Bark Cloth Exhibit Set for Heimtextil

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 2/25/2011 3:32:20 AM

FRANKFURT, GERMANY - As part of its sustainability push, the Heimtextil international trade fair feature a special show-in-show highlighting bark cloth, which it says is manufactured in an economical, ecological and socially sustainable way from tree bark in Uganda.
     The manufacture of bark cloth as been designated as an immaterial UNESCO World Cultural Heritage activity, a distinction given by UNESCO to cultural expressions and practices.
     Barktex was launched in 1999 as developmental aid project. It now provides hundres of small farming families with an income, according to Heimtextil organizers Messe Frankfurt. The handcrafted fabric looks like leather and is "soft but robust." During the January 2011 fair, Ugandan seamstresses will demonstrate how the cloth is made in an exhibit in the foyer between Halls 5.1 and 6.1.
     This year, Messe Frankfurt commissioned a study of sustainably manufactured home textiles. It found the European and North American markets are expected to reach $400Million, or roughly $545 million US.