Textile studio Byborre, which works closely with knitting machine suppliers such as Mayer & Cie and Santoni to create bespoke, high quality and sustainable knitted textiles, has launched a new online design tool. After two years of onboarding hundreds of brands and designers, the textile innovation platform says it is accelerating digital transformation through the new Byborre Create system. “From today on, anyone who works or wants to work with textile, is invited to design from pixel to needle with Byborre’s textile creation technology and its direct access to circular knitting machines,” the studio said.
The advanced software update and new features have been designed to enhance the workflow to create bespoke knitted textiles: from a completely new editor with expanded colour options, extended library of curated textile compositions, to visibility on detailed impact data and an updated order history page. On top of that, every fabric comes with a textile passport that has insights on impact, care and lifecycle to help the creator with more freedom in making a conscious choice.
Brands, designers, and creators everywhere have complete control and insights over the design and production process, and can compose textiles by selecting from impact features such as recycled content, CO2 savings, water savings, zero-microplastics or selecting an enhanced lifetime.
The online tool is designed to provide creative freedom and transparency to the creator, while also pushing the textile industry toward a conscious direction by disrupting traditional supply and demand. The amount of waste and unused textiles significantly reduces, as it allows only to produce the required meters for a specific product.
Byborre’s Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Borre Akkersdijk explained: “Byborre Create brings all the years of research and understanding of knit together and shares it with designers from all disciplines in a way that is intuitive and easy to use. Now to make it possible for anyone, anywhere in the world to create a distinctive knitted textile with this speed and their own company DNA. That has never been possible before.”
The new design tool, said Akkersdijk, also shows that there is a need and desire from the industry to create custom and responsible textiles, with many respected brands and suppliers working with Byborre ever since. Create was introduced in 2019 on an invite-only basis. The beta launch took place in April 2021, quickly followed by an access request in August and open access for automated onboarding with credit card integrations in December 2021. The tool has already been recognised in the 2021 Dutch Design Awards. Hailed as a “game changer” by judges, the technology has been labelled the Adobe Photoshop of textile design.
A key element of the studio’s offering is on-demand production using the existing capacity of its partners. It’s an open source mentality; through Byborre, designers have access to sustainable building blocks, industry innovations and creative tools, all in one place. Byborre therefore positions itself as a service; ready for brands to twist textiles into their own aesthetic, requirements and style. Among its latest machine investments is a Mayer & Cie OVJA 1.6 EE 3/2WT with the team attracted by the machine’s wide technological range of options for knitting.
The OVJA 1.6 EE 3/2 WT was seen as ideal for the latest 3D fabric collections, essentially thicker fabrics with relief structures, meaning double face and spacer fabrics, all in full jacquard. For these particular purposes, the OVJA 1.6 EE 3/2 WT can pair spacer and double face with extra flexibility, multi-coloured designs and microstructure elements. It is also capable of knitting coarse gauges up to E16. As well as Mayer & Cie and Santoni, industry-leading suppliers such as Gore-Tex and The Woolmark Company have already partnered with Byborre, while brands using the Byborre platform include adidas, BMW, Rapha, Descente, Kapital, Natuzzi, Bedwin & The Heartbreakers and MINI.
Textile studio Byborre, which works closely with knitting machine suppliers such as Mayer & Cie and Santoni to create bespoke, high quality and sustainable knitted textiles, has launched a new online design tool. After two years of onboarding hundreds of brands and designers, the textile innovation platform says it is accelerating digital transformation through the new Byborre Create system. “From today on, anyone who works or wants to work with textile, is invited to design from pixel to needle with Byborre’s textile creation technology and its direct access to circular knitting machines,” the studio said.
