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FashionTech Solutions
A few weeks have passed since TechThreads 2026, and after reading through the many reflections, LinkedIn posts and takeaways shared by attendees, a pattern has started to emerge.
Hosted at VEGA in Copenhagen, TechThreads 2026 brought together fashion brands, technology partners and industry specialists from across the industry. Brands including Samsøe Samsøe,Les Deux, Boozt, ROTATE Birger Christensen, Konges Sløjd, Tekla, Moonboon, Pas Normal Studios, Envii, Woodbird, Won Hundred and many others spent the day discussing the realities of operating in a rapidly changing industry.
What followed was not a series of isolated talks. Instead, it felt like one long conversation viewed from different angles.
And while the agenda covered everything from AI and compliance to sustainability, sourcing and product development, many of the reflections shared afterwards pointed towards the same underlying challenge. Not a specific technology or regulation, but the growing complexity of running a fashion business today.
That theme surfaced again and again throughout the day, often in different forms, and it became the thread connecting many of the conversations that followed.
When sustainability becomes a business conversation
One of the sessions that sparked the most conversation came from Nigel Salter, SB+CO, who opened with a statement that immediately caught people's attention:
"We need sustainability to disappear."
Not because sustainability matters less, but because it has spent too long being treated as something separate from the rest of the business.
Nigel's argument was that the brands making real progress are no longer approaching sustainability as a standalone initiative. Instead, they're building it into the way they design products, source materials and run their operations.
Using examples from companies such as Nike, he showed how innovation can reduce waste, improve efficiency and create better products at the same time. The common thread wasn't sustainability for sustainability's sake. It was finding smarter ways of working.
That perspective resonated with many attendees. Several reflected on the idea that sustainability should sit alongside profitability and operational efficiency rather than apart from them. Others highlighted how the conversation is shifting from reporting and compliance towards resilience.
As climate disruption increasingly affects sourcing regions, raw materials and supply chains, sustainability is becoming less about future ambitions and more about preparing businesses for the realities they already face today.
The AI conversation is becoming more honest
A similar shift could be felt in the conversations around AI.
Not long ago, most discussions about AI in fashion focused on possibility. At TechThreads, the conversation felt much more practical.
The audience wasn't asking whether AI would matter. They were asking whether they could trust it. Questions centred on governance, security, data ownership and responsibility, as well as how organisations can ensure employees remain critical thinkers when working with AI tools.
During the AI in Fashion panel with Heidi Svane Pedersen from Lifestyle & Design Cluster, Halldor Gunnarsson, CTO at Delogue and Calvin Baillie CPO at ROTATE Birger Christensen, the focus repeatedly returned to implementation rather than speculation. The discussion wasn't about futuristic scenarios, but about the realities of introducing AI into existing organisations.
Several attendees later shared similar reflections online. One described AI as a tool rather than a goal, while others highlighted that successful adoption depends as much on people and processes as it does on technology itself.
Perhaps that is why one quote appeared in multiple reflections after the event:
"It takes time before AI starts freeing up time."
It neatly captured the mood of the conversation: optimistic, but grounded in reality.
Key bulk edit featuresTechnology isn't the challenge. Change is.
One theme kept resurfacing throughout the day, regardless of whether the conversation started with AI, compliance, sustainability or digital transformation: change management.
Many of the challenges brands are facing today have less to do with technology itself and more to do with what happens after the technology has been selected. How do you get people to adopt new ways of working? How do you create alignment across teams? And how do you make change stick?
This became particularly clear during the session featuring Ayse Molla Chasan from Delogue, Micky Bach from Les Deux and Nicklas Vad from Wheat. While the discussion touched on technology investments, compliance and operational efficiency, much of it came back to organisational readiness. Transformation projects rarely fail because the technology doesn't work. More often, they struggle because organisations underestimate the effort required to bring people along.
One attendee summed it up well afterwards:
"A new tech system is not the goal. Change management is just as important as the system change itself."
Another quote that resonated throughout the day came from Micky Bach:
"The only thing we get for free is complexity."
There was a knowing reaction in the room when he said it. Complexity sits at the heart of many of the challenges fashion brands face today. More systems, more regulations, more data and more expectations all make decision-making harder.
Perhaps that's why so many conversations ultimately came back to simplification. Not because businesses need fewer tools, but because they need clearer ways of turning information into action. Beneath every discussion about AI, sustainability or compliance was the same underlying challenge: helping organisations adapt without losing momentum.
What stayed with us
Looking back, what stands out most about TechThreads 2026 is how interconnected the conversations were.
At first glance, the agenda covered a wide range of topics. Sustainability, AI, compliance, sourcing, product development and digital transformation each had their own place on the programme. Yet as the day unfolded, it became clear that many of these discussions were circling around the same underlying challenge.
How do fashion businesses continue to adapt and improve in an environment that is becoming increasingly complex?
Nigel Salter approached that question through sustainability and resilience. The AI discussions explored it through technology, governance and trust. Other sessions examined it through organisational change, operational efficiency and collaboration. Different perspectives, but often remarkably similar conclusions.
Better tools can help. Better data can help. Better systems can help. But none of those things create value on their own. What ultimately matters is how organisations use them, how teams work together around them and whether they support clearer, faster and more informed decision-making.
That may be why so many attendees left talking less about innovation and more about execution.
The fashion industry is not short on ideas, ambition or technology. What many organisations are trying to figure out now is how to translate those things into practical, repeatable ways of working that can withstand constant change.
If there was one takeaway from TechThreads 2026, perhaps it was exactly that: operational excellence is no longer about optimisation at the margins. It is becoming a core capability for navigating the future of fashion.
