Staying on the cutting edge of textiles grows more challenging by the day. While tried-and-true traditions are still our guideposts, eyes on the future are invaluable as our industry continues to evolve. Three influential members of the textile industry – Apurba Banerjee, Christina Rapa, and Robert Hinsch – offered their thoughts on facets of fabrics and the future. Each took a different track, as Apurba discussed workforce aspects, Christina talked technology, and Robert’s view is on vinyl.
Building the Talent Pipeline
Dr. Apurba Banerjee is a textile research scientist with Standard Textile and her focus areas include smart textiles, functional fabrics, testing, sustainability, and more. Her experience is a combination of technical, educational, and practical, and she has a passion for networking. She says the talent pipeline – especially during the current “silver tsunami” in which many of the industries most experienced employees are retiring – is at an inflection point.
“There is quite literally a gap between new talent that’s coming into the industry and the experienced talent,” Apurba says, “and I think the last couple of decades really have been a testament of how people are really trying to make sure to pull up students who come out of universities that are studying textiles. They want to make sure they stay in the industry.”
She says some of her colleagues have entered the textile industry, only to receive an MBA and move on to something else. “Because of the lack of that connection and flexibility when it comes to a strategic recruitment or young professional retention, the industry has seen a wide gap between the new talent that’s coming in and experienced talent that’s been there forever.”
Apurba suggests companies take a more skills-focused approach to attract and retain new talent:
“For example, when I was doing my PhD, I was really curious about sustainability and I was curious about how biodegradable plastics work in the real world… I had a passion of public speaking. I loved telling people about textiles. I loved telling people about materials. So my very first job out of my PhD, they were like, you know what? You be the communicator of our technology. You break it down to the clients.” She went on customer visits and built her confidence in the subject matter and stoked her passion for textiles that remains palpable.
Dipping Into Digital
Christina Rapa is a new product development engineer with W.L. Gore & Associates. Her career is built around being on the cutting edge of fabrics and includes stops at brands including Nike, Victoria’s Secret, American Eagle Outfitters, Coach, and Urban Outfitters. She’s worked with 3D fabrics for years and is a proponent of adopting the use of this technology in all steps of fabric production: from development to fitting.
Christina’s company now offers physical versions of textiles along with the digital files to speed along development and decision-making. “They could feel it, the little tiny Swatch, and then they can start designing virtually right away.”
She has worked with technology that will scan and map textiles to allow users to put it through its paces virtually. “It gives you the color, it gives you the displacement, the roughness of the textile,” she says. “Then once you put that into your 3D design software, you can actually create pile fabrics or, you know, really textured surfaces that you might not be able to do with a traditional scanner. And then with physical testing, you can go either two ways. You can do all of the traditional machines that are in your QA lab, which is what I have up here, or you could purchase a textile testing kit from one of the software companies.”
These “digital twins” are being used more frequently and could even find more footing in the future at the laboratory, development, business-to-business, and customer levels, she says. Both Christina and Apurba are guests on future editions of The Textile Nerd Podcast, a brief, multi-episode exploration of textile knowledge and curiosities.
Longview of Vinyl
Our own Vice President of Business Development Robert Hinsch weighed in on the future of one of TVF’s signature fabric categories: vinyl. In a TVFInc.com blog post, Robert discussed concepts like using stronger, more durable scrims like Tyvek to improve material strength and staying power, bioplastics or compostable components, lighter weight/less environmentally-impactful materials, and enhanced formulations.
