Is knitwear the new horizon for sustainable fashion?
Warm, cozy, and made with natural and precious fibers. Cool, but that’s not all. Actually, this highly versatile apparel segment lends itself to many new responsible high-craftsmanship interpretations as well as technically advanced production techniques.
Among other new advancements, it is betting on new business models that can make a difference, and finally now anyone can experiment. Bikini Berlin, the forward-thinking shopping mall of the German fashion capital, for instance, is hosting a microfactory where designers and consumers can enjoy custom-made knitwear manufacturing. And Shima Seiki, the highly advanced knitting machine specialist, has developed new technology to produce garments with a single process.
Knitwear is also synonymous with responsibility as it can be made with recycled fibers and upcycled yarns that would otherwise be thrown away. Along with that, many brands showed their versatility and environmental friendliness within Milan Fashion Week, as presented by Anteprima, Daniela Gregis, Cavia, and J. Salinas.
Make your sweater at Bikini Berlin
Bikini Berlin, the well-known Berlin concept store is hosting the research project Circular Microfactory Berlin. The initiative was set out with the purpose of showing that it is possible to create a local, digitally connected, circular production model for knitwear, embedded in an urban setting and easy to replicate.
After developing and disclosing the project in 2025, Bikini Berlin is hosting a functioning microfactory showing how brands, designers, and educators can prototype, produce on-demand, and explore new circular recovery pathways.
While anyone can experience its manufacturing steps within a program of dedicated workshops designers can work with digital workflows to accelerate iteration, reduce sampling waste, create production-ready specifications, and use in-store 3D product design and virtual prototyping system.
Not less important, they can produce on-demand knitwear. Manufacturing is optimized for small runs and agile delivery. This way they reduce inventory risk and enable shorter feedback loops between design, market, and manufacturing.
This innovative productive system can also help in-store yarn recovery and recycling. Brands, on their side, can start take-back and recovery programs, exploring how knitwear can be designed to return into the system through disassembly and yarn reuse.
Those willing to experiment with these new processes can participate in Shift Workshops happening on May 21-22, September 3-4 and 21-25, and November 19-20, 2026.
Garment knitting with Shima Seiki
Within this model, Shima Seiki, a Japanese highly-advanced circular knitwear machine specialist, disclosed SDS One-Apex, a new software that helps speed up and simplify intermediate knitwear sample design and production step design during Texworld Paris, in September 2025.
The software implements Wholegarment, what they consider the world’s first seam-free knitting machine that produces a single garment directly without producing waste. Wholegarment products are knit in three dimensions without seams, offering benefits never before found in any other type of garment.
The combination of virtual sampling and Wholegarment knitting can optimize inventory and minimize leftovers that otherwise would go to waste.
Imperfection is beauty for Cavia
The hottest topics of the season among pret-à-porter brands seen at Milan Fashion Week are sweaters and coats made with recovered, regenerated, and leftover fibers—even better if they are hand-knitted and featuring unique single-exemplar motifs.
The Italian designer Martina Boero created her brand Cavia during the first lockdown by transforming old blankets and high-quality secondhand textiles into new handmade items, according to purposefully irregular lines and contrasting colors and textures.
“Nothing is serial, nothing is repeatable,” she likes to say as she offers hand-knitted tops made with recycled mohair and other warm yarns. Each piece has a soft and 3D aspect, recreating painting-like surfaces.
Discover Anteprima’s ephemeral knitwear
Anteprima, the pret-à-porter brand, has presented a f/w 2026/2027 collection that emerges from a dialogue with Japanese artist Aiko Miyanaga, known for her poetic installations made up of ephemeral materials such as salt, glass, and naphthalene. Her works—destined to transform and dissolve—capture the moment just before disappearance, making visible what usually eludes the eye.
Translating this vision into the language of fashion, Anteprima creates a collection that intertwines warmth and transparency, structure and fluidity. Cashmere is a defining element of the maison.
Materials narrate the passage of time through imperfect textures, layered transparencies, devoré techniques, needle punch, and jacquards revealed even on the reverse side. Metallic prints soak knitted items and reinvent knitwear beyond mere decoration.
Daniela Gregis brings knitwear to the next step
Daniela Gregis is a unique Made in Italy brand from Bergamo founded by eclectic designer Daniela Gregis and now managed by her daughter, Manuela Bortolotti.
This season’s collection, called Briciole (crumbs), plays with fairytale-like, cocooning silhouettes wrapped around the body; long skirts and dresses with ankle-length trousers, culottes, and unique sweaters showing irregular hems and inserts, and made with unique material mixes.
Fur-like jackets and fringed macroscarves complete many looks. Handmade crochet multicolor shoppers add extra-fun touches to these unconventional looks.
J. Salinas—knitwear says it all
This brand was founded by Peruvian designer Jorge Luis Salinas and is already appreciated worldwide. While it participated in the last Milan shows, it showcased its ability to reinterpret Peru’s textile heritage in a contemporary key.
The brand combines traditional craftsmanship with avant-garde design and enhances noble materials such as alpaca and Pima cotton. It actively collaborates with local artisan communities, particularly women. Its collections are entirely made in Peru and tell unique visual and material stories. For this season, thanks to the styling of George Kravowiak, it has proposed a total look complete with accessories such as shoes and bags.
Salinas started his career in Gamarra, the largest clothing production center in Latin America. Then he studied at the Philadelphia College of Textiles & Science, and in 2025, he received the “Mejor Proyecto Artesanal del Año” award at the Latin American Fashion Awards, in the presence of Donatella Versace and Anna Dello Russo.