A tensioned-fabric blue ribbon 740 feet long, stretched through the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek Hotel and an exhibit tent, wowed hotel owners attending the Hilton Worldwide Partnership Conference in October 2010. The ribbon connected various parts of the exhibit, leading attendees through a series of brand concepts and showcases designed to stimulate creativity and innovation. [...]

Studio 5050 and Blacklabel Development, New York, N.Y., have launched a collection of soft, wearable, electronic modules or “bricks” that allow designers to focus on the creative aspects of making functioning, wearable electronic garments. The initial Fabrickit launch includes a rechargeable battery, connectors and light bricks that connect to each other with a conductive fabric [...]

New Zealand’s W A Coppins Ltd. designs a fruit picking bag that beats the raining technique. By Lynn Keillor Three kiwifruit growers in New Zealand approached fruit-basket designer Bill Coppins with a problem. Workers who hand-pick kiwifruit were inadvertently damaging the fruit as they dropped it from the vines into their picking bags. The worst [...]

Air-supported domes, such as the Minneapolis Metrodome, appear to be giving way to tensioned structures. By Mason Riddle and Barb Ernster In an almost prophetic statement, David Campbell, principal and CEO of Geiger Engineers, Suffern N.Y., told Fabric Architecture in the September 2010 issue that an “air-supported dome has never collapsed, but it can deflate…due [...]

Focus on the 3 P’s for 2011. By Dave Sanders Most small business owners wear many hats—sales, purchasing and production, to name a few. The demands of day-to-day business activities leave little time for planning or thinking about ways to improve your business. The past few years have been tough on businesses of all sizes, [...]

There’s never been a better time to expand into an international market—if you are patient, committed and open to new ways of doing business. By Jill C. Lafferty When Walt Disney songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman penned “It’s a Small World (After All)” for a ride at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, they couldn’t [...]

Decades of research narrows the search for affordable and efficient solar panels for tents. By Todd Jensen & Sigrid Tornquist For flexible solar panels to have a place in the world of tents they have to be lightweight, and they have to pull their weight; in other words, they have to benefit the bottom line. [...]

Slower and gradual growth has become the norm in the reset specialty fabrics industry. By Jeff Rasmussen The 2009 economy reset the size, shape and growth of the specialty fabrics industry throughout all market segments. The result: fewer significant suppliers and end product manufacturers today. The ones that are left have developed a more focused [...]

Riad Shakeer moves his company forward through product diversification. By Sigrid Tornquist As soon as my business started to grow, I started looking for something else to produce,” says Riad Shakeer, owner of Calypso Marine Canvas Ltd. and Calypso Fabric Architecture Caribbean Ltd. in Chaguanas, Trinidad. “I’ve always had that intent to go further. What [...]

Thanks to the efforts of a Finnish company supported by the European Space Agency (ESA), clothes could send and receive messages through the use of textile antennas. Through the ESA Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) 5 project ‘Textile Antennas,’ Patria Aviation Oy, Halli, Finland, has demonstrated that an antenna can be built using textiles [...]