The International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF), headquartered in Zurich, has named two winners of its 2026 International Collaboration Awards: Swiss technology firms HeiQ and Archroma, and Austria's Lenzing together with German brand Armedangels. The federation says the awards recognise projects that move textile innovation beyond individual companies and into commercial applications. Both teams will present their work at the ITMF and IAF Conference in Fortaleza, Brazil, on October 14-15.

The HeiQ-Archroma project, titled Alone we Innovate, Together we Scale, builds on a co-marketing agreement the two Swiss companies announced in January. It pairs HeiQ's development of functional textile technologies with Archroma's far larger global manufacturing, application and commercial network. Archroma employs more than 4,000 people across 42 countries and operates over 30 production sites, with established technical and customer networks serving textile manufacturers worldwide.

The initial focus is antimicrobial and odour-control technologies. Under the partnership, textile mills, brands and retailers gain access to an expanded portfolio of functional finishes, with HeiQ technologies introduced through Archroma's existing customer and application channels. The model directly addresses one of the sector's persistent difficulties: moving technologies developed by relatively specialised companies into mills and supply chains at meaningful scale. For sourcing teams, the practical implication is that functional finishes previously limited to boutique rollouts can now be specified through a major global chemistry supplier's network.

Monomaterial outerwear without synthetics

The second winning project, The Power of Collaboration: Driving Innovation for a More Sustainable Textile Industry, has produced a commercially available windbreaker that removes almost all of the synthetic materials conventionally treated as essential to performance outerwear.

Armedangels worked with long-term fibre partner Lenzing, supply chain consultancy Montebelo and Taiwanese textile manufacturer HerMin to develop a lightweight ripstop fabric made from 100% Tencel lyocell. The objective was to deliver wind resistance, breathability and protection from light rain without a polyester or polyamide shell, a synthetic membrane or PFAS chemistry.

The technical hurdle was real. No existing lyocell construction offered the density needed for the required wind resistance. Working with spinners in HerMin's network, and with Lenzing technicians advising on fibre properties and the fibre lengths required for strength, the partners developed a new tightly woven 100% Tencel lyocell ripstop construction.

Instead of a membrane, the fabric itself provides the wind protection. Heat and pressure compact the construction, and the finished fabric was independently tested to deliver up to 97% wind resistance while remaining breathable. A PFAS-free water-repellent treatment handles light rain — although Armedangels states plainly that the jacket is not intended for heavy or prolonged rainfall, a caveat buyers should weigh against intended use cases.

The company says 99.9% of trims use non-synthetic alternatives, with a small amount of plastic retained in the zip where no suitable replacement could be found. The fabric is produced in Taiwan and the garment is manufactured by Artifex in Romania — a two-country production footprint that reflects the cross-regional coordination the project required.

The collaboration extends an established relationship. Lenzing and Armedangels previously worked together on supply-chain traceability using the TextileGenesis platform, including early trials in which digital tokens were linked to physical shipments of Lenzing fibres as they moved through the textile supply chain.

The ITMF International Collaboration Awards recognise international textile projects aligned with the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Both winning initiatives suggest the federation's shortlist is rewarding partnerships that clear the commercialisation barrier rather than lab-stage claims, and the Fortaleza presentations in October will give sourcing professionals a first detailed look at how each model scales.