Esmetex, a leader in producing and sourcing fabric, has introduced Frontier, an online platform designed to digitise the fabric supply chain from creative fabric development, to the inspection process, to 3D garment design. The Frontier digital platform can cut the creative development cycle by more than two weeks, effectively collecting and organising information from the supply chain, according to the company.

The Frontier platform is designed to streamline creative development for the textiles industry. © Esmetex

The Frontier platform is currently one of the largest databases of searchable online fabrics in the world, containing more than 18,000 fabrics from Esmetex’s own mill and the 25 mills under their management. It is growing at 1,000 items per month, with expected exponential growth with every brand that joins the digital community.

Prior to this roll out, Esmetex used the database internally. With this introduction, the company plans to work with national brands and retailers to add their fabrics from additional mill partners, creating an integrated solution where all customers’ vendor fabric collections and libraries are available in one place digitally at the click of a mouse.

Gentle revolution

“We don’t intend to be disruptive, instead we want to be part of a gentle revolution that advances the whole industry,” said Victor Chao, founder of Esmetex and Esmetex Frontier. “We aim to simplify the fabric development process; no more looking through swatch boxes and shipping swatches back and forth. It’s not practical for a designer to search through 18,000 fabric swatches when Frontier can search based on whatever criteria the user is interested in and return all relevant fabric information on one page. This can be done on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone by accessing our website or by installing our app.”

Fabric designers and developers at a brand or retailer can use the platform to image search, find similar items via AI or search by description, blend, colour, end use, pantone colour number, pattern or weight. The resulting fabrics include all fabric details and available sample yardage, which can be ordered directly from the platform via a mobile device.

Environmental advantage

A consequent advantage of the system is the environmental aspect, the company points out. Using fabrics that already exist, rather than manufacturing unnecessary yardage, reduces the use of harmful chemicals and dyestuffs, saving precious resources. Brands and retailers can also manage fabric quality control through the fully digitised Frontier platform.

“The digital textiles industry is new and growing,” added Mr Chao. “Previously only occupied by PLM software companies, now more players are emerging, such as 3D design tools, digital materials, 3D file convert technology, and quality compliance platforms; now it’s easier to find an end to end solution. Software solution companies tend to stay away from factories, but Esmetex sees it as a unique opportunity. We offer the fastest way to move suppliers’ items online and intend to occupy this foundational industry position so other applications can be built on top - like the basic infrastructure of a city.”

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