Over 300 delegates attend Fuze Fashion Technology 2017

Over 300 delegates from Singapore, Southeast Asia, Korea, China, the US and South Africa attended the first ever Fuze Fashion Technology 2017 that was recently held in Singapore. The event sought to explore and offer new insights into some of the exciting opportunities for businesses to drive future innovation and business growth through the use of technology.

The summit was organised by Taff and presented by Decoded Fashion with the support of International Enterprise (IE) Singapore, Singapore Tourism Board, Infocomm Media Development Authority, DesignSingapore Council and Workforce Singapore. Mark Lee, president of the Textile and Fashion Federation (Taff) & CEO of Textile and Fashion Federation, had inaugurated the event.

“The fashion and retail industry is undergoing extensive structural changes globally and the shift towards e-commerce has forced many brand owners to adapt and change the way they run their business,” said Lee.
Giles Cummings, Managing Director of Decoded Fashion, said, "Opportunities are abound in Southeast Asia, it is essential not only to embrace the consumer-facing challenges but the B2B innovation opportunities as well. Bring together experts and professionals from both upstream and downstream segments of the fashion value chain to address the increasing urgency for 'fashion immediacy' in both manufacturing and retail."

Illustrating this opportunity was Adrian Leu, CEO of Inition, who presented the Opening Keynote on Virtual Change: Tech + digital Transformation. Leu posed a valuable question about the growth opportunities that technology provides, especially in consideration of immersive technology and business transformation, through the use of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are new media platforms, which would make it possible to bring different strands of media into one single space thereby enhancing the front-end, consumer facing experience, allowing for non-linear storytelling as well as greater involvement and empathy on the part of the consumers.

"As the fashion cycle shortens in response to consumer's growing preference for instant made-to-measure products, there is an increasing necessity for the fashion industry to move closer to its customers with the help of technology. This puts into question the persisting tendency of the industry to move production globally in search of more economic means of production. This traditional production methodology essentially moves production further away from customers at the expense of meeting the customer's need for immediacy," said Joachim Hensch, Managing Director of Hugo Boss Textile Industries.

To mitigate such changes in consumer habits, Hensch proposed that companies rethink traditional multi-level manufacturing methodologies and to instead, adopt technology which will increase agility.

Exemplifying this fashion and technology integration is the second edition of FashionisTech, an initiative by Taff, in collaboration with IE Singapore, which aims to promote the advancement in material innovation and creative partnerships with the use of technology amongst Singapore fashion companies.

Inspired by their belief in children's penchant for adventures, Curiosity introduced a range of high quality clothing for children, which offers high tech UV protection of up to a UPF rating of 50+.

In another show of technological ingenuity, local label Chainless Brain – Alverina Wijaya – collaborated with 3D Printing Studio for her Series 2 collection.