Freeborders, INVISTA Open Online Catalog for Fiber
San Francisco, CA and Wilmington, DL, July 20—Freeborders and INVISTA have launched FAST(TM), a global online catalog of fibers and fabrics at www.FASTextile.com that will immediately link 500 mills in 50 countries with over 1,600 brand and retail buyers.
The new service, which is open to all textile producers and fiber types, will allow mills to increase their sales by quickly, easily and inexpensively providing online fabric catalogs directly to brand and retail decision-makers. Brands and retailers will be able to search, sample, and cost new fabrics as well as communicate with mills 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to cut lead times and speed innovation.
VF Corporation, a FAST design partner and owner of leading brands such as Lee, Wrangler, Vanity Fair, Jansport and North Face, will use the solution to drastically alter its processes for developing fabrics.
"FAST will help us streamline the processes we use to source fabrics for our brands," said Jeff Streader, vice president of global sourcing at VF Corporation. "We see big advantages in being able to instantly initiate swatch and sample yardage requests and track status. FAST will help reduce costs and cycle time and ensure superior product quality."
FAST will incorporate INVISTA's existing On-Line Fabric Library, a current standard, as well fiber and fabric products from other suppliers.
"The INVISTA On-Line Fabric Library was a highly successful concept that grew to include over 27,000 mill products and was used regularly by buyers from many of the world's foremost brands and retailers," said Jon Penrice, INVISTA vice president of marketing, global apparel.
"We knew this service would ultimately be of even greater value to retailers and brands if it included fabrics of all types. We're confident about the appeal of our products and brands and believe that a one-stop open resource like FAST can be a powerful driver of the innovation the industry needs to revitalize its consumer connections. When that happens, we all win."
Registered buyers can access innovative fabrics and request swatches from the FAST online catalog around-the-clock, shaving four to five weeks off lead times and speeding new products to market. They can easily access all mill databases with one search by fabric type, construction, geography, and other parameters and then communicate directly with the mills, at no cost.
Registered sellers can display catalogs of fabrics online to thousands of brands and retailer decision-makers, resulting in increased sales and deeper customer relationships. Mills will be able to speed marketing of innovative designs and fibers via secure proprietary areas within the FAST solution and thereby accelerate their ability to meet retailers' purchasing needs. These private channels allow textile producers the capability to choose the brands and retailers that can view and sample their fabrics.
