Future Fashion Factory: Developing new digital and advanced textile technologies
27/06/2022
Future Fashion Factory is a £5.4 million R&D partnership exploring and developing new digital and advanced textile technologies to boost the design of high-value creative products.
Funded projects and core research
Future Fashion Factory operates through a number of funded projects and core research. The research themes are focused around digitally connected and sustainable processes, immersive digital communication and data analytics, and skills and education. These include:
- Late-stage customisation: using digital and new textile technologies to design and produce designer-led, small volume, customised products while cutting lead times
- Sustainability and circular economies: developing new manufacturing processes for reducing waste production, as well as recycling textile waste into new high-value products.
- Aesthetic communication: digital communication of the tactile and physical properties of fabric, such as drape and handle or colour, to online customers and consumers
- Data-driven design: whether B2B or B2C, making better use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics to understand, forecast and interpret consumer preferences around the world, feeding into a data-driven design process.
Future Fashion Factory has worked with leading UK textile mills, manufacturers and innovators including Abraham Moon & Sons, Bower Roebuck, Pennine Weavers, WT Johnson & Sons, Camira Fabrics, Burberry, Laxtons, AW Hainsworth & Sons, Joshua Ellis, British Wool, Materra, The Sustainable Sequin Company and more.