PERFORMANCE DAYS show the latest trends in fabric development for the functional textile industry. Our CCO Alex Ingildsen & LTP team were there, spotting trends, and we have summed up some of the key points we found about PERFORMANCE DAYS.

Suppliers from all over the world join the PERFORMANCE DAYS. To have that many suppliers in one place, designers and developers can do their research and shopping in one place, while having many options to look at and getting good ideas of the general trends in functional fabrics, is very strong. To meet the suppliers personally, feel the fabrics and talk to the manufactures is a perfect start to do business relationships.

The exhibition is the place where tomorrow’s textile trends are on display today. It is the industry experts who come to this fair – the designers, product managers, buyers, decision makers and manufactures of almost every European active clothing and functional wear brand.  

The stock area was a good idea – but CCO Alex Ingildsen believes it could have been promoted even more. There are so many fabrics leftover kept in the warehouses. This idea could be explored much more, potentially with an online library on the PERFORMANCE DAYS website, which fabric suppliers could upload their stock into.

And this could easily be linked up with the subject of sustainability. In my opinion this has not been pushed enough. There should be much more attention paid to sustainable materials and process options. At the moment everyone has jumped on the 'recycled' bandwagon, but it feels like a marketing stunt, and not a true desire to improve the industry. Alex Ingildsen think genuine innovation needs to be pointed out much more, maybe even with a special focus section. Looking at the forum tables, only a small percentage of fabrics had 'sustainable' credentials. Designers need real options on renewable, recycled and recyclable materials, this also concerns recycling technologies. In the future we hope to see more solutions or technologies exhibited in this area.

All in all LTP is happy about the fair, and are looking forward joining in Munich again next time.