, so business for me now is more than just creating a financially successful brand."

From the ten-piece pilot collection launched in 2016, Puddick has grown Sundried in size and together with his small team of designers have created sportswear made from recycled materials whilst ensuring a low carbon footprint.

Sundried activewear made from recycled materials
including coffee waste.

Sundried founder Puddick adds: "Creating collections made from recycled plastic bottles and recycled coffee waste has been a really exciting part of this journey and we are continuing to research the best, ethically-sourced materials available."

Fashioned from Nature exhibition - Victoria and Albert Museum, London until January 27 2019.
Photo © by Lucia Carpio 2018.

Of course Sundried is just one of many brands and designers who are all too aware of the plastic crisis and material waste.  Designs by the likes of Nike, Calvin Klein and Stella McCartney are on show among fashion specimens highlighting the close relationship between fashion and the environment at the Fashioned from Nature exhibition currently on at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London.  Forming an important of the exhibition is the forcus on practices in the fashion industry that threaten people, the lives and the environment.  Running until January 27 2019, this is billed as the first UK exhibition to explore the complex relationship between fashion and nature over the last few centuries, from 1600 to the present day.

Recognising that urgent action is required quickly to tackle marine plastics pollution, a Spanish company of textile fibres has recently unveiled its commitments to initiate a new eco-friendly yarns called SEAQUAL ™ filament yarn made out of plastic waste retrieved from the ocean.

Seaqual 4U was founded in 2016 to tackle marine pollution with as a starting point the recovery of plastic waste collected in the oceans and recycling them into a range of continuous and discontinuous yarns.

Its ingenious plan is to dredge then upcycle plastics from the bottom of the sea and turn them into fibres and yarns.  The company partners with some 400 fishing boats off Spanish coasts that help it to collect the plastic waste.

The company has thus set up a virtuous chain involving various stakeholders in the textile industry including spinners, weavers and brands. 

SEAQUAL ™  fibres is a real catalyst engaging the entire textile industry and thus inspire consumers to buy products made of sustainable fabrics made from recycled plastics.

New innovations from SEAQUAL ™ will include exclusive yarns in staple fibres for blending with other fibres such as recycled cotton, Tencel ® , viscose, wool, linen and will be available as both continuous and discontinuous versions in their natural ecru shade or dyed into different colours.