PRESS RELEASE
Today the 57th Filo edition – the International Exhibition of Yarns and Fibres – opens at Mi.Co – Milan Convention Centre (via Gattamelata 5). The fair will end tomorrow, on February the 24th, 2022. Filo is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. during the first day and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the second one.
The products shown at Filo consist in yarns, fibres, materials, finishing and high-quality treatments for top-of-the-range products’ industry produced by the companies focused on sustainability, research, and innovation.
Yarns, fibres, and materials are shown in an exhibiting area designed to highlight its functionalities and clarity, strengthened by the presence of two Trend Areas.
Alongside the general Trend Area, where all exhibiting paths merge, the Sustainability Area arises, reserved to ‘green’ proposals by the exhibitors participating in FiloFlow project, the sustainability project of Filo.
‘Un Filo per la maglia’ comes back in a larger and more strategic area, the one exclusively dedicated to knitwear, to give prominence to yarns for knitting. Already in September, the exhibitors really appreciated this initiative. Now ‘Un Filo per la maglia’ comes back through a wider and more structured area, thanks to the great variety in creative and stimulating materials, proposed by the exhibitors.
The floor is also given to fibres, in a supply chain model, with the participation of the world leading companies in the production of man-made natural and synthetic fibres: Asahi Kasei, RadiciGroup and Lenzing, alongside with the nobler and more versatile fibres: wool with Woolmark and the Italian Wool Trade Association, and linen with Celc-Linen Dream Lab.
Education and sustainability represent the fil rouge along the whole fair.
Education is essential for current and future’s textile industry. The issue is faced in an extensive way through the round table ‘Believe in young people’, which opens the 57th edition of Filo (at 10.30 a.m., Trend Area) with the participation of the real protagonists: young entrepreneurs and managers.
Another fundamental issue for textile and apparel industry is sustainability: we will discuss about it and under different perspectives during the ‘Dialoghi di Confronto’ which will be held in the Networking Area with a rich agenda.
Being aware that believing in young people is necessary, for this edition too, Filo hosts ITS-TAM Biella, which brings ‘Il mare sulla pelle’ (‘The sea on the skin’), a capsule collection totally carried out by the students.
At the entrance, to welcome visitors, there is the prestigious installation by Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto in collaboration with a company from Biella: a suspended Third Paradise, which comes alive through visitor’s engagement.
Paolo Monfermoso, Responsible for Filo, states: «Today we start with the 57th Filo edition, that after two years is physically held, as February’s edition. I would like to thank all exhibitors – both Italian and foreign – for trusting Filo, which had remained bound to its mission, even during difficult and uncertain times. Figures about buyers’ pre-registration are positive and enable us to look to these two days of fair with confidence.
We are particularly satisfied for welcoming a numerous delegation of foreign buyers, coming from France, the U.K., Belgium, Ukraine, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Indonesia, Chile, Peru, and Mexico, which has been made possible thanks to the strong collaboration with ITA-Agency.
The experience resulting from last two years, proved that for the products such as the ones exhibited at Filo, the physically held fair is paramount and decisive for understanding the value of our companies’ products, as well as the direct and personal meetings between exhibitor and customer. Today, however, thanks to technology, the fair can rely on a prolongation throughout the year. The success of “e-Filo: 365 Days of Yarns”, our marketplace, really appreciated by exhibitors and buyers, has further confirmed it.
Digital marketplace does not represent just the way Filo is looking to the future of our industry; we have decided to dedicate the round table for the inauguration of the 57th Filo edition to young people and education. ‘Believe in young people’ gives the floor to young entrepreneurs and managers who decided to work within textile-apparel-fashion and accessories industry. It is a new entrepreneurial generation that addresses to younger people to explain them the satisfaction coming from a job that in each season finds out new stimuli, where craftmanship, a well-done job, creativity and passion still play a fundamental role.
We are then taking up again the issue we are really caring for: dexterity, touch, feeling the quality of our textile products first-hand. This is a theme on which Filo had already focused its attention last year, through the series of video interviews ‘Con le mani’.»
Monfermoso concludes: «We are confident that we have built the 57th edition of Filo rich in high-quality proposals, and I wish that they can meet, as usual, the needs and the expectations of exhibitors and visitors. »
For the 57th Filo edition of Filo, product development proposals carried out by Gianni Bologna, responsible for Filo’s creativity and style, are entitled ‘Alternatives’. As explained by Gianni Bologna, «We talk about Alternatives, by meaning a merge of intents looking for a new tradition, able to protect a part of non-homologation, a crucial aspect for textile industry’s creativity, where the variety of expressive ways is a crucial characteristic.»
Biella, February 23, 2022
Press and Communication Office
EA Team Elena Aravecchia
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e-mail: press@filo.it