he advancement strategy of the Portuguese Textile and Clothing Industry (TCI) until 2030 lies on four fundamental pillars: innovation (technological and non-technological, i.e., creativity and design), internationalization, digitalization and sustainability.

These will be the catalyst shaping the fashion rank in Portugal for the following decade, so it remains simultaneously modern and competitive, which is to say unrivalled on a global scale. They are all intertwined, more or less explicitly, yet complex and intentional.

Designing, conceiving and manufacturing new products means projecting differentiated proposals in fashion and design, within an ever-present framework of holistic sustainability and privileging the new channels of business, amongst companies or with the final consumer, who is choosing digital as the main consumption platform, leading to the reinvention of brick-and-mortar business.

However, if we had to pick one catalyst for the sector’s future growth, we would undoubtedly choose sustainability.

As a matter of fact, these principles permeate the TCI’s value chain and fashion in general, on a global scale, from raw material production to manufacturing and consumption. New generations have assimilated those values, in which environmental, social and economic sustainability is key, dragging it from the sphere of alternative and activism into a true all-influencing “mainstream”.

Starting with the consumers’ demand for products with zero impact on the environment, whose process respected the most basic social and human rights, and ending with the raw material and the transformation, manufacturing and transporting processes.

A new paradigm is rising, one in which circular economy will play a crucial role, forcing the industry to fully understand and embrace it as its own. It is a path in its earlier stages, fraught with difficulties, challenges, and opportunities alike, in which new technologies will be applied, including those that confirm the traceability and veracity of product certifications. For that is the consumers’ core demand, which the Portuguese TCI strongly supports and is ready to thoroughly fulfil.