Trends in Sustainable Design at Germany’s Heimtextil Trade Fair
The 2020 edition of the world’s largest home textiles industry show highlighted real solutions to environmental problems
Heimtextil, the world’s largest trade fair for home textiles, marked its 50th anniversary this year. While celebrating its successful history, the Frankfurt, Germany, fair also looked to the future with new decorative fabrics, trendy wallpapers and chic textiles that will bring something different to our homes. It also looked to the environment with an emphasis on sustainable products among the exhibitors and a new sustainability manifesto from the fair’s organizers.
Trend and color experts from Stijlinstituut Amsterdam, the London studio Franklin Till and Danish agency SPOTT put together a walk-through trend book in the fair’s Trend Space, which was organized around five themed areas.
“Textile waste is not just a problem in the fashion industry,” Amy Radcliffe, insight editor at Franklin Till, said in her lecture Radical Matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future. “The entire textile industry has to be more responsible. And we all need to think more about what materials we want to have in our homes and how we deal with them. Our previous behavior is no longer acceptable. While we’re running out of raw materials, we’re also producing huge amounts of waste.”
“Textile waste is not just a problem in the fashion industry,” Amy Radcliffe, insight editor at Franklin Till, said in her lecture Radical Matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future. “The entire textile industry has to be more responsible. And we all need to think more about what materials we want to have in our homes and how we deal with them. Our previous behavior is no longer acceptable. While we’re running out of raw materials, we’re also producing huge amounts of waste.”
The trends overview included a material library of innovative, sustainable fibers.
One Solution: Waste as a Resource
Innovative designers and manufacturers showed what good materials of the future, alternative production systems and material cycles can look like, in the material exhibit Future Material Library, set up by London trend agency Franklin Till.
One Solution: Waste as a Resource
Innovative designers and manufacturers showed what good materials of the future, alternative production systems and material cycles can look like, in the material exhibit Future Material Library, set up by London trend agency Franklin Till.
The exhibits included:
- Materials grown like fruits and vegetables. For example, Malai, pictured, is a material produced in a laboratory by bacteria “fed” with waste coconut water. After a finishing and drying process, it yields a kind of bio-pulp reminiscent of tear-resistant paper or synthetic leather.
- Alternative fabric dye. Faber Futures uses bacteria that produce natural color pigments and nontoxic chemicals to create less-polluting fabric dye. The results are pictured here.
- Materials made from food waste. Orange Fiber produces fabric spun from the remains of oranges used for juicing. So far it’s been used only for clothing fabric, but it could also be used to produce delicate curtains and other decorative fabrics.
- Hay and wildflowers pressed into scented wallpaper. Austrian manufacturer Organoid brings nature into houses by pressing hay, wildflowers and moss into wafer-thin pieces that are applied to a substrate such as flax nonwoven fabric, particleboard or adhesive film. Hay wallpaper offers not only a visual and tactile experience but also an olfactory one, as it smells of wildflowers and hay. “How long the smell lasts on the surface is significantly affected by the raw material, but also where it’s used — that is, a bedroom versus a shopping center — as well as personal, subjective feeling. Every nose is different,” Organoid CEO Martin Jehart says. “Our strongly scented surfaces hold their scents from a few months to a year.”
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Fibers and fabrics made from recycled plastic were omnipresent at Heimtextil, as seen here at the booth of the Spanish textile manufacturer Hispano Tex.
Recycling Is Good, but Waste-Free Is Better
Many manufacturers seem to have woken up to environmental issues: Visitors at Heimtextil were presented with a seemingly endless array of materials made from recycled plastic bottles and textile waste. This saves limited natural resources because new products are created from waste. However, it’s not necessarily environmentally friendly, as chemicals and a large amount of energy may be necessary to turn the waste into a textile.
Manufacturer Deco Design Fürus of Krefeld, Germany, has found another way. Company owner and textile expert Manuel Schweizer spent seven years researching a method that goes beyond the usual recycling processes. He ultimately came across the cradle-to-cradle principle, in which the materials in a product are reused at the end of its life, and no waste is produced at all.
Recycling Is Good, but Waste-Free Is Better
Many manufacturers seem to have woken up to environmental issues: Visitors at Heimtextil were presented with a seemingly endless array of materials made from recycled plastic bottles and textile waste. This saves limited natural resources because new products are created from waste. However, it’s not necessarily environmentally friendly, as chemicals and a large amount of energy may be necessary to turn the waste into a textile.
Manufacturer Deco Design Fürus of Krefeld, Germany, has found another way. Company owner and textile expert Manuel Schweizer spent seven years researching a method that goes beyond the usual recycling processes. He ultimately came across the cradle-to-cradle principle, in which the materials in a product are reused at the end of its life, and no waste is produced at all.
Deco Design Fürus received the gold Cradle to Cradle certification for its OceanSafe collection. Qualification for these certifications is evaluated by independent assessors. The requirements are high because the entire product and manufacturing cycle is examined.
At Heimtextil, Deco Design Fürus displayed a small collection of bed linens, towels, curtains and decorative fabrics under its OceanSafe label. The products are both organic and compostable. After use, they don’t have to be thrown in the trash or laboriously recycled; instead, microorganisms convert them back into biomass. This is also what happens to these products naturally in the soil or the ocean. This solves the problem of plastic’s long half-life. Even the line’s synthetic fibers, produced from petroleum, break down in this biological process.
In addition, the company is now using food waste to make curtains and bed covers. “If only good ‘ingredients’ come in at the beginning, then only good waste will come out at the end,” Schweizer says.
At Heimtextil, Deco Design Fürus displayed a small collection of bed linens, towels, curtains and decorative fabrics under its OceanSafe label. The products are both organic and compostable. After use, they don’t have to be thrown in the trash or laboriously recycled; instead, microorganisms convert them back into biomass. This is also what happens to these products naturally in the soil or the ocean. This solves the problem of plastic’s long half-life. Even the line’s synthetic fibers, produced from petroleum, break down in this biological process.
In addition, the company is now using food waste to make curtains and bed covers. “If only good ‘ingredients’ come in at the beginning, then only good waste will come out at the end,” Schweizer says.
CO2-Adjusted Pricing for Furniture and Home Decor?
In her lecture Climate Consumerism, trend researcher and CEO of SPOTT Anja Bisgaard Gaede suggested that the green zeitgeist will set the tone for the next decade.
“Yes, consumers are starting to rethink and take more responsibility for our environment. Manufacturers are responding to this with innovative, more environmentally friendly materials,” she said. “But wouldn’t it also be more logical to price products based on their carbon footprint?” Products that pollute less or not at all would be cheaper than environmentally harmful ones. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true today.
Therefore, until the day when we can place carbon price tags on furniture and home accessories, we will hopefully pay more attention to the sustainability of the fabrics in our homes — for the planet’s sake.
Tell us: What are you doing to be more sustainable in your business? What products do you think should be made more sustainable? Share your thoughts and ideas in the Comments.
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In her lecture Climate Consumerism, trend researcher and CEO of SPOTT Anja Bisgaard Gaede suggested that the green zeitgeist will set the tone for the next decade.
“Yes, consumers are starting to rethink and take more responsibility for our environment. Manufacturers are responding to this with innovative, more environmentally friendly materials,” she said. “But wouldn’t it also be more logical to price products based on their carbon footprint?” Products that pollute less or not at all would be cheaper than environmentally harmful ones. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true today.
Therefore, until the day when we can place carbon price tags on furniture and home accessories, we will hopefully pay more attention to the sustainability of the fabrics in our homes — for the planet’s sake.
Tell us: What are you doing to be more sustainable in your business? What products do you think should be made more sustainable? Share your thoughts and ideas in the Comments.
More for Pros on Houzz
Read more stories for pros
Browse millions of photos for inspiration
Talk with your peers in the Pro-to-Pro discussions