Companies
2002-05-19
Final report of Avantex in Frankfurt am Main from 13 to 15 May 2002
During three successful days, the second Avantex presented well over 100 innovative products and technologies, as well as strategies for the future of the textile and garment-manufacturing industries, to an audience of experts. Almost 2,700 symposium participants and trade visitors took advantage of this opportunity to discover the most recent developments in the market at a variety of international lectures and round-table discussions.
AVANTEX - INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION FORUM AND SYMPOSIUM FOR HIGH TECH APPAREL TEXTILES - IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN FROM 13 TO 15 MAY 2002
FINAL REPORT
The dress codes of the future are to be seen in intelligent functional garments
The second Avantex surpasses the prognoses with almost 2,700 symposium participants and trade visitors
EU Commission is Avantex patron
Smart clothes are in! Impressive demonstrations of the latest products were also to be seen at the presentation of the Innovation Prize and the 'Apparel of the Future' fashion show.
Around half of the symposium participants came from outside Germany - most of them from Europe. Nevertheless, numerous representatives of the textile chains in the USA, Australia and Asia also made their way to Frankfurt for Avantex. This represents a significant increase in the degree of internationality compared to the première in November 2000. After Germany, the largest visitor nations were, in order of size: Switzerland, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Finland, Austria and the USA. Significant was the growing interest shown in high-tech apparel by the textile industry and garment manufacturers. More and more companies are seeing high-tech products as an opportunity to reposition themselves. Dr. Isa Hofmann, Avantex Event Manager: "In the coming years, the apparel market will undergo revolutionary change of a previously unknown magnitude. As the information age progresses, the dress codes of the urbane working and leisure worlds will change. Avantex activates interdisciplinary networks from research to the trade, to promote innovative ideas and products for tomorrow's markets."
A total of 80 textile companies presented more than 100 new products and concepts in Frankfurt with companies such as DuPont, Bluesign Technologies, Schoeller Textil, W.L. Gore & Associates, Siemens Infineon, Ploucquet and France Télécom being represented. The innovations ranged from the fibre stage to the end product. They included garments that offer protection against electro-smog, air-conditioned jackets, garments with integrated technology (so-called wearables), senior-citizen clothes of the future and high-function active sport and outdoor garments that measure blood pressure, pulse or temperature.
"Avantex is a forum that shows how much innovative potential there is in Europe", said Dr. Heinz Zourek, General Director Companies of the European Commission, in his opening speech. "I am convinced that high-tech apparel has a great future. The use of new technologies in the garment-manufacturing sector is part of the innovative tradition of the European textile industry. I hope that exhibitors and visitors will take this opportunity to further boost the significance of these innovations in Europe. Avantex is an impulse for improving the competitive edge of the European textile and garment-manufacturing industry." The EU Commission is providing sustained support for Avantex and also agreed to be the patron of second event. Its aim: a long-term evolution in the direction of high-tech apparel-textiles, also in the forthcoming Sixth Framework Programme for research and development.
The Avantex Symposium offered 84 lectures in six thematic blocks: Block 1: dealing with the subject of high-tech textiles - chances and opportunities - in 14 lectures Block 2: innovative fibres and yarns, eight lectures Block 3: digital printing for innovative textiles, five lecturesBlock 4: new high-tech fabrics, 16 lecturesBlock 5: innovative high-tech apparel, 29 lectures, including eight on professional and protective applications and 13 on micro-system technology in garments Block 6: garment manufacturing tomorrow - product development and made-to-measure tailoring, twelve lectures.Additionally, there were round-table discussions on the subjects of 'garments for healthcare and senior-citizens - a coming subject for the garment -manufacturing industry', 'micro-system technology - new opportunities for garments' and 'digital printing - future developments and perspectives'.
The Second Avantex Innovation Prize was awarded nine times this year. In her laudatory speech, Luisa Prista, General Direction Research of the European Commission, said, "The future of the European textile industry lies not in ever lower prices but in ever more intelligent products. Therefore, the European Commission sees the promotion of future-oriented technology as being one of its most important tasks for the coming years."
Another programme highlight: the Avantex Fashion Show, "Garments of the Future" directed by the Berlin-based team of Bernt Carstenschulz and Nathalie Nicolas, together with Ingrid Maurer as the Trend Coordinator of Messe Frankfurt GmbH. Here, the innovations took to the catwalk. They included a cocktail dress that massages the wearer, a cooling jacket against summer heat, highly functional outdoor jackets with integrated communication facilities, a voice-controlled MP3 player, anti-electro-smog leisurewear and pyjamas, so-called life shirts with numerous body-measuring functions, motorbike, snowboard and ski suits that offer greater safety and are more comfortable to wear, flame-proof fire brigade overalls, breathable skiing underwear and functional bathing costumes, to mention but a few. The next Avantex will be held again in Frankfurt am Main from 28 to 30 June 2004. Messe Frankfurt plans to expand the event in the active sport and outdoor segments, covering the entire chain from the preliminary stage to the final product.
EXHIBITOR STATEMENTS:
Laurent Ponthou, Creative Studio Manager, France Télécom R&D
"This is our first time at Avantex and we will certainly be back next time because we have achieved our main aim: to find new partners who are prepared to join us in branching out in new directions in the wearables field. We also made contact with companies interested in selling our products. The visitors came from all over the world: Europe, the USA and Asia. Our conclusion: Avantex is a small but highly effective event. Accordingly, we are very pleased with it."
Dr. Werner Weber, Senior Director Corporate Research, Infineon Technologies AG
"Avantex went extremely well for us. It is exactly the right forum for finding innovative partners and customers. We have no doubt that a purely fashion-oriented fair would not have been the right place for our company or our latest innovations. All four of us here were continuously occupied in talks with a very international audience of experts (from the USA, England, France, Belgium, Switzerland and, of course, Germany). Generally speaking, English was the lingua franca. Finally, I would like to say that Avantex is a great idea that everyone must be in favour of. In this connection, I am thinking primarily of the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology, which should support the multiplier function of Avantex."
Henrik Tvenge, Genreal Manager, Swiss Shield AG
"There was an amazing number of visitors to our stand, including manufacturers, students and lots of research scientists. We were pleasantly surprised by the high degree of interest shown and the large number of international visitors. Here, our three-person stand team was not big enough. We did not take any orders but we honestly didn't expect to either because our aim in coming to Avantex was to make new contacts and to develop new ideas. However, we can still look forward to some post-fair business that was shaping up during the fair. We are highly satisfied."
Juan Aguiriano, Innovation Director Apparel & Textile Sciences, Du Pont de Nemours International S.A.
"At this fair, we had the chance to make numerous high-powered and innovative contacts to a wide range of sectors. This made it a very interesting and exciting forum. Here, we could really sense the energy and creativity - virtually watch future business ideas being born. The Symposium was of an extremely high quality - the visitors were very international, focused and professional. For all of these reasons, our continued support for the Avantex concept of Messe Frankfurt is an absolute MUST. Particular interest was shown in the "Body Sculptor" line by Dr. Alexandra Fede (with Lycra / Tactel). All-in-all, we are returning home with numerous orders and some highly-interesting contacts for future projects."
Hans-Jürgen Hübner, CEO, Schoeller Switzerland and Member of the Managing Board of bluesign technologies ag
"Following the highly successful première, which was a very positive surprise for us, we came to the second Avantex with great expectations. Naturally, we have been slightly disillusioned because technology is no longer booming in the same way. However, Avantex is still a platform at which good national and international contacts can be made. Here on the stand, we speak English 80 percent of the time, which is a clear sign of the high level of internationality at Avantex."
---------------
Contact:
Messe Frankfurt GmbH
Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage 1
60327 Frankfurt am Main
Phone +49 69 75 75 - 0
Fax +49 69 75 75 - 64 33
E-Mail: info@messefrankfurt.com
FINAL REPORT
The dress codes of the future are to be seen in intelligent functional garments
The second Avantex surpasses the prognoses with almost 2,700 symposium participants and trade visitors
EU Commission is Avantex patron
Smart clothes are in! Impressive demonstrations of the latest products were also to be seen at the presentation of the Innovation Prize and the 'Apparel of the Future' fashion show.
Around half of the symposium participants came from outside Germany - most of them from Europe. Nevertheless, numerous representatives of the textile chains in the USA, Australia and Asia also made their way to Frankfurt for Avantex. This represents a significant increase in the degree of internationality compared to the première in November 2000. After Germany, the largest visitor nations were, in order of size: Switzerland, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Finland, Austria and the USA. Significant was the growing interest shown in high-tech apparel by the textile industry and garment manufacturers. More and more companies are seeing high-tech products as an opportunity to reposition themselves. Dr. Isa Hofmann, Avantex Event Manager: "In the coming years, the apparel market will undergo revolutionary change of a previously unknown magnitude. As the information age progresses, the dress codes of the urbane working and leisure worlds will change. Avantex activates interdisciplinary networks from research to the trade, to promote innovative ideas and products for tomorrow's markets."
A total of 80 textile companies presented more than 100 new products and concepts in Frankfurt with companies such as DuPont, Bluesign Technologies, Schoeller Textil, W.L. Gore & Associates, Siemens Infineon, Ploucquet and France Télécom being represented. The innovations ranged from the fibre stage to the end product. They included garments that offer protection against electro-smog, air-conditioned jackets, garments with integrated technology (so-called wearables), senior-citizen clothes of the future and high-function active sport and outdoor garments that measure blood pressure, pulse or temperature.
"Avantex is a forum that shows how much innovative potential there is in Europe", said Dr. Heinz Zourek, General Director Companies of the European Commission, in his opening speech. "I am convinced that high-tech apparel has a great future. The use of new technologies in the garment-manufacturing sector is part of the innovative tradition of the European textile industry. I hope that exhibitors and visitors will take this opportunity to further boost the significance of these innovations in Europe. Avantex is an impulse for improving the competitive edge of the European textile and garment-manufacturing industry." The EU Commission is providing sustained support for Avantex and also agreed to be the patron of second event. Its aim: a long-term evolution in the direction of high-tech apparel-textiles, also in the forthcoming Sixth Framework Programme for research and development.
The Avantex Symposium offered 84 lectures in six thematic blocks: Block 1: dealing with the subject of high-tech textiles - chances and opportunities - in 14 lectures Block 2: innovative fibres and yarns, eight lectures Block 3: digital printing for innovative textiles, five lecturesBlock 4: new high-tech fabrics, 16 lecturesBlock 5: innovative high-tech apparel, 29 lectures, including eight on professional and protective applications and 13 on micro-system technology in garments Block 6: garment manufacturing tomorrow - product development and made-to-measure tailoring, twelve lectures.Additionally, there were round-table discussions on the subjects of 'garments for healthcare and senior-citizens - a coming subject for the garment -manufacturing industry', 'micro-system technology - new opportunities for garments' and 'digital printing - future developments and perspectives'.
The Second Avantex Innovation Prize was awarded nine times this year. In her laudatory speech, Luisa Prista, General Direction Research of the European Commission, said, "The future of the European textile industry lies not in ever lower prices but in ever more intelligent products. Therefore, the European Commission sees the promotion of future-oriented technology as being one of its most important tasks for the coming years."
Another programme highlight: the Avantex Fashion Show, "Garments of the Future" directed by the Berlin-based team of Bernt Carstenschulz and Nathalie Nicolas, together with Ingrid Maurer as the Trend Coordinator of Messe Frankfurt GmbH. Here, the innovations took to the catwalk. They included a cocktail dress that massages the wearer, a cooling jacket against summer heat, highly functional outdoor jackets with integrated communication facilities, a voice-controlled MP3 player, anti-electro-smog leisurewear and pyjamas, so-called life shirts with numerous body-measuring functions, motorbike, snowboard and ski suits that offer greater safety and are more comfortable to wear, flame-proof fire brigade overalls, breathable skiing underwear and functional bathing costumes, to mention but a few. The next Avantex will be held again in Frankfurt am Main from 28 to 30 June 2004. Messe Frankfurt plans to expand the event in the active sport and outdoor segments, covering the entire chain from the preliminary stage to the final product.
EXHIBITOR STATEMENTS:
Laurent Ponthou, Creative Studio Manager, France Télécom R&D
"This is our first time at Avantex and we will certainly be back next time because we have achieved our main aim: to find new partners who are prepared to join us in branching out in new directions in the wearables field. We also made contact with companies interested in selling our products. The visitors came from all over the world: Europe, the USA and Asia. Our conclusion: Avantex is a small but highly effective event. Accordingly, we are very pleased with it."
Dr. Werner Weber, Senior Director Corporate Research, Infineon Technologies AG
"Avantex went extremely well for us. It is exactly the right forum for finding innovative partners and customers. We have no doubt that a purely fashion-oriented fair would not have been the right place for our company or our latest innovations. All four of us here were continuously occupied in talks with a very international audience of experts (from the USA, England, France, Belgium, Switzerland and, of course, Germany). Generally speaking, English was the lingua franca. Finally, I would like to say that Avantex is a great idea that everyone must be in favour of. In this connection, I am thinking primarily of the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology, which should support the multiplier function of Avantex."
Henrik Tvenge, Genreal Manager, Swiss Shield AG
"There was an amazing number of visitors to our stand, including manufacturers, students and lots of research scientists. We were pleasantly surprised by the high degree of interest shown and the large number of international visitors. Here, our three-person stand team was not big enough. We did not take any orders but we honestly didn't expect to either because our aim in coming to Avantex was to make new contacts and to develop new ideas. However, we can still look forward to some post-fair business that was shaping up during the fair. We are highly satisfied."
Juan Aguiriano, Innovation Director Apparel & Textile Sciences, Du Pont de Nemours International S.A.
"At this fair, we had the chance to make numerous high-powered and innovative contacts to a wide range of sectors. This made it a very interesting and exciting forum. Here, we could really sense the energy and creativity - virtually watch future business ideas being born. The Symposium was of an extremely high quality - the visitors were very international, focused and professional. For all of these reasons, our continued support for the Avantex concept of Messe Frankfurt is an absolute MUST. Particular interest was shown in the "Body Sculptor" line by Dr. Alexandra Fede (with Lycra / Tactel). All-in-all, we are returning home with numerous orders and some highly-interesting contacts for future projects."
Hans-Jürgen Hübner, CEO, Schoeller Switzerland and Member of the Managing Board of bluesign technologies ag
"Following the highly successful première, which was a very positive surprise for us, we came to the second Avantex with great expectations. Naturally, we have been slightly disillusioned because technology is no longer booming in the same way. However, Avantex is still a platform at which good national and international contacts can be made. Here on the stand, we speak English 80 percent of the time, which is a clear sign of the high level of internationality at Avantex."
---------------
Contact:
Messe Frankfurt GmbH
Ludwig-Erhard-Anlage 1
60327 Frankfurt am Main
Phone +49 69 75 75 - 0
Fax +49 69 75 75 - 64 33
E-Mail: info@messefrankfurt.com
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