Fibre2Fashion Magazine June 2018 June 2018 | Page 142

Summit
Since 2005, the annual total value added of the European textiles and apparel companies has increased by 36 per cent. The world’s top
companies in fashion, luxury clothing, personal protection clothing, technical textiles, sustainable textiles, can all be found in Europe.
Now, Infinited Fiber wants to attract investors
for scaling up production. In 2020–21, a flagship
fibre plant with a capacity of 25,000 tonne should
be built, and in 2022–23 a first high-volume plant
of more than 100,000 tonne. “Join us, and we don’t
need another planet Earth,” Alava is telling business
angels and other potential investors.
Scalable Garment Technologies Inc
It’s not difficult to detect some weak spots in the
brave future plans of Fashion for Good and The
Infinited Fibre Company. It’s even less difficult to
shoot holes in the project presentation of the three
Canadians who want to change the world of fashion
with their startup Scalable Garment Technologies
Inc. They have designed and prototyped a robotic
knitting machine to produce custom seamless knit
garments in the size, material and style chosen by
customers. This means better fit and less waste. The
three pioneers predict a future where all mainstream
clothing production is on-demand and completely
manufactured by machines.
By the way, this is the kind of utopian future that
is dreamt of by the American sociologist Peter Frase,
who in 2016 published the book Four Futures, Life
after Capitalism. If Scalable Garment Technologies
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Infinited Fiber is able to produce a cotton-like textile fibre from waste materials and
residue biomaterials. This fibre can be recycled again and again without loss of quality.
would succeed on a big scale, like they intend, the
double sector issue of scarce textile resources and
poorly paid monotonous labour would be resolved.
As for now, the Canadian software and
engineering specialists who started Scalable
Garment Technologies are still working on a
prototype machine that makes scarves to validate
and demonstrate the technology needed for on-
demand manufacturing of single custom garments.
Their next step will be launching a machine for
producing knit ties and then a machine for fully
customisable foot-shaped socks.