Archroma is a global colour and specialty chemicals company headquartered in Reinach near Basel, Switzerland. It operates with 3,000 employees across 35 countries and in 24 production sites. Its three businesses-brand and performance textile specialties; packaging and paper specialties; and coatings, adhesives and sealants-deliver specialised performance and colour solutions. Marketing head Nuria Estape shares details about the company's latest innovations in an interview with Fibre2Fashion.
Please tell us in brief about your company.
Archroma is a Switzerland-based chemical manufacturing company that produces dyes and chemicals. However, for our textiles business unit, the headquarter is in Singapore. Archroma was established in 2013, after we took over the business of Clariant. We have 25 production plants across the world.
What new did you launch at ITMA 2019? Please share a few details.
At ITMA, we showed four innovations and 24 systems solutions. We wanted to inform our customers that we have different solutions for different segments of the market like denims and casuals; outdoor and activewear; home textiles, automotive and transportation; fashion and formalwear; and workwear and uniforms. We have launched a very innovative product for denim and casuals named Diresul Smartdenim Blue. It is a kind of clone of the indigo dye, but it can be applied in a more efficient way. For instance, if the denim jeans are dark coloured, it will stay dark coloured across its life cycle. We also launched Diresul Indigo Pure, which is aniline-free. We are the first company in the world offering aniline-free indigo dye.
For printing, we exhibited a new sustainable binder, which can be applied at lower temperatures. For sports, we recently launched a new range of disperse dyes called SP. These dyes have been developed considering the high performance needed in sportswear. The last innovation we had was for coating, which is a polyurethane-based coating and has flame-retardant properties. This innovation has applications for public places like seats, etc. We are concentrating on products that are safe to use, release and wear and can be applied in an efficient way and thereby, save resources and add value to the final products.
What is your opinion of ITMA when compared with other textile machinery exhibitions in other countries?
For us, ITMA is a great platform to promote our innovations. Our stalls have been crowded with customers every day and they come from all over the world. (HO)
Published on: 16/08/2019
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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