Empowering Türkiye’s SMEs to digitalise the fashion supply chain

Just Style discovers how Istanbul Moda Academy (IMA) fashion school in Türkiye is helping to boost the  digital capabilities of the country's small to medium sized fashion businesses (SMEs) and is ensuring they  are in line with global industry standards. 

In his opening address at the 6th edition of the Istanbul Fashion Connection (IFCO) trade show last week, the president of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) Şekip Avdaviç quoted Donatella Versace: “Fashion is about dreaming and making other people dream.” 

ambition to empower and inspire young designers and SMEs to pursue their dreams, Istanbul Apparel Exporters’ Association (IHKIB) explains IMA was established to enhance design capacity and support emerging designers and talented youth within the country’s fashion industry. Istanbul Moda Academy or IMA is dedicated to training future fashion professionals on fashion design and art as well as providing insights on what’s happening in different global markets.

It is an educational campaign and its mission is to cultivate a creative, innovative and future-steering workforce in Türkiye’s pivotal textiles and apparel industries. IMA was founded in 2007 as part of the Fashion and Textile Cluster Project, financed by the European Union and it is an IHKIB affiliate. 

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She believes the fashion ecosystem is constantly changing and while larger companies have the resources and vision to level up, SMEs still require support. 

Empowering Türkiye SMEs to digitalise the fashion supply chain “This is an awareness-type education, as opposed to technical education to give SMEs some perspective about what will happen in future,” notes Girişmen. She adds that they want to give companies some awareness of where to start and based on their needs where and what to invest in. 

There are new global standards and Girişmen shares that given the upcoming regulations, the industry has until 2030 to align itself. During this period, she hopes to see new systems being incorporated as failing to do so could leave Türkiye’s apparel industry lagging behind and unable to meet the required standards as a producer. 

She also says confidently that sustainability will become the norm in this evolving world order, and IMA is committed to supporting the industry through its educational programme, offering a fresh perspective on how to navigate these changes. The future of fashion: Is digitalisation key? Girişmen underscores the importance of embracing new technologies and processes to stay relevant in the industry, while also stressing the need for a more sustainable approach to fashion production. According to her, as the retail and production landscape evolves there is a growing awareness about digitalisation which puts a certain burden on the designing process. 

She states that as digitalisation becomes more popular, the designing stage will also transform, resulting in changes on the production side: “The workflow is changing. The roles of new departments and human resources will gain another meaning. The supply chain will change as well with these processes.” 

To address these shifts, IMA introduced a digitalisation course. A representative from IMA demonstrated how digital software is used in the design process. While pointing to stress maps generated in Core3D software, she explains digital technology can be used to immediately show the impact of the changes made to the garment, which eliminates five or even six samples needing to be made in real life. The IMA representative also highlights the ease with which fabric samples can be scanned and checked for fit. In addition to this, buyers or companies have access to the final design and can directly add comments and suggestions, which reduces the need for extensive email communication. IMA focuses on Türkiye’s sustainability efforts SMEs are also being trained in machine learning. The idea is to gather all information from previous years to analyse details including the colours and items sold in the past, broken down by region, gender and age categories to determine the exact numbers and use it as a standard for manufacturing in the upcoming seasons. 

This approach, the IMA representative notes, could help address issues of overconsumption and 

Empowering Türkiye SMEs to digitalise the fashion supply chain overproduction, enabling SMEs to better align their supply chains with sustainability goals. As part of this educational course, IMA uses case 

studies of other brands to explore their initiatives and production methods. She says it explores both good and bad examples and what other brands are doing in terms of zero-waste to see if something is worth investing in. 

When asked whether SMEs will succeed in achieving their sustainability goals through this programme, Girişmen acknowledges challenges remain and adds that while these efforts are crucial, it won’t be easy. She explains that with the influx of new legislation, the goals are still somewhat unclear, but she emphasised the critical importance of sustainability within the industry.