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Textile professional Donielle Lorelli shares career tips
March 1st, 2025
Photography by Julia Romee If serendipity is the spot where preparation meets opportunity, then Donielle Lorelli knows how to leverage these opportunities for success. “I feel like I lucked into being a part of the textile industry,” says Lorelli, product manager, textiles, for National Industries for the Blind (NIB). “I enjoy the various reactions that […]
ADVANCED TEXTILES EXPO 2024: Highlights from Anaheim
December 1st, 2024
Advanced Textiles Expo returned to Anaheim, Calif., this year, highlighting the unique West Coast textile industry and plenty of recent innovations. A bevy of new events helped bring energy to the show. LEGO® networking events, part of the new NextGen Takeover Day, brought together industry veterans and the next generation of textile professionals. The Women’s […]
Luxe packaging made from cotton textile waste
October 1st, 2024
Paper made from pre-consumer cotton scraps is recycled into packaging such as gift bags (above), decorative storage bins, journals, biodegradable urns, desk sets and gift boxes by Preserve Brands. The products support jobs for papermaking artisans in rural areas in India. Image: Preserve Brands Preserve Brands of Charlestown, Mass., has released Idealitee™, luxury cotton paper […]
Artificial intelligence in textile patterns and sizing
September 1st, 2024
Seonyoung Youn, Ph.D., speaking at Advanced Textiles Expo in 2023 as a doctoral student about her research into using artificial intelligence to create digital patterns that better represent real-world fabric draping behavior. Image: © Mark Skalny Photography/Jacob Tyler Dunn A lot of uncertainty surrounds artificial intelligence (AI). What are its limitations? How many human jobs will […]
How far textile finishes have come
August 1st, 2024
Graniteville Specialty Fabrics began as a Graniteville Mill division producing coated striped awning fabrics, as in this 1947 photo showing a festoon oven range. Image: Graniteville Specialty Fabrics Fabric coatings and finishes have played a role in iconic pieces of America’s past and, with new technology, are poised to play a role in a more […]
2024 State of the Textile Industry
June 1st, 2024
Each year, Advanced Textiles Association (ATA) surveys the readers of all of its publications, members and nonmembers both, to take the pulse of the current state of our industry. The survey asks questions on business sizes, revenue projections and recent sales context, top concerns, future plans, and a bit about the many different markets that […]
Industry advocacy efforts keep textile business in the U.S.
May 1st, 2024
These coyote brown shelters used in U.S. Marine Corp deployments worldwide were made by U.S. manufacturer UTS Systems of PVC coated polyester made in America by Seaman Corp. Image: Seaman/UTS Systems The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and other government agencies use many products made from specialty fabrics. They include military uniforms, straps, netting, tents […]
Renewed strength in domestic manufacturing
November 1st, 2023
Advanced economies are now serious about boosting their manufacturing. In the U.S., textile market opportunities include high-end segments such as medical, aerospace, defense and infrastructure. Image: Dreamstime Since the pandemic, the world economy has been full of anomalies. With a strong labor market, one normally expects higher demand in daily nonessentials such as clothing, home […]
The role of fabric, shade in reducing embodied carbon
August 1st, 2023
Using the Adaptive Reuse strategy, FTL Design Engineering Studio retrofitted an unused baseball stadium in Bridgeport, Conn., to reduce embodied carbon with an all-fabric roof and signature entry marquee. The ROI was a tenfold increase in tickets sold vs. the original baseball team. Photo: Carl B. Vernlund Photography By now it is standard baseline that […]
Getting new products manufactured and into the marketplace
August 1st, 2023
Air Force Research Laboratory scientists have discovered a unique stretchable conductor that uses a polymerized liquid metal network. Photo: Second Bay Studios This year’s Smart Fabric Summit was again organized by the Advanced Textiles Association (ATA) and the Wilson College of Textiles, North Carolina State University (NC State) in Raleigh, N.C., and took place in […]