AlpTextyles : textile heritage and sustainability
AlpTextyles began in November 2022, and is now halfway through its implementation. Co-funded by the European Union as part of the Interreg Alpine Space programme, AlpTextyles focuses on the Alpine textile heritage, both craft and industrial: its history, know-how, preservation and transmission. The project also looks at the relationship between Alpine textile heritage and circularity, offering an alternative approach to the theme of textile sustainability.
The first part of the project ended in March 2024 with an event at the Hôtel de Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in Lyon. Nearly 100 people took part in the event, entitled “The living textile heritage of the Alps”, attending a series of presentations and round tables covering the first year of the project’s research. The event covered a wide range of topics, from mapping the current textile heritage of the Alps to regulatory and political developments, including the subjects of heritage conservation, intellectual property, the perception of Alpine textile products, aesthetic characteristics linked to the Alps, and the valorization of local resources.
As well as contributing to the research for this event, Techtera worked with the Swiss centre Mediplant on the theme of natural textile dyeing, using dye plants endemic to the Alps and co-products from the agriculture and forestry industries. Alliance Machines Textiles, a company manufacturing textile dyeing machines based in the Rhône region of France, joined the initiative, in particular by dyeing skeins of Slovenian wool with larch bark extract obtained by Mediplant. The aim is to explore ways of adding value to co-products from economic activities in the Alps, as part of short, sustainable supply chains
Contact: Robin ODDON –roddon@techtera.org
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