P&G announces fashion partnerships

International consumer goods company Procter & Gamble is partnering up with the fashion industry to support its new P&G Future Fabrics initiative aimed at exploring the future of fabrics and the science behind taking care of clothes.

Headed up by the firms Fabric Care division, which includes laundry brands such as Ariel, Bounce, Downy and Gain, the consumer goods company is teaming up with British fashion designer Giles Deacon, French tradeshow Première Vision and the Council of Fashion Designers of America as it looks to gather insights into transforming its approach to product innovation and create laundry care products that optimise clothing performance.

“P&G Fabric Care shares a passion with the fashion and fabrics industry for the importance and role of clothing in people’s lives,” said P&G Fabric Care North America Vice President Alex Keith. “This new fashion-focused initiative will help us continue to bring to market innovative and accessible at-home laundering products that unlock the care-at-home aspect of fashion.”

Giles Deacon named P&G Fabric Care’s global fashion consultant

To launch the initiative, P&G has named London-based Deacon as its first ever global fashion consultant, who will “guide” the brand’s fashion approach, as well as share his expertise and industry insights to help P&G develop new sophisticated fibre care technologies. The British designer will also design a machine-washable capsule collection, which will be unveiled at the inaugural P&G Future Fabrics event taking place in Milan in November.

Commenting on his new role, Deacon said: "I'm interested in designs that work on the catwalk but also beyond the catwalk – they must be able to last and maintain their best. It's exciting to collaborate with P&G Fabric Care at a time when they are redefining what caring and cleaning for clothes means."

The company will also work with Première Vision, the leading fabric and textile tradeshow, to further understand technology advances in fibres and fabrics, which will aid them in developing new cleaning products to deal with the new types of fabrics and materials.

P&G Fabric Care has also launched a partnership with the CFDA and its Tide Pods brand to form the Washable Fashion Initiative, a campaign designed to inspire and inform the fashion industry about the benefits and possibilities of integrating machine-washable fabrics into their designs.

The initiative started with a survey that showed that 84.9 percent of CFDA designers said that they would design more with machine-washable fabrics if they knew their customer had access to products that would easily preserve the quality and integrity of the garments over repeated washings.

“The CFDA is truly excited to establish the Washable Fashion Initiative as an effective way to bring together high-end clothing designs with machine-washable fabrics,” said Steven Kolb, CEO of CFDA. “Our role is to encourage designers to consider how they might alter the fabrics used in their designs. Tide’s strides in innovating laundry care have the power to reshape designers’ perspectives on design and assure them that these laundering products preserve the quality and integrity of garments, even after repeated washes.” There will be a second P&G Fabric Care event in New York in December that reveals further initiatives including its work with the CFDA and Deacon.

Image: Giles Deacon