The promoters of the “Fascinate” project are the Modacc Cluster, the Lifestyle & Design Cluster of Denmark, the Fashion Association of Bulgaria, the Cluster Têxtil Tecnológico e Moda of Portugal and the Digital Cluster of Catalonia.

Funded by the European program COSME, 650 European SMEs will benefit from this project.

For the first time, the textile-fashion sector and the digital technologies sector have started working side by side to be able to determine how, from the digital field, the needs of companies in the digital sector can be solved. fashion when they set out to sell to the world.

Can a technology like Blockchain facilitate product traceability? Can artificial intelligence help optimize stocks? What tools allow us to anticipate what the consumer wants? And which ones serve to lessen the environmental effects of the industry? Concretizing these and other issues is the aim of the European project Fascinate (Sustainable Fashion Alliance for International Markets), which will propose a joint internationalization strategy between the fashion, footwear and digital technologies sectors to go to international markets, focusing on sustainability. and circularity.

The Fascinate project, funded by the EU, is jointly promoted by five European clusters: the Catalan Fashion Cluster MODACC -which leads the project-, the Bulgarian entity Bulgarian Fashion Association, the Cluster "Lifestyle & Design Cluster" of Denmark, the Technological and Fashion Textile Cluster of Portugal and the Digital Cluster of Catalonia. Since September, the five institutions have been working to establish, within eighteen months, a joint strategy that will allow them to conquer new international markets thanks to new technologies.

A total of 650 companies will benefit from this project, mostly European SMEs in the fashion and footwear sector, which will be able to reach new markets through digital tools that have not been used so far in the fashion sector. such as blockchain or artificial intelligence, keys to be able to make product traceability and thus generate new value chains based on circularity and sustainability.

The project must serve to create a business model in the medium and long term, which means that the collaboration between the different institutions that are part of the Fascinate project will be extended over time and the work done will continue. The sum of the know-how of the companies in the fashion sector and the technological expertise must serve so that, from the interaction between the textile and digital world, a series of actions emerges where the digital environment helps the textile to solve its current problems and needs, such as cost optimization, reduced operating costs, and sustainability. The first sessions of joint work have focused on identifying these needs, seeing what technology can bring and how.

The Fascinate project is part of the European COSME program and is part of the “Go International Clusters” action, which seeks to encourage collaboration and joint work between clusters from different countries and sectoral areas to determine internationalization strategies. SMEs across Europe. The project has a budget of 222,000 euros, of which almost 90% -more than 190,000 euros- is provided by the European Union. All in all, the aim is for these 650 Catalan, Portuguese, Danish and Bulgarian companies to be able to build cooperation networks with third countries and access international markets.

Circularity and sustainability, the most immediate challenges

The textile and fashion industry has been working for some time so that the necessary process of internationalization that companies in the sector have to go through is accompanied by differentiating aspects, such as circularity and sustainability. It is on the basis of these elements that European companies want to identify themselves and position themselves in international markets.

In this sense, the alliance with technology clusters will allow them to move towards Industry 4.0 and go far beyond implementing e-commerce, as they will be able to incorporate elements such as traceability or stock optimization in this process of international sales through technologies such as Blockchain or artificial intelligence. Traceability is key to guaranteeing the circularity and sustainability of the production, distribution and sales process, and thus being able to generate new value chains.

The textile-fashion and footwear sector is mainly looking for tools that allow them to reduce costs and be more profitable, and this means anticipating what the consumer wants, being able to be more efficient in managing stocks and more agile in responsiveness, establish communication between all elements of the value chain, remove bureaucracies and remove barriers to import and export. In addition, they want to reduce the harmful environmental effects of the industry and move firmly towards sustainability.

On their side,  the technology clusters have long been working to identify business opportunities in key sectors, such as textiles and fashion, and to stimulate possible technological demand in new sectors. The Fascinate project is therefore strategic for both sectors.

Eighteen months of hard work

Although the Fascinate project (Sustainable Fashion Alliance for International Markets) started in September, the formal start of the project, which had to be delayed due to the pandemic, will soon be held in Bulgaria. It is confirmed that, as part of the project, about fifteen fashion companies will participate in the Berlin Fashion Week, scheduled for January 2021. In the coming months there will be a workshop in Barcelona and at the end of the project an event of closure in a country yet to be determined. In total, in this first phase, the project envisages a length of 18 months.

The Fascinate partnership is composed by:

Modacc - Clúster Català de la Moda i el Textil - www.modacc.cat

Bulgarian Fashion Association - www.bgfa.eu

Cluster Têxtil Tecnológico e Moda (Portugal) - www.clustertextil.pt

Lifestyle & Design Cluster (Dinamarca) - www.ldcluster.com

Associació Clúster Digital de Catalunya - www.clusterdigital.cat

Contact:

Email:    fascinate@modacc.cat

Twitter: @FascinateEu

Linkedin: fascinate-eu