About Future Fashion Factory
Future Fashion Factory represents LITAC’s engagement mechanism for the fashion and textile industry. It develops advanced digital and textile technologies to transform the industry’s agility in the luxury fashion design process, and ability to shift to circular economies.
Our innovative design and manufacturing advances will address the need for increased competitiveness and productivity in luxury fashion designer products by:
- Shortening product development cycles and lead times to increase agility.
- Designing the right product, for the right customer at the right time, reducing waste.
- Shifting from linear to circular economies, reducing waste costs and creating new business models.
- Developing STEAM-based fashion designers capable of exploiting new textile and digital technologies as part of the creative design process
The industry is changing rapidly: digitisation across the value chain is increasing, there is a proliferation of data, and an accelerated pace that pushes the limits from design to shelf – including increasing demands for personalisation of products. Direct-to-consumer engagement is also important for luxury brands, strategically focusing innovation in end-to-end customer service and experience. The capability to digitally connect with fashion consumers across the globe has never been greater. At the same time, consciousness is growing of issues surrounding the environmental sustainability of the fashion industry, particularly levels of waste.
Future Fashion Factory is an industry-led collaborative research pullar, linking the textile design and manufacturing centres within the Leeds City Region with the creative design and retail centre of London. It brings together expertise from ten core industry partners, with many more forming a wider network spanning design, manufacturing and retail in the UK.