Fashion for Good invites SoftWear Automation to its Scaling Programme

Fashion for Good, an initiative launched with an initial grant by founding partner C&A Foundation, convenes brands, producers, retailers, suppliers, non-profit organisations, innovators and funders, united in their shared ambition to reimagine the way fashion is designed, made, worn and reused. Therefore, Fashion for Good hand-selected SoftWear Automation from an extensive list of innovators. As a Scaling Programme participant, SoftWear gains access to a network of technologists, scientists and industry experts, enabling it to accelerate and expand the adoption of its revolutionary Sewbot™ worklines.

“Our Sewbots bring manufacturing closer to the consumer, reducing shipping, inventory and carbon dioxide,” said Palaniswamy “Raj” Rajan, SoftWear Automation Chairman and CEO. “The current apparel supply chain is one of the largest polluters second to oil and is only held in place through the exploitation of low-cost labour.”

SoftWear Automation’s Sewbot™ worklines combine patented computer vision with light weight robotics to move fabric to and through the needle more efficiently than a human operator. This industry-leading technology allows manufacturers to SEWLOCAL™, geographically shortening the distance between the manufacturer and consumer, while creating higher quality products.

Katrin Ley, Managing Director of Fashion for Good, says, “At the core of Fashion for Good is innovation. Together with our partners, we aim to use innovation to move towards a world in which we take, make and remake, rather than take, make and waste. We are excited to welcome SoftWear Automation into our Scaling Programme and we look forward to collaborating with them to make their revolutionary Sewbot™ worklines technology mainstream.”

Pete Santora, Chief Commercial Officer of SoftWear Automation, says, “Fashion for Good shares our view that the global supply chain is broken, and we are excited to see how we can accelerate brands, manufacturers and partners to ‘SEWLOCAL’.  The apparel industry invests less than 1% into R&D and it is not just behind in creating new ideas, but implementing them as well. This programme addresses both and we look forward to ‘doing good’ through this partnership.”

About Fashion for Good

Fashion for Good is the global initiative that is here to make all fashion good. Fashion for Good sparks and scales innovation by offering practical action in the form of support and funding, shares best practice and lessons learned in open-source roadmaps and fosters sector-wide collaboration for the entire apparel industry to change. Fashion for Good invites brands, producers, retailers, suppliers, non-profit organisations, innovators and funders to jointly transform the industry.

Fashion for Good was launched in 2017 with C&A Foundation as a founding partner, and is supported by partners Plug and Play, McDonough Innovation, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, IDH – the Sustainable Trade Initiative, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Impact Hub Amsterdam. The first brands to partner with Fashion for Good are C&A, Galeries Lafayette Group and Kering.

At the core of Fashion for Good is an innovation platform, which includes:

• An Accelerator Programme: Fashion for Good works with Plug and Play, a leading Silicon Valley accelerator, to give promising start-up innovators the funding and expertise they need in order to grow.
• Scaling Programme: Fashion for Good finds innovations that have proof-of-concept and helps them scale by offering bespoke support and access to expertise, customers and capital.
• An Apparel Acceleration Fund: This fund will catalyze access to finance where this is required to shift at scale to more sustainable production methods.

Fashion for Good is founded on the principle of collaboration and aims to create tools that are open-source, such as its Good Fashion Guide, which provides practical tips for brands wishing to embrace circular apparel principles. It operates from its first hub in Amsterdam, which also houses a Circular Apparel Community co-working space and a visitor-facing exhibition.

About SoftWear Automation, Inc.

SoftWear Automation, Inc. is an Atlanta-based machine-vision and robotics start-up disrupting the $100 billion sewn products industry by creating autonomous sewn products worklines in home goods, footwear and apparel. SoftWear’s fully automated Sewbots™ allow manufacturers to SEWLOCAL™, moving their supply chains closer to the customer while creating higher quality products at a lower cost. For more information, visit www.softwearautomation.com.

Fashion for Good press contact
Jessica Radparvar
press@fashionforgood.com
+31(0)6 19 72 70 36

SoftWear Automation press contact
Anastasia Simon
a.simon@softwearinc.com
+1 844-673-7134 x 716

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