The Metzingen-based fashion group Hugo Boss AG is committed to promoting sustainable innovations in the textile industry. On Monday, the company announced it had entered into a “long-term strategic partnership” with fiber producer HeiQ AeoniQ LLC. As part of the agreement, the apparel retailer has acquired a $5 million equity stake in the subsidiary of Swiss company HeiQ Plc, Hugo Boss said.
The investment is “the first investment of its kind” as part of the “Claim 5” growth strategy and will also be “complemented by exclusive partnership agreements of up to four million US dollars, which are tied to defined performance milestones,” the group said .
Hugo Boss’ new partner has developed the fiber HeiQ AeoniQ, which the group says is “a continuous cellulose filament yarn with properties comparable to polyester and nylon fibers”. The process developed by HeiQ is “a revolutionary, first-to-market and scalable clothing technology” that “enables the production of a sustainable, circular and recyclable cellulosic yarn” and thus offers the chance “of petroleum-based fibers such as environmentally harmful polyester and nylon , to replace,” explained the clothing supplier. With the future use of the material in the products of its own brands, the group wants to advance its efforts to “significantly increase the proportion of more sustainable materials in the Boss and Hugo collections”.
First of all, however, it is a matter of ensuring the availability of the innovative fibers on an economically viable scale: “The income generated should therefore flow into the expansion and commercialization of this innovative technology, which Hugo Boss will actively promote and provide financial support for in the coming years “, it said in a statement. “In this context, HeiQ AeoniQ will set up its first commercial gigafactory in Central Europe in 2024 and already build a pilot plant for fiber production in the current year.”
Hugo Boss is not the only well-known company that relies on the advantages of HeiQ AeoniQ. As the company, which was founded in 2005 as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), announced, the textile manufacturer The Lycra Company also invested in the sustainable fiber manufacturer and secured the role of the “exclusive sales partner” for HeiQ-AeoniQ yarn. The financial commitment of Hugo Boss and Lycra is “a strong endorsement of HeiQ AeoniQ’s groundbreaking potential,” said Carlo Centonze, co-founder and CEO of HeiQ Group, in a statement.