Borås has a great history of entrepreneurship and many of the successful textile, fashion, and e-commerce companies in Sweden originate from this region. TEX! By Marketplace Borås is a collaborative network for the city’s textile and fashion industry, whose main purpose is to strengthen the business by enabling collaboration, matchmaking, and innovation.
— Our network, Wermelin says, stretches from small to large companies, business organisations and the textile and fashion academies. We are the capital of the Swedish textile industry. One of the advantages of being situated in a midsize city like ours is that the business networks are strong and everybody knows each other and is quite transparent and willing to help. We also have a very strategic location — close to ports, the airport and the city of Gothenburg.
Next Friday, May 20, you’ll arrange Textile Fashion Day&Night in Textile Fashion Center in central Borås. What will happen then?
— Our aim is to create a relaxed, relevant event where we invite the business to meet here for networking, create business opportunities, and have a good time. We have a fantastic line-up for our talk show and seminars, including Pernilla Nyrensten (CEO/founder, Revolution Race), Matilda Djerf and Rasmus Johansson (DJERF AVENUE), Moon-Suck Song (CEO, Panagora, and e-commerce expert), awarded fashion designer and activist Louise Xin (pictured), and Per Schlingmann (writer, lecturer, and former strategic advisor to prime-minister Fredrik Reinfeldt). In the afternoon, you can participate in workshops where we dive into fashion-tech projects, such as RE:SKILLS and ShareLabel.
And there’s more to come?
— Yes, in October, we’ll be doing a 3-days business event, called Borås Textile Week, together with our colleagues in the regional textile cluster, such as Science Park Borås and The Swedish School of Textiles. It will be seminars, workshops, hackathons, a lot of innovation, inspiration and networking. The aim is the same as with Textile Fashion Day&Night; to invite the industry to Borås to present and share the knowledge of the research and business innovation taking place here, Wermelin concludes.