SubSurface, The First Step: A Trip to Portland, Exploring the Heart of Garment Innovation at the Functional Fabric Fair
Our mission at Surface Athletic is to create the ultimate water sport athletic wear using cutting edge fabrics and materials that align with our commitment to performance, sustainability, and innovation. That’s why our first step in designing our swimwear was to attend the Functional Fabric Fair in Portland, Oregon for research and to begin sourcing our materials. This trip turned out to not just be a learning experience but also an inspiring journey into the heart of garment construction.
Why the Functional Fabric Fair?
The Functional Fabric Fair is a unique event where mills, suppliers, and textile innovators, specifically in the athletic category, from around the world come together to showcase their latest developments. It's packed with industry leaders, groundbreaking technologies, and sustainable solutions that we were eager to immerse ourselves in.
From cutting edge, high-performance fabrics designed for a variety of functions to clever, new eco-friendly materials sourced with the environment in mind, we were immersed in the endless possibilities that go into creating the perfect athleticwear garment.
Meeting with Mills and Suppliers
We went on this trip with a few goals in mind. First, to get educated. And second, to build contacts in the industry. Although we've both worked in fashion, in some capacity, for neither of us have been on the manufacturing side. We went into our Portland adventure thinking we had an okay grasp on what we were doing… very quickly we were humbled.
Thankfully, with the help of a few very friendly exhibitors, who didn’t mind having to educate us (and the frantic Google searches when no one was looking to clarify words or terms we’d never heard before) we found our footing. By the end of day one we had a pretty good idea of what we needed to look for and how to find it.
Day two of the show was where we really hit our stride. Armed with a shortlist of suppliers we’d met on day one, and who had materials that checked all of our boxes for performance and sustainability requirements, we made our rounds, re-visiting their booths to get samples and colour cards sent to us.
Through a chance meeting one evening at a supplier’s after party we met a product development team from Vancouver who would end up becoming our partner in prototyping our designs. More about that in another installment of SubSurface.
After a few busy days in Portland we headed to the coast to get reacquainted with the surf scene in Oregon and slowly make our way back to Vancouver.
