Avantex Fashion Pitch 2025 Crowns GoldenEye Smart Vision and Green Worms as Champions of Fashion Innovation and Sustainability
The Avantex Fashion Pitch 2025, organised by Messe Frankfurt France, has reaffirmed its position as a benchmark platform for sustainable fashion innovation. This year, the jury honoured GoldenEye Smart Vision with the main prize for its artificial intelligence–driven textile quality control system. A special prize was awarded to Green Worms, an Indian micro-enterprise addressing waste management while creating sustainable jobs for women from disadvantaged communities.
Eleven Finalists, One Common Goal
The 8th edition of the Avantex Fashion Pitch brought together eleven innovative finalists—Adirelounge, Ananas Fashion, CQ Studio, Delfi, Garment By, Green Worms, GoldenEye Smart Vision, Myth AI, Sequinova, Meddle, and Style Shifter. Each had just five minutes to present projects merging technology, sustainability, and creativity to an international jury of experts. The international jury included Jayne Simone Estève-Curé, fashion and luxury consultant; Yoobin Jung, sustainability ventures associate at Plug and Play Tech Centre; Carol Hilsum, Investor & Tech Leader at Assembly Ventures; Claudia Franz, Director Brand Management at Messe Frankfurt; and Rachel de Gooijer, Marketing Manager at Circular Textile Days.
The Avantex Fashion Pitch is not just a competition. It is a global platform spotlighting innovative ideas that can transform the fashion industry into a more responsible ecosystem. The 2025 edition proves that the future of fashion lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, circular economy, and social empowerment.
Julien Schmoll, Director of Marketing and Communications at Messe Frankfurt France, added: “The choice made by the Avantex Fashion Pitch jury reflects the growing role of digitalisation in textile production processes and the ongoing transformation of the fashion world, particularly in terms of CSR issues.”
With winners like GoldenEye Smart Vision and Green Worms, the message is clear: the next era of fashion will be defined by sustainability, technology, and human impact.
GoldenEye Smart Vision: Artificial Intelligence for Quality and Sustainability
The award-winning project by GoldenEye Smart Vision uses AI-powered technology to detect visual defects in fabrics with unprecedented accuracy. This innovation not only optimises production processes and reduces raw material consumption, but also increases customer satisfaction by ensuring flawless textile quality. By tackling fabric waste—a pressing challenge in today’s fashion industry—GoldenEye Smart Vision demonstrates how digitalisation and sustainability can drive meaningful change.
Their tool can digitalise entire rolls of fabric in high definition, detecting defects faster, more precisely, and more consistently than the human eye, while sharing information instantly throughout the value chain via their cloud technology. This creates a positive impact, with a 15% reduction in raw material consumption, a 10% increase in sell-through regarding production capacity, and, as they claim: “We enable textile companies to increase their sales in less than two weeks’ lead time.” The business model is not rental-based but designed to be sold and fully integrated—ready to use by each maison or manufacturer, and adaptable to any fabric.
As part of its award, the company will receive a stand worth €2,800 at Avantex Paris 2026, €1,000 from Messe Frankfurt France, €1,000 from Texpertise Network, Messe Frankfurt Group’s global textile platform, A one-year subscription to VLGE creative solution (valued at €30,000), one year of incubation at Foundry by IFA Paris (valued at €4,500); a keynote speech at the Circular Textile Days event; and an editorial feature in Luxiders Magazine.
Julien Schmoll, Director of Marketing and Communications at Messe Frankfurt France, added: “The choice made by the Avantex Fashion Pitch jury reflects the growing role of digitalisation in textile production processes and the ongoing transformation of the fashion world, particularly in terms of CSR issues.”
Green Worms: Waste Recycling with Social Impact
The special jury prize recognised Green Worms, a pioneering Indian enterprise that has established a local waste collection and processing system. The social enterprise is dedicated to addressing the twin challenges of waste management and poverty. Founded over a decade ago, the company has built a circular economy infrastructure that not only reduces environmental damage but also creates dignified employment opportunities, with a strong focus on women’s empowerment.
Their work includes: establishing waste collection and recycling systems that close the loop on low-value materials; partnering with brands and governments to co-design circular solutions, ensure EPR compliance, and provide traceable post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials; and scaling impact with material recovery facilities, waste audits, and circular design for packaging and products.
By recycling waste and reducing pollution, Green Worms not only benefits the environment but also empowers women from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds through sustainable employment opportunities. This recognition highlights how circular solutions and social justice are shaping the future of fashion. So far, Green Worms has served over 1.5 million households, developed processing capacity exceeding 200 tons per day, and created hundreds of dignified jobs—proving that systemic circular solutions can tackle waste while lifting communities out of poverty.
Their prize package includes: €1,000 from Texpertise Network; a marketing package from Circular Textile Days; and a consultation by Jayne Simone Estève-Curé.
“The jury members were impressed by the quality of the designs submitted by the companies selected for this edition,” said Claudia Franz, Director of Brand Management Apparel Fabrics & Fashion at Messe Frankfurt. “By recognising the GoldenEye Smart Vision project and choosing to award a special prize to Green Worms, we are supporting innovative solutions that address today’s major challenges.”
All Images:
@ Courtesy by Texworld Apparel Sourcing Paris
