More than 3,000 exhibitors from 65 countries set up shop last week at Germany’s Messe Frankfurt, the massive exhibition center that hosts Heimtextil, the annual home and contract textile fair spanning wallpapers, fabrics, mattresses, bedding and bath, fibers, yarns, and carpets. This year’s iteration saw buzzy new additions, like an immersive installation by Spanish designer and architect Patricia Urquiola; a Trend Space curated by Italian design platform Alcova; and an expanded Carpets & Rugs hall, which, since its debut last year, has tripled its exhibitors and taken over two full floors of the fair.

Following three days of walking the show (and eating a fair amount of Bavarian pretzels), BOH reports three major insights on where the textile industry is headed in 2025.

Digital Dominance
The possibilities of digital printing were on full display at Heimtextil this year: Vendors showed their finished goods, tech companies like AVA offered print-on-demand demonstrations with textile design software, and Canon live-printed wallpaper murals on its large-format Colorado printers.

While the acceptance of digital printing has been expanding for years, the leaps in the technology shown at Heimtextil were truly impressive. Take Kornit Digital, a print-on-demand company based in Rosh Haayin, Israel, which boasted the ability to print pigments on virtually any type of material—from leather to alpaca wool to a gauzy sheer blend. It even debuted a tribal-inspired collaboration with Niso Furniture.

The growth of the category, which has seen a definite boom in the U.S. interior design world, makes sense for a sector that increasingly values both customization and accessibility. Print-on-demand allows textile designers to realize their vision without having to hold inventory or rely on a third party. It also creates less waste, not only because of the on-demand aspect, but also because it doesn’t require the same dye and washing process that traditional fabric-making entails. The classic forms of textile manufacturing certainly aren’t going by the wayside anytime soon, but with some major jumps in the quality of digital printing, the industry’s future might be a lot more digital.

Alcova took over the fair’s Trend Space this year, with their “Future Continuous” installation Courtesy of Heimtextil

Milan Takeover
Heimtextil is not usually a designer-centric affair. Unlike Maison&Objet or Salone del Mobile, the show has traditionally veered more toward an audience of wholesalers searching for new suppliers. The source materials are the stars of the show; the application is mainly left up to the buyer. So, the addition of not one but two Milan-based design stars—Urquiola and Alcova—was a notable vibe shift.

Placed in the middle of the bedding hall, Urquiola’s installation, “among-us,” played with the concept of breaking free from confinement. Highlighting the interplay between craftsmanship and technology, a pair of hanging carpets made with the traditional dhurrie flat-weaving technique were displayed next to video installations depicting the stages of their creation. The installation was lined with storage benches that invited visitors to shed their shoes, walk on an ombre carpet and take a seat, either in one of several punchy-hued seating areas or on one of the large-scale upholstered sculptures Urquiola designed. The dreamy space encouraged visitors to stop and sit, with beverages on offer from the adjacent coffee stand, dubbed Cafe Milano. At least one attendee I spoke with said they’d come from another part of the show just to visit “among-us,” sit comfortably and take off their shoes for a moment. Tucked in between booths lined with duvets and linens, the installation was a refreshingly artful addition to the overall fair—and the team at Messe Frankfurt evidently agrees, as it’s already been announced that Urquiola will create another exhibition at the 2026 edition.

Elsewhere at the fair, Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima, co-founders of Alcova (which hosts multidisciplinary showcases during Milan’s Fuorisalone and Design Miami), took on the task of curating the Trend Space. The pavilion—in the last few years curated by Anja Bisgaard Gaede of Copenhagen-based trend forecasting agency Spott—has become a highlight of the show, featuring unique textile applications and emerging trends, technologies and manufacturing capabilities. Alcova’s take on the Trend Space was (perhaps unsurprisingly to those familiar with their work) markedly different from years past.

Located in a corner set slightly apart from the exhibitors in Hall 3 instead of in the center of the action, Alcova’s “Future Continuous” installation cut an architectural and sparse silhouette. A mechanical track slowly rotated an assortment of fabrics overhead while visitors followed an undulating counter decked with textiles below. The display interrogated the very concept of trends, with a walkway leading into the pavilion exclaiming, “Trends are not linear!” An accompanying booklet featured essays and interviews on the history of textiles, the legislative policymaking in the industry and the democratization of textile-making.

It was a densely intellectual take on a Trend Space—without reading the accompanying literature or taking one of the daily tours led by Ciuffi or Grima, the subtext of the chosen textiles could easily have been missed. As Grima explained on one such tour, the duo are not trend forecasters; thus, the takeaways from their installation were more conceptual and designed to stir larger conversations than to surface new materials or color choices. While the concepts were provocative, I walked away more inspired by ideas than products—which may have been the point.

For now, Heimtextil is sticking with this new direction; like Urquiola, the duo are set to return to the fair next year.

Sustainability Subdued
I walked around looking in vain for the sustainability pavilion before checking my program and realizing there wasn't one this year. It was surprising there was no follow-up after futurist design agency FranklinTill put on a gorgeous and inspiring regenerative-design exhibition at Heimtextil 2024, accompanied by packed talks given by their team.

Attendees who were interested in searching out sustainably minded exhibitors could look for a green marker on stalls or take the fair’s “Econogy tour,” which would take visitors to a few highlighted booths. But the green-flagged stalls were spread out throughout the sprawling fair, not centralized in any specific area, and the tour only took place once a day. For exhibitors, there was an “Econogy hub” that featured representatives from organizations like Oeko-Tex and German eco-label Blue Angel, where vendors could inquire about certification. While the design-focused installations elsewhere in the show were thoughtful additions, the omission of a dedicated sustainability space felt like a missed opportunity to grow the fair’s authority over a crucial aspect of the industry.

However, vendors still made a point of highlighting their own sustainability bona fides, with third-party certifications clearly touted on brand signage and, particularly in the Interior.Architecture.Hospitality hall, recycled polyester appeared to be at every other booth. Many also boasted about using Ciclo, an additive that allows plastic microfibers shed by polyester during washing to biodegrade when they enter the water supply. It was perhaps notable that Ciclo had a big presence at the 2024 fair, appearing both in the Trend Space and at a booth of its own—so it seems the brands really did embrace a sustainable solution that the fair highlighted for them last year.