Retail giant Boohoo has prioritised its textile testing with the opening of an in-house laboratory at its Manchester head office. The move is part of a wider initiative to tackle throwaway culture and to promote the longevity of garments, partly driven by increasing consumer awareness of the environmental impact of waste in the textile industry. The Boohoo Group – which incorporates Boohoo, BoohooMan, PrettyLittleThing, Nasty Gal, MissPap, Debenhams, Karen Millen and Coast – will have tighter control over the quality of its textiles, ensuring each garment produced meets not only the industry-specified performance, but new higher quality standards that exceed customers’ expectations.
The opening of the laboratory indicates a new focus on the quality of textiles amongst retailers, and the importance of testing prior to garment production. As Boohoo makes plans to bring its fabrics directly from textiles mills overseas into its facility for rigorous testing prior to manufacture, the retailer has become a pioneer within the industry, potentially encouraging other manufacturers to follow suit with the opening of their own in-house testing facilities.
As the industry leader for all aspects of textile testing consumables, SDC Enterprises was on hand to advise the Boohoo team on industry standards and test procedures during the planning stages of its laboratory launch. SDC Enterprises is the ongoing suppliers of Boohoo’s testing consumables, helping technicians to achieve excellence as standard with every procedure carried out on site.
