It's a Wrap: The 2021 World Digital Textile Forum Ends on a High
In the final installment of our two-part article, we would like to share some of Frontier.cool’s highlights from days two and four of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum. You can view part one here.
Day two’s agenda focused on jump-starting 3D design innovation. Frontier.cool's CSO, Wayne Fan, joined in on the panel discussion. Victor Chao, CEO of Frontier, offered a great summary of the four-day event on the final day.
Click here to download the full recordings from the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum!
The panel discussion on day two of the World Digital Textile Forum was a pure delight. The insightful, eye-opening, and informative conversations flowed effortlessly, and the audience chat room was full of questions.
The panel discussion from day two of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum
So, without further ado, here are a few of Frontier.cool’s highlights.
Regarding digital product creation strategy, have things changed over the last two years? Has there been a shift from operation to strategy in a broad sense, or is it unique to the individual organization?
Wayne Fan:
“Based on our research and what I've observed over the last two years, many of the brands that approach me often mention their concerns about the touch and feel when you digitize the material, how you lose that sense, and how we are continuously developing. Or their concern is around color and how you get that color to stand out visually.
Those were the types of questions I'd face two years ago. This year, I feel like the questions became more about how we scale and connect the disconnections between solutions?
How do we use a single source of truth — that is material from the source — and take it through its entire product life cycle, and what can it be used for? It could be plugged into PLM, it could be in 3D, or it could be e-commerce.”
How do we take that and then have a seamless connection the whole way through?
“I think sharing addresses something. Collaboration is obviously nothing new, but when all the stakeholders continue to work in a siloed form, it isn't easy to maximize the return on collaboration. So when we really open up and share data or assets and then really have those assets be able to exchange upstream and downstream between stakeholders, I think that's how eventually collaboration can be maximized.”
As the event came to a close on day four, Frontier.cool’s CEO, Victor Chao, offered a fantastic summary of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum, along with his predictions for the future of the digital fashion metaverse.
“Over this four-day event, each panelist has shared their perspectives on technologies that have been — or are being developed — and some that are even being used in the marketplace right now as they enter the digital textile space.
But what prompted the World Digital Textile Forum in the first place? From both the brand and supply chain side, we feel the concern. We all know the digital textile world is coming, and we've seen so many great software and hardware tools and services on the market, but the following questions keep cropping up: How do I start? And what do I do next?
This is one of the main reasons behind the World Digital Textile Forum. We hope to be with you and support you while you enter this new world of digital textiles. However, I think it is more important that we resolve customers' problems, reduce their concerns, and eliminate friction so that the threshold of the digital process can be lowered.
The formation of the digital textile metaverse cannot be conceived by one person or one vendor alone. Just as 40 years ago, when personal computers were first brought to the market, no one knew which system or standard to "follow." But now, looking back, the confusion of that time is no longer there. Instead, I believe that the entire digital age has come to this point because of a group of like-minded people, not just Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but because of the massive input from the entire industry.
The formation of the digital textile world is a process that needs to be nurtured, and during this process, each part is indispensable, and each technology is crucial. When these technologies are combined together, a wholly new digital textile state or "eco-system" will be formed.
Frontier.cool's role is to accelerate this process, to enable the new world of digital textiles to take shape more quickly, and to allow people to enter this world without fear or barriers.
Looking back at the agenda of this event, on the first day, we used the theme of "The Big Bang" to show the audience that the new world of digital textiles is gradually taking shape and what value this new world can bring to the global textile industry.
On the second day, we investigated how 3D digital design drives the creation and development of digital products.
On the third day, we talked about how the textile supply chain should collaborate with brands to digitize — in response to the trend of 3D digital design.
Finally, on the fourth day, we largely concentrated on the rise of e-commerce.
Whether due to the pandemic, or the convenience of online shopping, more and more consumers are shopping online, and the growth of e-commerce is accelerating. For brands, the booming increase of e-commerce is the key to the popularization of digital fashion textiles. In the digital textile metaverse, the first step is the complete digitization of physical fabrics, and the next step is to open up infinite possibilities.
In the new digital textile world, experts from many industries and cross-industries will need to cooperate to figure out how to recreate a new digital world in addition to the existing textile industry and integrate it with the physical world.
Frontier.cool hears the voices of its customers, and through this forum, we hope to continue to work together with them and invite them to enter the digital world with us.”
The 2021 World Digital Textile Forum was a resounding success and the feedback that we have received since has been overwhelmingly positive.