‘After your birth you are wrapped in a cloth. What is the material you come into contact with most for the rest of your life? Textile again. It sits on our skin all day long in the form of clothing and thus determines how we experience the world. Even when we sleep, we wrap ourselves in textiles. We also dress the world around us with it. Furniture, buildings, cars, planes. In short, a life without textiles is unthinkable.’ Unfortunately, the textile industry is not innovative and certainly not sustainable.
Textile designer Borre Akkersdijk wants to change that with Byborre, his company that develops high-quality knitted fabrics with the latest technology. This expertise is so popular that worldwide more than a hundred international A-brands such as Puma, BMW or furniture manufacturer Natuzzi (‘the largest in Italy’) find their way to a gray office building next to Amsterdam-Sloterdijk train station. Once inside, it looks more like a start-up, with e-bikes charging in a white hallway. With the difference that you don’t see shiny iMacs but sewing machines and scissors. A vegetarian lunch buffet is available in the canteen. Young employees in baggy pants and fancy sneakers walk back and forth on the phone – in English. ’49 people now work here, from all over the world.’
Exploitation, child labour, depletion of agricultural land for cotton, over-consumption and heaps of waste, energy waste; the devastating impact of the textile industry is huge, especially on the climate. The sector is responsible for 10 percent of CO2emissions and textiles are – after petroleum – the most polluting material in the world. One fifth of global water pollution is caused by the paints used and synthetic additives. ‘This is because the textile industry has been set up in such a way since the industrial revolution that each factory only accounts for one small part of the production chain, because it is more efficient,’ Akkersdijk teaches. ‘Factories for synthetic fibres, wool spinners or sewing workshops are located where production is cheapest. The result is insane transport and energy costs. Because of this fragmentation, nobody really knows where, for example, cotton comes from or how wool is produced. The textile industry is also hardly digitized. And that for an industry in which more than 1,000 billion euros is spent annually.’
knitting in a circle
Byborre distinguishes itself from the traditional textile industry with a production process that is responsible, transparent, digital and accessible. But above all, the superior quality and the unique designs are important. The knits have deep, bright colors and a powerful relief. It is also possible to knit with very different fabrics. Byborre can make textiles that are coarse and tough, or shiny, but also everything in between. Or all those properties combined in one fabric. Then a piece of fabric has smooth strips of polyester, a pointy pattern of wool and graceful cables – in colors that flow into each other. This production takes place in a closed room with six rattling circular knitting machines in Amsterdam. ‘This is where we make our fabrics’, Akkersdijk exclaims above the noise. With circular knitting, tubular fabrics can be made cheaply and at a rapid pace. The technique was mainly used to produce miles of fabric cheaply, for example for fast fashion or mattresses. Before graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven, Akkersdijk ‘hacked’ an industrial circular knitting machine, after which he made fabrics that even the makers of the machines never thought possible.
Knitting is now seen in the textile industry as the pinnacle of refinement and innovation. Also because sports brands have invested enormously in advanced knitting techniques for their sneakers, says Akkersdijk. “It’s not for nothing that our art director comes from Nike.” His company has four round, computer-controlled knitting machines of 4 meters in diameter and 3 meters in height. They easily cost 200,000 euros each, money that has been raised through various investment rounds, says Akkersdijk. Another investment round will follow this autumn, this time for ‘an amount of eight figures’.
This fearlessness is characteristic of both Akkersdijk and his company. His urge to assert himself stems from his youth in Nijmegen, he says. “My father left when I was little. My mother always had to work. I was partly raised by my grandfather and grandmother. If you haven’t always felt unconditional love, then look elsewhere. So yes, I like to draw attention.’ Moreover, he, his older sister and his mother were not well off. ‘I’ve worked like crazy and even had to miss funerals. I’m not proud of that. That’s not going to happen to me again.’
Design Academy Eindhoven
His fascination for textiles, almost an obsession, starts at the Design Academy Eindhoven. ‘There you learned that a design starts with an investigation into the optimal material. Except in fashion. Then you just had to buy a rag on the market. But that fabric was actually already designed by someone else. So if you really want to make distinctive fashion, you first have to design the fabric yourself.’ To master textile design, he took a gap year at the prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Under the wings of the famous trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, he appropriated the commercial tricks of the fashion and textile industry during his internship in Paris.
In 2009 he graduates with a fashion collection with knitted fabrics he designed himself. With his design studio Byborre, he quickly made a name for himself with his unique knitting fabrics; in 2012 he won a Dutch Design Award as Best Talent. He has been flying around the world for years. He designs a special bag for Brazilian footballer Neymar for his transfer to Barcelona, a fabric for outdoor brand GoreTex and a ‘concept jacket’ in collaboration with Moncler. But it’s not satisfying at all. ‘What we could do ourselves, it snowed under. Customers we wanted to work with didn’t quite understand what Byborre actually was.’ That changed when Akkersdijk met Arnoud Haverlag, an entrepreneur from the software world, in 2015.
‘I met a frustrated textile designer full of plans to reform the textile industry, but he couldn’t get his message across properly,’ recalls Haverlag, who is now CEO of Byborre. The duo decides to release their own fashion collection twice a year under the name Byborre Editions. ‘The clothing was a kind of signboard to show what we had to offer.’ The clothes are on. With the personal highlight being the sale in Dover Street Market in Tokyo, the famous store where only the crème de la crème of fashion gets a place, says Akkersdijk. “I walked out with tears down my cheeks when I was there.”
Fabric design tool
The next step is the presentation of the digital design tool Byborre Create in 2019. This will allow anyone to design and digitize patterns and designs. Like a DJ with his mixing console, a designer can select yarns or knitting structures, whereby the properties and environmental impact become immediately visible. Because a good substance starts with its composition, says Akkersdijk. ‘Depending on the composition, a fabric can feel hard and stiff or, on the contrary, fluffy and elastic. Is it breathable or airtight? Moisture-absorbing or water-repellent? A fabric can be of vegetable origin such as jute or cotton, wool and silk that comes from animals, or of the synthetic nylon and polyester. And then you can also vary the finish, for example a gloss or a colour.’ Each Byborre fabric has a passport with information on water consumption, CO2emissions and the composition of the yarns. The design tool won a Dutch Design Award last year and was recognized by the authoritative design blog The seas described as ‘photoshop for textiles’.
The translation of the designs and assignments from brands into knitted fabrics is done in the workshop, where dozens of meters of shelving units are filled with pieces of fabric and boxes with well-known brand names such as Fiat or Puma. ‘This is where we develop our fabrics’, Akkersdijk says, before he is called away again. With an employee, he bends over a piece of cloth on the table. “This roll has yet to be cut into one-metre compartments and given a Byborre label.” Moments later: ‘These fabrics were designed last week during an inspiration workshop for young design talent, sponsored by Puma. Each participant will now receive their own design as ready-to-use fabric.’
Digital circular knitting machines are used for this small production, but also for samples for Prada or a limited collection of scarves for tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher. ‘Normally you have to immediately take thousands of meters of a substance. That is not necessary here. That makes our fabrics so accessible. With the streetwear label The New Originals, we recently developed knitted covers for smartphones and tablets for a Samsung marketing campaign.’ If customers are satisfied with the samples and place large orders, this is distributed in a network of producers. ‘They are only the very best and most innovative in their field,’ says Akkersdijk. ‘And every step in the production chain is transparent and can be completed by the customer himself.’
Ready
A remarkable step is that the successful fashion label Byborre Editions will be temporarily discontinued this autumn. Haverlag: ‘Everyone now knows who we are and what we can do. And that is much more than just producing clothes.’ That is why this month Byborre Textiles will be launched, the first ready-made fabric collection where everyone can see which fabrics, machines and designs have been used. This is primarily aimed at large-scale applications for project design or in the automotive industry. In these sectors, fabric collections usually last five to seven years unchanged – in contrast to fabrics for the fashion industry. ‘A company like Herman Miller, one of the largest furniture manufacturers in the world, has visited us several times to get inspiration for new collections, just like BMW. We get paid well for that, but ultimately we want to supply the fabrics for the cars. Dust from Byborre in a Rolls-Royce, which is also from BMW. How cool is that.’
In order to realize its goal – to innovate the textile industry – Akkersdijk is constantly looking for new challenges. ‘We are now working on a platform on which we can offer everyone the fabrics we have designed ourselves with Byborre Create. So that ultimately everyone has access to unique and sustainable textiles.’ When asked whether he still designs fabrics himself, his story falters for the first time. ‘I find it especially interesting to get things started. How do I translate a customer’s question to the right person in my company? And who do I let that person work with again? Ultimately, creating is more important to me than designing.’
There is therefore nothing in the company that escapes him. He makes three or four decisions in just an hour. Sitting on his knees on a rug next to an employee: ‘This green track needs to be given more relief.’ His hand glides over the colorful pattern. ‘And this blue has to be much uh… bluer. Deeper.’ The rug is a commission from designer Kiki van Eijk, a fellow student at the Design Academy. ‘We only do these kinds of assignments for a few.’ The rug will be exhibited in her studio during the Dutch Design Week. “Who knows, we might even benefit from it.”