It's In the Bag: Fashion Packaging Experts centurybox

What do your customers walk out with when they leave your store? In fashion status starts from the hanging tags and ends with the bag that exits the boutique.

Hollywood has glorified shopping bags in movies from Pretty Woman to Confessions of a Shop-a-Haulic and the status situation… economy or not, will not stop. Packaging expert centurybox is consistently looking for the most fashionable, innovative and environmentally friendly options.

Established in 1988 centurybox opened it’s headquarters in Belgium, to produce bags and packaging for the global fashion industry.

Philippa Barr spoke to Igor Fromont about the challenge of choosing a production location, climate change and the endless search for new looks and materials.

Philippa Barr: So centurybox was established in order to produce packaging and bags for fashion businesses?

Igor Fromont: Exactly, we produce carrier bags and boxes for point of sale for the fashion industry. About 85% of our business is for the fashion industry, and we sell in about 65 different countries. We produce in Belgium, Italy and China.

PB: And where do you sell?

IF: We sell mostly in Europe but we have customers on all the continents.

PB: Is it difficult to maintain production in Belgium and Western Europe?

IF: Well we need to find a fair balance between the criteria given by the customer. Some products can be made in Europe and other products have to be moved to China. In Europe we mostly produce paper bags and cardboard boxes.

PB: But if you want to produce something with stitching the you must go elsewhere?

IF: Stitching is more difficult because it is a labour intensive activity. For that we have to move the location of production.

PB: You make bags from cardboard and paper, different types of plastic, woven plastics, and fabric. How do you experiment and find new materials to work with?

IF: It is a continuous effort to respond to new trends. Almost everyday there are new papers available on the market, responding to new criteria, such as recycling specifications, or the way the trees and forests are managed. We also work with new woven products, for instance,we developed recently a PET based material which is made from post-consumer plastic bottles. This product you can see is a bag that says 'I Am A Plastic Bag'. It looks like fabric, so we have to print on it 'I Am A Plastic Bag'.

PB: It appears to be very soft.

IF: Yes, but the fibres are made from post-consumer plastic bottles.

PB: How has the notion of global warming affected demand in the last 3-5 years?

IF: There have been dramatic trends in the production of plastic bags. Five years ago in Europe we had a very strong demand for plastic bags. And it is definitely being substituted by a demand for paper bags and reusable bags.

PB: Has this intensified your research into the development of new materials?

Yes, definitely. We are looking for cheaper papers and cheaper ways to produce paper bags, because poly bags are extremely cost effective. Also, .we have seen more cost effective production for reusable bags. Now you see reusable bags hem at very affordable prices. Moreover, there has been a growing demand for poly bags made with an additive which allows the poly bag to degrade over time, with the effect of light and moisture. We have also seen the appearance of startch based bags which look like a poly bag but contain a limted about of poly based products.

What are major differences between your cardboards and papers and your plastics in terms of what they can do? What has plastic got that other materials can’t offer as a packaging material?

Poly bags have the advantage of being extremely light, and do not require a lot of space for storage, which is not the case for paper bags or reusable bags. Also there is the price of the poly bag, which remains lower than a paper bag.

Obviously the graphics and the printing on these bags are extremely important. How do you test the color performance of the bag?

The function of the bag is extremely important, but usually we know how the bag will function based on our experience. Most of the bags are so strong that strength is not really an issue. In the fashion industry it is the look that is really critical. And we put alot of effort into developing painting techniques. We have been recently working on innovative silkscreen printing techniques to produce new graphical effects.

PB: Is there a geographical centre in Europe for the development of new packaging and printing technology?

IF: Well I am not sure that there is a specific place where you will find a concentration of professional people. The countries where you have a tradition of fashion concentrate lots of talents, like Milan, Paris, London and so forth, but you can find scattered almost everywhere experts who know a specific aspect of this business.