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Healthy Economy Innovation

The Apparel Industry’s Higher-Ed Partner

This fall, the center is expanding into Portland, where it will host a series of research-based workshops for design professionals at the university’s Food Innovation Center on N.W. Naito Parkway. Topics on the agenda include sizing and fabric grading, sourcing and sustainable textiles and materials.

By Lee Anna Sherman

OSU is tightly linked with the Portland area’s apparel community. Examples include:

OSU researchers Leslie Burns, Brigitte Cluver and Hsiou-Lien Chen watch Newton got through his paces in the OSU design laboratory. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)
OSU researchers Leslie Burns, Brigitte Cluver and Hsiou-Lien Chen watch Newton go through his paces in the OSU design laboratory. (Photo: Jeff Basinger)

The OSU Design Network
The network brings together professionals across the industry for informal gatherings and annual events in Portland, like last year’s Recycled Fashion Show — the longest-running fashion show of designs made from recycled materials in the country.

OSU’s Apparel Research Center
The center offers fabric-testing services to small firms and start-ups. At the Textile and Apparel Performance Testing Lab, clients can get measurements on a full array of variables in fabric and clothing construction (yarn count, weight, thickness), aesthetics (wrinkle recovery, drape, stiffness), durability (tear strength, abrasion resistance) and comfort (thermal properties, moisture management).

This fall, the center is expanding into Portland, where it will host a series of research-based workshops for design professionals at the university’s Food Innovation Center on N.W. Naito Parkway. Topics on the agenda include sizing and fabric grading, sourcing and sustainable textiles and materials.

Design Forum/PDX
This partnership among the Portland Development Commission, the City of Portland and the Oregon University System, along with private-sector businesses, is compiling the West Coast’s first materials resource library available to design professionals. OSU’s Leslie Burns serves on the forum’s board of directors.

By Nick Houtman

Nick Houtman is director of research communications at OSU and edits Terra, a world of research and creativity at Oregon State University. He has experience in weekly and daily print journalism and university science writing. A native Californian, he lived in Wisconsin and Maine before arriving in Corvallis in 2005.