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Home » Magazine » HOCUS-POCUS: The magic of flocking as the glamour solution for textile recycling
Casati Flock, Italy’s leading company in the flock technology is spearheaded by a young woman capable of reviving textile waste by turning it into dust.
The amazing energy that Beatrice Casati – born in 1996, third generation of the family-run business for the first time run by a woman – can convey when she reveals what she, “like magic dust”, produces thanks to an ever-evolving industrial technology.
What is this textile dust? In the 1950s there was merely talk of dust derived from the velvet shaving waste, then it expanded to include almost all other textile fibres, both synthetic and natural. The incredible variety of applications that flock technology allows means that it can transform, as if by “magic”, flat surfaces such as fabrics, with designs or full flock, or three-dimensional objects and accessories, thus altering their appearance and the way they is perceived. Flock has always been intrinsic in the brand’s products, but few are aware of this. Just think of flocked fabrics, flocked perfume boxes, inside eyeglass or jewellery cases.
Beatrice Casati: “What’s been happening over the last two years, since I joined the company, is the new-found market interest in the flocking option: a treasure trove with amazing potential, which has not been fully expressed as yet.
Up until two years ago we were simply a dust supplier for customers who applied it on various surfaces. Today we are perceived as an essential firm, a real partner acting as a consultant for textile waste recovery for the sake of sustainability… Indeed, I always suggest to the textile-fashion brands that turn to us that they do not use and ask us for virgin textile fibres – which would have to be sourced from the market and then pulverized – but to use their own waste, which is inevitable in textile manufacture.
We, therefore, offer them the chance to create their own customized flock, originating from their own textile waste. We employ a virtuous technology that is still little known. Until recently, a textile raw material, for which companies incurred a cost, went lost. Today, it can be recovered and used on a fabric, on any three- dimensional or flat surface, thus giving it new life.”
“Sometimes I hear that flock is not sustainable, this is because many associate it merely with chemistry, with colours. As far as we are concerned, every step involves a careful analysis, which is bound to become increasingly fluid, routine. Casati have always invested a large portion of its proceeds in research & development.
The goal is to recycle with the lowest possible footprint, for instance by grinding the material to obtain sustainable flock through to the use of power derived largely from our solar panels. This is why we want to be a solution for those brands that, in the future, won’t have to worry about what to do with their textile production waste.
The goal is to keep activating an increasingly virtuous communication channel with the brands’ style offices, which work increasingly closely with their sustainability managers, thus providing them with both aesthetically valuable and cost-effective solutions”.
Beatrice Casati: “I joined as a support to my dad who, unfortunately, didn’t live much longer. My aim was to bring a new vision, a look to the future aimed to relaunch the industrial activity. Three intense years, filled of difficulties. From the loss of my father, to the Covid pandemic and the energy crisis. These years, however, have spurred me to make the change that young people like me, with my vision, implement in this type of situation. The solutions are there, all it takes is finding them! Aided by passion, sensitivity and women’s intuition, virtues that are not to be taken for granted.”
“I’d like to convey the same enthusiasm that I employ in the family business to the fashion industry too. The flock must be told for what it is, but also enthusiastically and imaginatively, as it is a cool and virtuous product, which, if skilfully employed, makes the difference. I’d dare to define it an art form at the service of fashion and textiles”.
“Denim is already deemed to be an evergreen material in its own right, as it can have multiple lives through dyeing and finishing, just like playing dough can be altered through moulding.We’ve decided to bet on Denim because it is one of the sexiest fabrics ever. Nowadays all brands want to have a denim line: why not finding new interpretations through the use of the flock technology? Its strength lies in the fact that, even just by grinding it, beautiful, always diverse shades can be obtained. Denim colour also means harmony, then “our magic dust” does the rest…”
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