As apparel brands juggle cost, compliance and speed, the fair’s pavilions reveal where power is shifting: toward fibre platforms, certification gatekeepers and design IP.
Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics (Spring 2026) will bring 3,000+ exhibitors from 25 countries and regions to Shanghai’s NECC on March 11–13, sprawling across seven halls. The organisers pitch it as a marketplace for everyone from recycled-feedstock buyers to low-MOQ designers—an implicit admission that the industry is fragmenting into many business models at once.
The International Hall is being packaged as a map of global capabilities: country and region pavilions (including a Türkiye Pavilion debut) and branded group stands from organisations such as Lenzing, Ecocert and Korea’s KTC. Lenzing, with 23 downstream suppliers, will use the show to push its fibre-as-a-platform play—launching a campaign to elevate TENCEL™ and introducing TENCEL™ Lyocell HV100 to the Chinese market.
This is not merely about fabric selection. Certification pavilions reflect a world where proofs are behaving like ecosystem orchestrators, bundling spinners, knitters and weavers to accelerate adoption and lock in specifications. And the trend zones—Premium Wool, Verve for Design, SalonEurope—signal that “design” is again a scarce asset, not a seasonal garnish.
For buyers, the opportunity is to build resilient sourcing portfolios across price tiers and compliance regimes. For exhibitors, the play is clearer: sell not just metres, but systems—certified pathways, repeatable performance, and design libraries that shorten development cycles.
