Functional textiles fair, this time to focus on wool

PERFORMANCE DAYS functional fabric fair the first event of its kind created as a special platform for functional sports- and workwear fabrics to include yarns, finishes, and accessories. The next edition of functional textiles fair Performance Days is set to host a range of sustainability seminars following the previous show’s record number of visitors. This time fair, has adopted the tagline “a responsible approach to wool”, featuring sustainable concepts for pure virgin and merino wool.

The bi-annual event also showcases functional fabrics, coatings and membranes, lining and padding materials, and seminar speakers include Kurt Schlaepfer, senior manager at bluesign technologies, who will discuss the ‘power of bluesign wool’, along with Stefan Posner, senior researcher at Swerea – the Oeko-Tex certifying lab for Norway and Sweden – to talk about perfluorinated substances in the European textile industry.

According to show organizers, Merino is booming – in sports and in fashion. At the same time, critical voices are getting louder and hardliners are demanding the abandonment of wool in clothing while denouncing its production and processing. This is currently a hot topic and has never before been prepared for the textile industry to the extent it has been for Performance Days.

The aim is to encourage exhibitors and visitors to act more responsibly and sustainably in the management of animals, environment and products. Natural materials used in clothing have come under fire recently: The painful practice of mulesing of merino sheep or the use of poisonous chlorine to bleach the wool is harmful to the animals and the environment,” they added.

Participating as an exhibitor at PERFORMANCE DAYS, textile producers have the opportunity to make new contacts and gain deals with nearly all European sportswear brands.

The Performance Days trade fair will be held 28–29 April 2015 at TC World of Fashion, Munich, Germany. The frequency of the trade show is twice a year.