KEY POINTS:
International fashion houses such as Armani could gain the upper hand over counterfeiters with promising technology developed in New Zealand.
AgResearch yesterday unveiled its textile tracing system, Verifi TT, which can distinguish two identical garments of the same fabric, colour and pattern.
Its general manager of food and textiles, Robert Finch, said the system added less than 0.1 per cent to the fabric's total cost but the market potential was enormous.
"It's driven by the changing and escalating consumer need to be able to trace and authenticate products all the way back to point-of-origin. That's happening not only in food, but in textiles and in other product areas."
The technology enables any synthetic or natural textile to have a distinct tracer fibre embedded in it. This is added early in the normal textile processing sequence in minute quantities - around 300 grams of tracer fibre per tonne of conventional textile fibre.
The tracer material can be coded uniquely, and authentication is done through a handheld scanner - eliminating the need for the time-consuming and destructive convention of cutting a sample of the fabric and having it tested in a laboratory.
Finch demonstrated Verifi TT yesterday on identical-looking garments created by New Zealand design house Stitch Ministry.
Managing director, Jason Gitmans, said there was no discernible difference between the fabrics.
"It's still got the same handfeel and there's no allergic reaction that I can tell from the garment. But it's still early stages yet so we're waiting to see what it can do."
Gitmans says the technology will be useful when Stitch Ministry embarks on conquering the British market in the next two years.
A lot of the company's manufacturing is done in China, he says, and "the counterfeit laws in China are very lax, so this just helps to ensure that we can trace our garments and make sure that they are actually Stitch Ministry garments".
The technology is already being used to verify or trace the origin of luxury goods, bespoke brands and products such as casino chips. AgResearch scientists worked in partnership with Australian company DatatraceDNA to adapt the technology for the textile industry.
Finch says the technology has already been successfully tested and AgResearch is seeking a commercial partner to license the intellectual property.
Verifi TT could be in the marketplace in a year.
