SAZ Sports & Fashion
6
SAZ Sports & Fashion:
Mr. Weichert, twice a ye
ar the PERFORMANCE DAYS trade fair shows the
trends in functional fabrics. How do these trends
come to life, how do new developments emerge?
Marco Weichert:
This is a complex question.
We as the organizers of the trade fair scout the
developments of the fabric producers and pre
sent the most important trends in our PERFOR
MANCE FORUM. In order to achieve this, the in
dustry prior works parallel on different strands.
How does that look in detail? Where does the ini
tial trigger come from? Is it the demand of the
brands that drives the fabric producers?
Weichert:
This is a part of it. On the other hand,
the process already starts directly at the yarn
suppliers. They constantly develop, for in
stance they design yarns with additional bene
fits such as immanently cooling or warming
properties. Presently, some important suppli
ers concentrate on the future topic of “biode
gradable” which we highlight on the current
Performance Days as focus topic. Parallel to the
development of yarns, the further develop
ment of machines is going on and changes cer
tainly also impact colorants and the finishing
of materials. You see, there are many compo
nents that play a role.
In other words, the fair does not only present cur
rent trends but is also a trend scout at the same
time?
Weichert:
I would even say it is more than that.
Together with experts, we think about what will
be important in future and what the market
needs. We communicate this to our exhibitors,
who in turn develop in this direction. In recent
years this has worked very im
pressively. For example, we have
focused on merino wool or on re
cycled fibers when these were
hardly found on the market. To
day, both aspects are essential
for the collections of sports
brands. So we did not only have
the right instinct but also en
couraged the industry to devel
op in this direction. With these
topics publicly presented at the
fair, we trigger a market move
ment and invite exhibitors and
visitors to follow the same
course. This means that the fair
is a trend scout and also some
what a trendsetter.
Can these focus topics of the fair
be implemented in such a short time? Are these
materials market ready?
Weichert:
It certainly takes more than half a
year for the new topics to be available through
out as market-ready materials. We have seen
this in Kapok fiber, for example. The fiber man
ufacturer Flocus won the fair’s Eco Performance
Award two seasons ago, and now, a year later,
several fabric mills admix Kapok. It is also nec
essary to distinguish whether new develop
ments are implemented as knitwear or woven
fabric. It is much harder for a weaver to devel
op a new fabric because he has to pull a new
warp thread onto the loom so that the test run
is much more complex than with a knitter. Be
fore the new fabrics can be ordered, they cer
This is how Trends
are Made
Marco Weichert, one of the Performance Days’ organizers is an expert on new
fabric trend. Now he explains which influences play an important role
BUSINESS
Kick-off for the new buying season: Visiting the Performance Days.
Photo: Performance Days
Colors play an important
role with new trends.
Photo: Shutterstock / Africa Studio
