DecryptionAt a time of the revival of made in France, the northern city, with its textile past, is teeming with initiatives to become a benchmark in eco-responsible and innovative fashion.
“A snap and a pair of socks, please!” ” In Roubaix, at the bar Les Trois Tricoteurs, count less than five minutes to see a pair of organic cotton socks knitted before your eyes, in organic cotton from Egypt, spun and dyed in Italy, merino wool and recycled polyamide from Spain – “To add hold and resistance”, specifies the knitting bartender. “You choose your socks without seams among the seven models and thirteen colors, and we manufacture on demand”, continues Victor Legrain, one of the three young co-founders of this zero waste knitting workshop.
A stone’s throw from the famous La Piscine museum, this new third place is one of the symbols of the renewal of sustainable and local fashion in Roubaix. Just enough time to drink a beer brewed in the area and here is the customizable pair of socks, made to order, for 6 to 15 euros. In twenty minutes, you can leave with a “made in Roubaix” sweater, knitted on an automated Italian machine, which reduces textile waste by 20% to 2%. “We are profitable because we produce little, only on demand, and there is no intermediary”, explain Victor and his collaborators, all engineers graduated from the National School of Arts and Textile Industries, located on the opposite sidewalk. Determined to export their concept everywhere in France, the trio invites to produce less, but better.
Relaunching made in France through eco-responsible products is the story that the city of Roubaix wants to write through its communication operation Roubaix rewinds. “It’s been forty years since we closed our factories, but textiles have never disappeared from Roubaix, estimates Frédéric Minard, deputy mayor responsible for economic development. We kept production workshops, know-how, mail order sales, e-commerce, specialized schools… ” In mid-June, it was in Roubaix that the Union des industries Textiles & Clothing Nord launched its Textile Valley project to accelerate the reindustrialisation phenomenon underway in Hauts-de-France. Objective: to relocate 1% of textile production in France, which would amount to creating 4,000 jobs.
It is on this fertile ground that the ambition of a hundred players in the Roubaix textile sector (designers, clothing workshops, researchers, distributors, schools, fabric suppliers, etc.) was built. Aspiration accelerated by the crisis due to Covid-19. In March 2020, confined France is looking for masks. In an emergency, a 900 square meter clothing workshop was opened on May 3 at 156, rue de l’Industrie.
You have 74.93% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.