Last Thursday 1^st of June 2017, Stahl officially opened its new Centre of Excellence in Parets del Vallès, Spain. More than 250 people were invited to the event including Stahl’s customers, employees and a select group of press. Total Shoe Concept was invited to the opening to experience Stahl’s latest industry wide improvements. We feel honoured to get a sneak peek into the world of Stahl and its customers. All the visitors we spoke to thought the event was a great success and the atmosphere was brilliant.

“Future Forward”, was the main theme of the event. ‘Our new Center of Excellence will become the place where we invite you to work side-by-side with one of our Stahl experts, share knowledge and eventually create a better future together.’

‘If you do good we do good’ said Stahl CEO Huub van Beijeren in his welcome speech. Stahl strives to be the best company in the industry ‘but we are humble to our customers and our environment’, He added.

According to Huub the consumer and customer are looking at the world in a very different way. Consumers and customers want to know how a product is created, who was involved, and if a product is produced in an honest and ethical way. The consumer is more aware of things that should not happen in the supply chain and is not only just interested in price. ‘We feel responsible, we don’t do everything right, but we are doing our best to deliver an honest product. This is only the beginning of the future success of Stahl’

Bluesign and Inditex were invited to speak about their companies’ vision about Sustainability and social responsibility. Kurt Schlapfer, Head of CRM at Bluesign, and Joan Marine Alcarria, Sustainability& Quality Manager at Inditex, both talked at length about the importance of partnering from the bottom of the supply chain.

We were all transported by bus to the Centre of Excellence in Parets del Valles where the official ceremonial opening took place. Stahl experts were present to showcase their latest future-proof solutions, innovations and technologies and provide a complete insight in Stahl’s high performance coatings solutions for Apparel & Home Furnishing as well as their polymer and leather chemical technology. Aside from stimulating partnerships, Stahl has also invested in further facilities such as their new research application development labs, which are equipped with state-of-the-art machinery. ‘This way we can explore new opportunities together, as we believe that the best way to predict the future is to create it.’

We saw some pretty cool new ideas like finishings changing colour by heat or wind, bug repellant finishes and so much more.

We also spoke to Émilie Musso the Fashion Coordinator of Stahl Design Studio®. She talked us through the latest FW18/19 collection Coming soon, stay tuned!

The event ended with a fantastic dinner in the beautiful Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya where we had a chance to speak with Michael Costello, the Sustainability Director of Stahl. We had loads of questions to ask him, about the so if you’re curious; keep an eye on our page!

Do you want to know more about Stahl? Check out their company profile here!

Watch the video which was created by Stahl and kicked off the opening last Thursday.