November 21, 2023 X-Rite Pantone Textile Color Hub

Textile Color Hub is a cloud-based ecosystem that enables retail brands and suppliers to approve new designs and start production in days.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – In fashion, apparel, and home goods, color is paramount, influencing textile aesthetics and customer satisfaction. Achieving the desired colors sustainably and efficiently across the global supply chain has long been challenging for brands and textile suppliers. Today, X-Rite Incorporated and Pantone LLC, global leaders in color science and technology, announced Textile Color Hub, a groundbreaking solution to make digital color specification more efficient, achievable, compliant and sustainable across the design to production workflow.

For most textile brands, color specification is a painstaking and subjective process. In a traditional workflow, brands and designers select colors and send a physical sample for suppliers to match. The supplier creates multiple lab dips and ships the options back to the brand for approval. This cycle can repeat multiple times, leading to unnecessary delays and excess waste that increases the carbon footprint of the textile industry.

“The future of textile color approval and production control lies in a cloud-based, data-driven, digital workflow,” said Pieter Mulder, Global Strategic Account Manager, X-Rite and Pantone. “The X-Rite Pantone Textile Color Hub transforms the way brands and suppliers communicate and collaborate to bring products to market up to five times faster. It paves the way for a modernized, digital approach to specify and approve textile designs while reducing waste and carbon footprints.”

Modern and Sustainable Textile Color Management

Textile Color Hub enables brands to combine their traditional and isolated solutions into a complete digital color workflow to securely communicate and control specified colors and designs. It is an open, cloud-based ecosystem that supports spectrophotometers from X-Rite and other manufacturers.

The brand selects a Pantone color or any private brand color for a new design, and creates a Color Specification Document using a pre-defined template that includes the spectral data for the specified colors, the required DeltaE tolerances, and the illuminants to measure against.

Selected suppliers are automatically notified of a new design through Textile Color Hub and use the Color Specification Document to begin color formulation and the lab dipping process. The platform compares the specified color against the measured best lab dip. Suppliers then submit through Textile Color Hub for digital approval by the brand.

Quantifiable Results

Textile Color Hub offers a smarter, more sustainable solution that streamlines color management. It brings measurable benefits and value to textile brands and suppliers, including:

• Get 95% of lab dips right the first time,  
• Reduce waste with only one start up and wash up,  
• Reduce Co2 with one dip and zero physical samples, and 
• Improve time to market by 75%.

“Textile Color Hub is used by one of the world’s largest textile and furniture retailers and delivered immediate results for both the brand and its suppliers,” continued Mulder. “It is fast and easy to implement and with a digital color workflow, companies can start production in days instead of weeks.”

For more information about X-Rite Pantone Textile Color Hub, visit https://www.xrite.com/promotions/2023/2023-september/cpg-textile-color-hub-offer

About X-Rite
Founded in 1958, X-Rite Incorporated is a global leader in the science and technology of color and appearance. With Pantone, X-Rite employs more than 800 people in 11 countries. The company’s corporate headquarters are located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, with regional headquarters in Europe and Asia and service centers across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. X-Rite offers a full range of solutions used by manufacturers, retailers, printers, and graphic design houses to achieve precise management and communication of color and appearance throughout their processes. X-Rite products and services are recognized standards in the printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video, automotive, paints, plastics, textiles and medical industries. For further information, please visit www.xrite.com. For the latest news, information, connect with X-Rite on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

About Pantone
Pantone provides the universal language of color that enables color-critical decisions through every stage of the workflow for brands and manufacturers. More than 10 million designers and producers around the world rely on Pantone products and services to help define, communicate and control color from inspiration to realization – leveraging advanced X-Rite technology to achieve color consistency across various materials and finishes for graphics, fashion and product design. Pantone Standards feature digital and physical color specification and workflow tools. The Pantone Color Institute™ provides customized color standards, brand identity and product color consulting as well as trend forecasting inclusive of Pantone Color of the Year, Fashion Runway Color Trend Reports, color psychology and more. Pantone B2B Licensing incorporates the Pantone Color System into different products and services, enabling licensees to communicate and reproduce certified Pantone values and improve efficiencies for their users. Pantone Lifestyle brings color and design together across apparel, home, and accessories. Learn more at www.pantone.com.

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