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Proud of its avant-garde sustainable innovation and its position as the leading European supplier of bed and bath linen, the Portuguese textile industry brought to Heimtextil’s 50th edition a large From Portugal entourage, a total of 78 Portuguese companies spread through 5,800 square meters of exhibition space.
As a novelty, the Green Circle Showcase, a partnership with CITEVE and Associação Selectiva Moda. This year focused on home textiles, this third space joined the traditional two Portuguese Home Tex’Style forums.
After a half-speed start that left Heimtextil’s devoid of people when compared to previous editions, the Portuguese presence was a proof that the sustainability flag is a consistent and consequent reality.
“Last year there was already some bet on sustainability, but this year we see that the offer is more massive and consolidated. In this field, our companies are at the forefront”, highlighted the Portuguese Secretary of State for Economy, João Correia das Neves, who insisted on visiting and supporting the Portuguese exhibitors.
An avant-garde well represented in stands such as Lasa’s, which presented the Natura Collection, an organic cotton home textile brand which uses fruits, vegetables and minerals to create their colour palette. Therefore, pink is supplied by beets, beige by almonds and rosemary, the orange colour is guaranteed by the orange itself, and the greenish tone is given by palm trees.
To avoid any doubts, Lasa attaches to its products a label with a chip, which attests that Natura Collection products have been dyed with natural colourants, ensuring that the consumer is not buying cat for hare.
Surfing the same wave is Lameirinho, which travelled to Frankfurt with Ecolam, a project in which the company’s own textile waste is recovered in order to create new raw material. At the fair, which runs until the end of today, the company, which so far is only working on recovering cotton waste, presented a full bed dressed in raw material made from its industrial waste, and the feedback could not have been better.
“At this stage we are assessing the customers’ feedback. We had pre-presentations in France and in the American market, where a customer expressed a lot of interest in our new concept. We are very confident because the demand for sustainable products is still growing, ” says Tânia Lima, in charge of Lameirinho’s Marketing department, adding that all of Ecolam’s research and development was an inside job.
“Because we care about sustainability, we brought to Frankfurt a collection made with organic cotton, yarn made from recycled fibres, blends with hemp and bamboo, as well as fabrics with dyed with natural colourants,” says Simão Moreira Gomes, Sampedro’s president, regarding the offer brought to Frankfurt to celebrate Heimtextil’s 50th birthday.
Linen, mixtures of linen with cotton and 100% cotton are also present in Sampedro’s collection, which covers the bed, table and bath segments, in a variety of contexts and different compositions.
And even the pet owners were not forgotten by the From Portugal entourage. Dogs and cats are the main beneficiaries of the MoreTextile group’s green wave, which presented at Heimtextil its For Friends line of functional products exclusively dedicated to domestic animals. The beds, blankets and other accessories have three purposes: soothing (soaked with CBO, a cannabis extract with calming and anti-stress effects), anti-allergic (made with natural organism-based tissue that prevents asthma and other allergic reactions), and anti-odour (with a treatment that absorbs scents).
“Our approach to sustainability challenges is a loop that involves innovation, design, scientific analysis and creative solutions,” explains Artur Soutinho, MoreTextile CEO.