#Retail & Brands

2021-12-02

VF Corporation Appoints Nina Flood as President, Global Packs – Eastpak®, JanSport® & Kipling®

VF Corporation (NYSE: VFC), a global leader in branded lifestyle apparel, footwear, and accessories, today announced the appointment of Nina Flood to the newly created position of President, Global Packs – Eastpak®, JanSport® and Kipling®. Flood will be based at the headquarters of VF International, in Stabio, Switzerland. She will report to Martino Scabbia Guerrini, Executive Vice President and President EMEA.

Together under one organization, the Eastpak®, JanSport® and Kipling® brands will work together to leverage synergies across the enterprise while also ensuring that each brand maintains its independent character and identity. The Eastpak® and Kipling® teams will remain headquartered in Antwerp and the JanSport® team will continue to be headquartered in Denver.

“I’d like to congratulate Nina on her new position,” said Martino Scabbia Guerrini. “Nina’s previous experience as President of Eastpak and President of Kipling North America make her the ideal leader for the Global Packs organization. Under Nina’s guidance, we will enable Eastpak, JanSport and Kipling to begin the next chapter of their individual success stories and together as a collective organization to become the global leader in packs.”

Flood most recently served as President of Eastpak®. After joining VF in 2003 as Senior Director, Marketing for the Nautica® brand (formerly part of VF Corporation), she quickly progressed in her career holding various senior positions, including leading global Marketing and Strategy for Nautica before joining the Kipling® brand as President of Kipling® Americas in 2016. Prior to joining VF, Flood spent 10 years with Guess, Inc., holding various marketing and brand leadership roles.

“I am honored to be leading the Global Packs organization and to be working on the Kipling brand again,” said Flood. “I look forward to working with the amazing team of talented people and growing our Packs business.”

“Production is a product”

From technical textiles and AI-driven robotics to the limitations of textile circularity: Professor Dr Thomas Gries looks back on more than two decades of development at ITA Aachen. In the interview, he explains why production technology remains a decisive success factor, discusses international collaborations and innovation ecosystems, and shares his views on the transformation of production landscapes and the challenges facing an increasingly regulated industry.

“We need to move away from the price trap and return to a value-driven mindset.”

With its new Textile Innovation Center, KARL MAYER is sending a strong signal for innovation, collaboration, and the future of textile applications. In this interview, Karl Josef Mayer discusses new opportunities in warp knitting, the processing of staple fibres, recycling, the changing role of machinery manufacturers, and why the textile industry must once again focus more strongly on the value of textiles. by Oliver Schmidt

“Innovation, resilience and international experience remain the great strengths of the Swiss textile machinery industry”

Geopolitical uncertainty, growing competitive pressure from China, new free trade agreements and the shift towards a circular economy are currently reshaping the global textile industry. In this interview, Cornelia Buchwalder discusses the current mood within the Swiss textile machinery sector, the industry’s distinctive innovative strength, new market opportunities in India and Asia, and the technological trends that could shape the upcoming trade fair cycle leading up to ITMA 2027.

Recover™ secures multi-year recycled cotton agreement with H&M

Recover™ has signed a multi-year agreement with H&M to support the integration of its recycled cotton fiber, RCotton, for use in H&M’s products. Since early 2024, H&M and Recover™ have collaborated on product development, which now enables scaled commercial introduction of Recover™ mechanically recycled cotton into H&M’s collections.

GORE-TEX® KIDSWEAR launches innovative membership scheme for kids’ jackets

With its revolutionary new membership model, GORE-TEX® Kidswear now offers families a simple, flexible and sustainable way of kitting out their children in top-quality jackets. It is aimed at the parents of children aged between five and ten and kicks off with a choice of functional winter jackets.

Ence and ShareTex begin initial testing of the ATENEA innovation project to promote textile recycling in Spain

Ence and ShareTex are making progress on the Atenea R&D project, which aims to develop a complete value chain for textile recycling in Spain. Specifically, the goal of the ATENEA project—which is funded by the Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI)—is to connect all the necessary stages for the recovery of textile waste, from collection and management, through recycling and transformation into new raw materials, to their incorporation into new textile products.

DePoly Inaugurates its Showcase Plant in Monthey Switzerland

What if used plastic bottles, PET packaging material and polyester textiles could become raw materials just as high performing as virgin resources? That is the ambition of DePoly, a circular materials company based in Sion, Switzerland which inaugurated its Showcase Plant in Monthey on July 6th & 7th. The first depolymerization facility of its kind and scale in Switzerland, this industrial Showcase Plant represents a major milestone in the company's growth and its journey toward commercialization.

Commission clarifies rules on plastic bottles recycling

The European Commission today adopted new rules on recycling of single-use plastic beverage bottles made primarily of polyethylene terephthalate (PET bottles). These rules establish, for the first time, a methodology to calculate, verify and report chemically recycled content. This is part of the Commission’s December 2025 plastics package.