Technological Platforms for the fashion world

On 25th March, our founder Massimo Brandellero was invited as a guest to participate in a webinar promoted by the AICC, Associazione Italiana Chimici del Cuoio. 

Together with Alexandra Pelka, ESG consultant, UNECE Expert on Traceability and Transparency, and Riccardo Mocellin, Ph.D. Candidate – Management Engineering, Blockchain and Supply Chain Management, Massimo talked about different technological platforms in the fashion world.

Adopting an innovative and market-oriented approach, he started introducing some interesting technological platforms offering Digital ID solutions such as Circular Fashion, Provenance, Eon, Sourcemap, and BlueBite. 

What is a Digital ID? 

A digital identification of finished products. Each product has a QR code linked to the product with all the digital information about the product itself that enables us to create its story.

An example is the credit card and its code with all the information that lead to specific action. 

The market is moving towards identifying products in a specific way. 

Technological platforms and Digital ID: why is it important? 

Digital ID is a guarantee of the unicity of the product. For example, in the e-commerce of luxury goods, a portion of the returns of the goods is not original and this is one of the main losses for the companies. 

The digital id helps to identify the originality of the product. 

The digital id is also fundamental in the second-hand market, where brands are also investing heavily as a new type of market that falls within the world of the circular economy, since it attests the history and truthfulness of the product. 

The final purpose is the one linked with the communication aspect: all brands are trying to create the story of the products and to share their values to the customers.

When did it all start?

In 2013 the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed killing thousands of people. 

Rana Plaza was a factory complex where more than 5,000 people worked making clothes for some of the biggest global fashion brands and retailers. 

Following this event, the “Fashion Revolution” global movement was born out of a social motivation with the goal of promoting transparency along the fashion supply chain. 

Each year, Fashion Revolution releases the Fashion Transparency Index, where global fashion brands are evaluated based on 220 parameters, 5 pillars including traceability.

In 2017 the movement evaluated 100 global brands and the average score on traceability was 7%.

In 2020 the brands were 250 and the average score on traceability was 18%. 

We can see a sudden increase in the last year and it is desirable that we will achieve high levels of traceability. 

Different tiers, different needs

The fashion revolution index divided the suppliers in 3 levels:
• Tier 1 suppliers: only the 40% of the brand disclose the tier 1 manufacturers list;
• Tier 2 supplier (processing facilities): only the 24% of the brands disclose the tier 2 supplier list;
• Raw material suppliers: only the 8% of the brands disclose the list of the raw material supplier. In 2017 this data was 0%.

How can we combine all these needs?

All these needs (customers’, social’s, environmental’s and the common one) have a relationship of interdependence because acting on one has consequences on all the others.

There is a strong need for measurements: improvement actions are based on measurements. Traceability is essential to have the necessary data that allow you to make strategic choices and make plans for improvements, transforming the supply chain into a value chain.

Best 5 Technological platforms

There is also the need to have adequate technologies, precise and structured frameworks: 

• Spoor: traceability for the skin that binds the individual animal to the leather used, from breeding to the tannery;
• Eon: digital ID of the finished product, tells the story of the products to the final consumer, oriented towards the consumer not connected to the supply chain;
• Sourcemap: graphically connects all the players in the supply chain, all the information are provided by the brand and the platform transforms them into graphics;
• Leath3r: give the consumer visibility of the trees planted to offset the leather production. Connection that starts from the tannery and reaches the consumer;
• The ID Factory: a cloud based platform for the fashion industry that linked all the players of the supply chain, a supply chain management tool that collects all the information from the brand and transforms them into KPIs important to make informed decisions. 

What’s next?

New technological tools are increasingly developing: tactile perception technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, the role of blockchain.

We can use all this technology and turn the tide in our favor. 

The starting point always concerns the data driven mentality and the environment.

Are you curious? Watch the video to follow Massimo Brandellero’ talk.