Business Trip Report
Milan・Switzerland・Portugal
2023.09.20~21
FILO Exhibition Report
FILO, a yarn exhibition held in Milan in February and September, is different from the Pitti Filati exhibition held in Florence in that it is an exhibition of yarns suitable for cut and sew and woven fabrics. The yarns on display there at FILO have a different purpose from the thick decorative yarns for knitwear exhibited at Pitti Filati.
This year's event was held at the same venue as the previous one, the Mico Convention Centre. There were 116 exhibiting companies, which was slightly more than last time, and it seemed like there were more booths and people. With Thalia at the center, exhibitors came from many countries, including France, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Slovenia, Turkey and Pakistan. Among them, it seemed that progress was being made in the production of yarns that were certified as recycled, organic, GRS, etc. The overall eco-friendly trend continues.
There were few half-baked items. It was also notable that the proposals were divided into two categories: stylish and casual. The stylish items were made of silk or of mercerized fabrics. Linen came in rough varieties, bleached linen, and semi-bleached linen. Hemp similarly came in rough varieties and beautiful white yarns such as bleached hemp and semi-bleached hemp, and even though they were the same material, there were opposing proposals for materials on display.
Switzerland SPOERRY 1866 LTD
Spinning Office Visit Report
（2023/09/20～21）
This time, Spoerry was exhibiting at the FILO exhibition in Milan, so after the final day of the exhibition, I took a three and a half hour car ride to Switzerland to visit their factory near Lake Walen in the Furms district southeast of Zurich, and stopped by their offices for a meeting.
When I last visited, the beautiful factory was operating using hydroelectric power, but it has now closed. Test spinning and small-lot spinning is now carried out at a nearby factory on a 3,500-spindle spinning machine, and large-scale actual work is done in Thailand, China, and India, where the company's know-how is utilized.
Spoerry continues to focus on raw materials and spins with the goal of creating products with high commercial value. Originally, they distributed their products to the world through a Switzerland-based textile trading company called NEF. However, NEF has since gone out of business, and by Spoerry taking over that company's DNA and producing everything from raw material selection to spinning at, it could be said that Spoerry’s manufacturing capabilities, which makes the most of the essence of cotton, has evolved more than ever before.
Portugal Spinning Mill Visit Report
SOMELOS
Somelos has spinning machines such as ring, silo, silo compact, compact, gas and hard twist, and mainly spin fine yarns. They use cotton from Giza, Pima, Spanish Pima, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Tanzania, etc., and focus on quality when spinning.
This time, I visited Portugal because I wanted to know to what extent spinning is possible since a lot of European apparel is made in Portugal. There were many items that used cotton cashmere and organic cotton, and many of the yarns had a nice texture.
FILASA Spinning Visit
The FILASA factory mainly uses air spinning, but also has ring spinning and MVS, allowing for a wide range of developments.
The main raw materials used are organic, recycled cotton, recycled polyester, lyocell, modal, recycled wool, and recycled linen.
The factory also has a dyeing facility. And there is a wide variety of materials used for this purpose, such as viscose extracted from orange peels and coffee.
As it is possible to spin BD slub yarn there, I felt that this is a factory where casual items can be made.
And finally...
What I noticed on this business trip was the difference in prices. Even within the area of Milan and Portugal, where the Euro is used, the prices are a little different. But I was surprised at how high prices are in Switzerland. The yarn prices are quite high there, but the prices of products in general are even higher.
It seems that the Italian yarns exhibited at the FILO exhibition could be used if we look at them carefully. Even in stores, Italy seems rather expensive, but this may be an illusion because prices in Japan are quite low.
I feel that we need to think carefully about the exit and the entrance of products in general, and about what kind of customers the products will reach and what value they have for those customers. It's a basic thing, but I think we need to think a little more about what we can do to increase the value of our products.
We may be tested in the future on our flexibility to sell to various places, incorporating sensibilities, not only domestically, but also overseas.