Aalto University is spearheading Melange, a Horizon Europe initiative set to overhaul colour application across the textile sector by shifting crucial decisions back to the point where fibres are produced.
By shifting colouration upstream in the value chain, Melange advocates a path to reduce water and chemical use by up to 50% compared with conventional finishing-stage dyeing processes.
Through the development of low-impact dyeing technologies and the promotion of circular thinking around colour, the initiative aims to reinforce the sustainable competitive edge of Europe’s textile manufacturers.
The environmental challenges of the textile industry cannot be solved by raw material selection or technological advancements alone. Impacts arise across the supply chain – from fibres to yarns and fabrics – involving production practices, business models, B2B-conventions and more.
The paradigm shift to more sustainable practices requires profound multidisciplinary collaboration that links design, value chain logics, production and marketing expertise.
That is why the project combines knowledge in design, technology, and business to address these interconnected challenges and rethink how colour is created, valued, and produced.
By bringing together researchers, designers, industrial partners, and textile networks across the textile value chain, the Melange project aims to identify practical pathways to scale circular solutions throughout the European textile industry.
Melange has received funding under the Horizon Research and Innovation Action with a total budget of €4 million, including €1.5 million for Aalto University.
The consortium, initiated and led by Professor Maarit Salolainen (PI), brings together an experienced group from academia, research, design, industry leaders and professional networks in the textile industry.
The consortium includes industrial partners representing the textile supply chain, ranging from the Austrian multi-billion fibre producer Lenzing to Turkish spinning mill Karacasu Tekstil and weaving mill Vanelli Tekstil.
Other partners include VIA University College from Denmark, ETP/European Textile Platform and Ohana Public Affairs from Belgium, NTT/Next Technology Tecnotessile from Italy and the Slovenian interior design company Triiije Architect.
For Professor Salolainen, the project’s broader ambition is to strengthen collaboration between academia and industry to accelerate systemic change.
“Bringing first-hand understanding, experience and contact networks from textile design practice and industrial production into academia is essential in steering the paradigm shift we are facing”, says Salolainen.
“Having had to define colour palettes with exact shades for over 30 years, and experiencing the problematics of these practices, I want to declare the new trend colour for the years to come”, Salolainen adds.
Melange addresses one of the hidden barriers to circular textiles: the pursuit of perfection and uniformity in fibres, yarns and fabrics.
The project’s objectives are set out to demonstrate the power of design through a tangible, practice-led fibres-to-fabrics material innovation project, which will expand the role design can play in shaping novel approaches to sustainability.
Inspired by the heritage practices of mechanical recycling of coloured wool fibres in the Prato district in Italy, the project focuses on fibre-stage colouration at the start of the production process rather than relying on resource-intensive finishing-stage colouration and reframes colour variation as an opportunity rather than a defect.
“Interior textiles represent approximately one-third of the global textile production. We propose system-level changes across design, decision-making, business ecosystems and policy in this major textiles sector, often ignored in sustainability discussions”, Salolainen states.
From innovation to industrial adoption
The project also addresses a less visible but equally important challenge: how new production methods become accepted across the market.
Through engaging decision-makers across the industry, including interior designers and buyers at textile brands, Melange explores how the aesthetic variation characteristic of fibre-stage coloured yarns and fabrics can be integrated into textile collections and design processes, and how new practices spread across the value network.
The transition also depends on whether new solutions can be adopted competitively across industrial systems.
Melange examines the changes in production systems, supply chains, and business models needed to make low-impact colouration commercially and operationally viable at scale.
“Green transition is not only a question of developing new technologies. The real challenge is understanding how production systems, supply chains and business models need to change so that sustainable solutions can be adopted competitively at scale”, says Assistant Professor Lauri Saarinen from Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at the School of Science.
“Melange allows us to study not only whether a new textile solution can be created, but under what conditions it can become industrial practice across the European textile sector,.” Lauri Saarinen too adds.
The project will develop the Melange framework – a set of guidelines for design, aesthetics, production and business models – to support designers, industry leaders and policymakers in accelerating the transition from harmful practices towards more circular and environmentally responsible textile systems.
Image courtesy: Aalto University
