The opening ceremony of AIFT 2019 was held at the Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel in Shanghai, the "Fashion and Textile Artificial Intelligence Alliance" was also established to promote the development of artificial intelligence in the industry. Alliance members include (not in particular order): Institution of Fashion and Textile, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; School of Information Science & Technology, Donghua University; Fashion. Art Design Institute, Donghua University; Engineering Research Center of Digitalized Textile & Fashion Technology (ERCDTET), Donghua University; College of Textiles, Donghua University; Apparel & Art Design College, Xi'an Polytechnic University; College of Textile and Clothing Engineering of Soochow University; School of Fashion Design & Engineering, Zhejiang SCI- TECH University; School of Fashion, Wuhan Textile University; Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology School of Fashion; College of textile science and engineering, Tiangong University. 

Responding to the needs of academia, researchers, and industry players, the alliance is set to become a platform for the exchange of textile & fashion related AI information through a non-commercial organization. It integrates academic, supply, production, design, brands, and other related practitioners to share resources and achieve a win-win situation.

The AIFT alliance's visions:

1. Based on the core value of "Research, Application, and Popularization", this platform connects academia, research and industry to find more new applications and opportunities for AI in the textile and fashion industry.

2. Promote academic research throughout the upstream and downstream (supply, production, brand) to popularize the education and application of AI in the industry.

3. Based in China, facing the world and enhancing the influence of the Fashion and Textile AI Alliance.

4. Bringing together top-notch industry organizations to promote information exchange, popularize the application of AI technology in the textile and fashion industry, and promote academic and technological development.

Expanding the infinite future of AI in the fashion & textile industry

AIFT2019 provided an open platform for researchers, engineers, and trade unionists in the field of AI, fashion, and textiles to discuss the path to "Industry 4.0" and "New Retail Era".

3heavyweight keynote speakers were invited this year.

Prof. Chua Tet Seng, KITHCT Chair Professor, School of Computing of the National University of Singapore, introduced the latest development of AI and multimedia, as well as relevant researches in the fields of fashion product search, style matching, content discovery, and multi-mode recommendation on the theme of "Artificial Intelligence X Multimedia: Accelerating the Fashion Industry".

Prof. Anne Toomey, Head of Textile Programme, Royal College of Art, London, shared how the development of artificial intelligence has integrated fashion, textiles, advanced robotics, computer science, biological design, and advanced materials.

Last but not least, Prof. Calvin Wong, Cheng Yik Hung Professor in Fashion, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, gave a speech on "Artificial Intelligence: The Inevitable Subversive Change of Fashion Textile Industry". He shared with us various applications of artificial intelligence in fashion textiles, and also explained the challenges and opportunities that technology faces.

Bringing together international industry experts, AI, and intelligent textile production solutions

In addition to the keynote speaker sessions, AIFT 2019 solicits papers from researchers in the field of AI and fashion and textiles around the world, inviting them to present research results with the basic theories, principles, and technologies of artificial intelligence and its applications in fashion and textiles. The final selection of more than 40 papers for this conference brings together more than 30 experts from the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and China to present on several fashion and textile AI applications and technology topics, and a number of paper authors held an original paper presentation during ShanghaiTex 2019. The papers were divided into four categories: AI with Textiles, AI with Fashion, Wearable Device and Human Modeling, and AI Fundamentals, which opened up a new direction for the audience.

The next ShanghaiTex will be held on November 23-26, 2021 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Pudong, Shanghai, more AI-related events will be coming soon, please stay tuned!