ShanghaiTex is one of the premier textech exhibitions that no one in the textiles-apparel-fashion industry would want to give a miss. Fibre2Fashion gives you a quick rundown of what was shown at the four-day ShanghaiTex 2019 which got under way from November 25.

Technology is developing at a frenetic pace, reshaping life everyday as we know it. Technology is also reshaping the global textiles-apparel-fashion industry in ways that one cannot even imagine. But technology does not develop in isolation; new technologies also mean new ideas and new materials.

For those in the industry, ShanghaiTex 2019 was a heaven-sent opportunity to look at some of them before they eventually come into play and disrupt lives all over again. This November, ShanghaiTex introduced its 'Textech Galaxy' section which explored how new technology is transforming different sectors of the fashion industry from the three points of view: artificial intelligence (AI), wearable technology and start-ups. As the official website proclaims: "It is also a forward looking international hub gathering people who are interested in exploring textile and fashion possibilities and bridging the gap between the textile, fashion and tech industries."

With "Smarter Textile. Better Life" as its watchword, the biennial event that has been organised in Shanghai since 1984 this time had three other concurrent theme areas: Go Digital, Go Green, and Materials & Cross-Border Innovation. The overarching message was clear: tech / digital will be the driver, green will be the path, and industry will need to work sans borders.

Go Digital will be about four core areas: Textile Industry 4.0, Customisation, New Retail, Artificial Intelligence, and Supply Chain Optimisation. Go Green will be about Sustainability, and Eco-friendly Chemical / Material Choices. Materials & CrossBorder Innovation will explore Functional Yarns & Fibres, Wearable Technology - Smart Textile, and 3D Additive Manufacturing.

The "technology" factor keeps recurring because it lies at the heart of the event. According to the organisers, "Textile means more than just a piece of clothing today, it has always been closely related to our daily life. Since more consumers are eager to buy unique, creative and functional clothing, innovative technologies are being adopted in a broad range of applications in the textile and fashion market. Fashion and technology are edging closer together to cater effectively for the needs of the consumers." The official website also points out certain fashtech products that are already available in the market: from colour-changing sportswear based on body temperature to children's clothes with wearable sensors for monitoring respiratory, temperature and human activity, and from apparel inventory management systems to product recommendation engines. This range is expected to expand exponentially in the next few years.

The fashtech boom has already seen a significant rise in the number of startup companies which assist large textile-apparel establishments capture a bigger market share and break away from the traditional business models with innovative products and technologies. This trend has also opened enormous business opportunities, and were highlighted at ShanghaiTex 2019 through the Startup Planet section which provided a platform for startup companies from across the globe to "showcase a series of textile and fashion related products, which in turn allowed the global investors and manufacturers to seize business opportunities." A Wearable Technology & Textile Design Competition (WTTDC) was also held to encourage young designers to apply their creative thinking on combining textiles with technologies in order to find solutions for a better life.

ShanghaiTex 2019 also focused on four fast-growing market segments which could be most impacted by technology: (i) Spashion, being the cross-over between sports and fashion, blending fashion and comfort for all-day functionality; (ii) Women, Be Fabulous wherein more R&D has been shifting to in the backdrop of the womenswear and beauty markets continuing to boom; (iii) Wellness for Kids being a new focus area with parents buying more products for their children that are "organic" and harmless; and (iv) Smart Lives for Seniors, which lays utmost emphasis on senior care. All these may have a China backdrop but would be relevant in most other countries as well.

This ShanghaiTex also saw the 2nd Artificial Intelligence on Fashion and Textile International Conference (AIFT 2019) being held concurrently. Following its phenomenal debut success in 2018, the organisers of ShanghaiTex 2019 and the Institute of Textiles & Clothing (ITC) at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) signed a cooperation agreement that was announced in August.

Calvin Wong, Cheng Yik Hung Professor in Fashion at the Institute of Textiles and Clothing, HKPU announced that AIFT would develop a long-term cooperation with ShanghaiTex, and an Artificial Intelligence Alliance would be established together with other institutions during AIFT 2019. Announcing the launch, Wong said that the textiles and fashion industry would step into the Fourth Industrial Revolution as soon as mature technology applications in production processes become more commonplace. Technology will then be optimised according to market needs. AIFT 2019 will look at research, application, popularisation as its core values, aiming to connect researchers and industry practitioners towards exploring new AI applications in the textiles and fashion industry.

Incidentally, in March last year, the ITC had announced a collaboration project with the Vision and Beauty Team at the Alibaba Group, which specialises in vision intelligence and applications to establish the first-of-its-kind 'FashionAI Dataset' for a systematic analysis and labelling of fashion images based on "fashion attributes" and "key points" of a garment. By integrating fashion knowledge and machine learning formulations, the dataset was meant to enable machines to better understand fashion and expand horizons of the fashion-retail industry through the application of AI. With AIFT coming on board at ShanghaiTex, this side event was a jampacked one.

All in all, ShanghaiTex 2019 lived up to its catchword by "leading the change" and "inspiring the future."

This article was first published in the November 2019 edition of the print magazine.