On Tuesday evening, April 23, the Fashion Council Germany, together with Messe Frankfurt, invited guests to a fireside dinner in Frankfurt am Main on the occasion of Techtextil and Texprocess. From April 23 to 26, the global textile industry will meet and look together at the future of the industry. The evening was a fitting conclusion to the first day of the trade fair and served as the official opening dinner. The 60 invited guests from fashion, business and politics as well as local press representatives came together to network and exchange ideas between the different industries. Relevant industry trends, groundbreaking research milestones and new technologies were also discussed.

Fashion Council Germany CEO Scott Lipinski welcomed the guests in a short speech and thanked Messe Frankfurt for years of cooperation. He emphasized the relevance of the trade fair formats and how important the innovative development of the industry is. Detlef Braun, Managing Director of Messe Frankfurt, then added: “With 1,700 exhibitors from 53 countries, Techtextil and Texprocess have got off to an excellent start. During these four days, Frankfurt is an enabler for research, digitization and automation, networking and cooperation on a global level. The leading trade fairs drive innovations across industries and make them marketable. This also applies to the future-oriented topic of AI: Artificial intelligence is no longer just a buzzword and does not only affect the fashion industry. Techtextil and Texprocess accompany the global textile industry in this process and provide innovative textile solutions."

Guests from the Rhine-Main and Rhine-Neckar regions came together in the Margarete restaurant, including the designers Otto Drögsler and Jörg Ehrlich from Odeeh, Mario Keine from MARKE, Anja Gockel and René Storck as well as Silke Emig and Markus Gotta from TextilWirtschaft, Alfons Kaiser from FAZ, Tanja Vojkic from eBay Germany, Hakan Temür from The Listener and board member Olaf Schmidt from Messe Frankfurt.

The FCG networking format “Firesidechat” has been taking place in various major cities in Germany since 2018 and regularly brings together the most important industry representatives for an exchange.