Category: Company News

The Future of Fabric: CLO Partner SwatchOn Hosts Global Design Competition

SwatchOn, the wholesale fabric sourcing platform and CLO‘s fabric partner, has created the Future of Fabric™ — a global design competition for promising new waves of talent in the industry. The contest culminated at the end of May 2021 in a coordinated worldwide influencer campaign, feeding into a dynamic microsite that captures the universe of 10 participating designer talents spanning across the U.K., Canada, Austria, Holland, Hong Kong, and more.  Since its launch three years ago, SwatchOn has been a fabric resource favored by emerging designers due to its streamlined website, efficient sampling service, and low Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs). By allowing designers to order exactly what they need at an affordable price,  SwatchOn effectively empowers the budgets of brands and supports creative agility. This significantly contributes to the viability of the industry’s small- to mid-size brands. Out of hundreds of applicants, 20 emerging designers were chosen to participate in the Future of Fabric™, each receiving $1,000 worth of fabric of their choice from SwatchOn in order to create one look — no rules, just creativity. After an internal selection process, 10 designers moved forward. Representing a global segment of emerging talent, these Top 10 designers are vibrant, fearless, and lead…

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Meshed Thoughts: How The Fabricant Teamed up with Adidas and Karlie Kloss for the #MakingStrides 3D Design Competition Using CLO 

This past month, the digital fashion house, The Fabricant, held a three-month global 3D design competition in collaboration with Adidas and Karlie Kloss. The theme of the contest was based on digital design and aimed to elevate and showcase the digital fashion talent of tomorrow as well as to bridge the gap between technology, fashion  and sport – an intersection of Karlie Kloss’s passions. The whopping 300 submissions from 34 different countries were created 95% using CLO. The Fabricant hosted dedicated Twitch streams in order to teach participants the ins and outs of the software. While many participants had never used CLO prior to the #makingstrides competition, the submissions, which were inspired by a piece in the Adidas x Karlie Kloss activewear collection, highlighted a new route into the tech environment through digital fashion.  The top 20 design submissions of the 3D design contest were selected and narrowed down to three final winners. The finalists of the competition received cash prizes of up to €3,000. However, all of the top 20 submissions were auctioned via blockchain through KnownOrigin, a crypto art marketplace. All of the auction proceeds went directly to the featured artists, while voluntary contributions supported new events and…

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CLO Student Spotlight: The University of Albstadt Sigmaringen Develop Virtual Garment Collection in Partnership with CLO

The University of Albstadt Sigmaringen is one of the few Universities in Germany offering state of the art degrees in Textile and Clothing Technology. This semester the students took part in an exciting, hands-on industrial project, where they were tasked to create detailed virtual sportswear and outdoor garment collections in cooperation with CLO and Inneo. Throughout the 17-week project, led by Prof. Dr. Christian Kaiser and Prof. Marina Baum, the students learned and implemented 3D technologies with the final goal of developing true-to-life virtual garment visualizations.  The students’ experience with CLO ranged from having attained basic knowledge of CLO in previous semesters and internships, to others learning to use CLO from scratch with the help of the University of Albstadt Sigmaringen’s and CLO’s library of video tutorials. Although the level of experience varied amongst the students, all of them achieved their final goal and were able to visualize their designs without having to physically produce a single garment. Moreover, CLO enabled the students to showcase more creativity through their virtual garment development process. We had the opportunity to catch up with a few of the students in order to gain insights about their virtual garment collection, their garment development process…

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CLO Case Study: How CLO has Enabled Ridestore to Streamline Their Product Development Process, Reduce Waste, and Connect with Their Customers Like Never Before

Ridestore is an online-focused retailer of winter and outdoor apparel. Originating as a small e-commerce company in 2006, they have since grown to be a diverse and dedicated global team of over 200 employees based all over the world. Being a remote company with a production office in Gothenburg, Sweden, Ridestore focuses on delivering the best service and products to their international customers. In 2017, they started using CLO and implementing 3D into their product development processes in aims of finding a way to accurately communicate patterns and fit changes. At the time, their garment technician started playing around with CLO, and upon realizing that they could export pattern files from CLO, they jumped into the idea of implementing CLO into their garment development processes with both feet. Very quickly, CLO became their go-to tool, using CLO for everything from initial creation and evaluation to fit and product development. “The ability to change and fix things before going to physical samples was truly a huge leap forward for us in refining our internal processes. The idea of drafting patterns today without using CLO really is unthinkable for the whole pattern team at Ridestore.”  Says Linnea, the 3D Project Leader at…

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La tecnocreativa is now the first School in Spain to Teach CLO and Marvelous Designer

When thinking about one’s professional future, it is essential to choose quality training that brings you closer to your goals. If you are based in Spain and these goals are aligned with fashion and design, the next step is as simple as enrolling in La Tecnocreativa, the innovative fashion and design school founded by Rocío Ortiz de Bethencourt and Isabel Goiri, as they will now be offering technological courses in CLO and Marvelous Designer. The philosophy of the institution is ‘technocreativity’ which combines technology, creativity, and digitization applied to the social sciences. “We prepare students for positions very specific in the chain of value of a fashion company. What we would call ‘the new trades,” says Rocío Ortiz de Bethencourt who has been dedicated to teaching for 30 years and has seen how training in those techniques has been neglected by the delocalization of production. “Those who love fashion succeed in doing any of our courses,” explains the school founder. Its wide training offerings combine technical courses like embroidery, clothing, patternmaking, and modeling to advanced technological courses like CLO and costume design for animation with Marvelous Designer. The courses currently being offered to anyone who is interested are basic level…

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