Intertek Hong Kong Brings Textile Innovations to Life

08 Apr 2019

Enabling our customers to capture the New Era of Textile Innovation

As a pioneer in safety and quality assurance innovation for the textile industry, Intertek Hong Kong stands alone in giving extra impetus to industry stakeholders through new services and impactful events.

On Mar 21, Intertek Hong Kong held a half-day event at The Mills Fabrica, themed “How can You Capture the New Era of Textile Innovation?”, which brought together innovative minds and solutions from around the world to brief our customers and other industry participants on the latest innovations in the textile industry and to inject new ideas for their own business growth.

Our key guest speaker was Ms. Jaana Jätyri, Founder and CEO of Trendstop, a London-based trend forecasting agency that enables businesses to identify and apply fashion trends correctly for their target customers so that they can create profitable collections and avoid losing time, money or resources on products that don’t sell.

Other speakers were Ms. Yan Chan, Director, Business Development of The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (formerly a Merchandising Manager for Ralph Lauren, responsible for global sourcing, cost planning, merchandising, and material and product development) and Mr. Hervé Haubursin, Marketing Manager of TG3D Studio, a leading fashion tech company that focuses on revamping the current retail industry by offering digital solutions benefiting brands and manufacturers for more on-demand manufacturing and mass-customization.

The event began with a welcome speech from Patrick S. Lee, EVP, Intertek North East Asia and Australia, who explained how product design has shifted from OEM (where a manufacturer designs products according to the requirement of the buyer) to ODM (where a manufacturer creates products according to their own specifications).

This was followed by Ms. Carine Pin, Co-Director of our venue sponsor The Mills Fabrica, who introduced the Mills which acts a business incubator of creativity and innovation for the Hong Kong textile industry.

With inspiring ideas and insights from our specially chosen speakers, some one hundred participants learned strategies for using global fashion trends for profit and avoiding ‘fake trends’ that kill sales. The event also revealed latest research being carried out by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel and provided details of 3D body scanning technology for innovative clothing manufacturing.

Participants then had a chance to visit the Fabrica Lab, an innovative space with world-class facilities for prototyping and innovating. Intertek Hong Kong acts as a sponsor of the Fabrica Lab by donating equipment that matches the purpose of the Lab.

The event was very well received by all participants and, with our strategy to move up the value chain to work with our customers’ design and R&D departments, we will continue to organize innovative events to widen our exposure to the new target segment.