The Portuguese textile institution joins CLO's Ecosystem Partnership Program as a fabric digitization partner, connecting European mills to CLO's global digital material ecosystem through trusted, on-the-ground expertise.
CLO Virtual Fashion, the global leader in 3D garment simulation, announced today that CITEVE (Technological Centre for the Textile and Clothing Industry of Portugal) has officially joined CLO’s Ecosystem Partnership Program (EPP). Unveiled at the CLO Madrid User Summit, the partnership adds a certified Portugese institution to CLO’s growing global network of fabric digitization partners — bringing professional digitization close to the European’s largest manufacturing industry and connecting it to the world's largest digital fabric library.
CLO has already built the industry's largest digital fabric database. Since acquiring swatchbook in 2025, CLO's Material Digitization Service has operated global labs in China and India, converting physical materials into authenticated, CLO-ready digital assets through a rigorous process of physical measurement using CLO's proprietary Fabric Kit — with the next-generation zFab Kit rolling out across MDS labs later in 2026 — and 3D drape validation. As this material digitization (MDS) infrastructure continues to expand globally — including swatchbook's own growing footprint —, the CLO Ecosystem Partnership Program allows trusted local institutions – like CITEVE – to extend this same fabric digitization standard to their own markets, contributing directly to the growing library of assets available on CLO-SET.
CITEVE is the first EPP partner in Europe to offer fabric digitization under this model. As a certified, neutral institution with over 50 years of textile research experience and deep relationships across mills and vendors in the region, CITEVE gives producers a trusted, local avenue to digitize their collections to CLO's standard — with assets delivered straight into CLO-SET for brands and vendors to discover and use. What makes CITEVE's role distinct is not just geography but institutional standing. As a certified textile research and services body with deep roots in Portugal's manufacturing community, CITEVE offers mills a level of familiarity and neutrality that accelerates adoption. The EU Digital Product Passport — which will require traceable, standardized material data across the textile supply chain — is adding urgency to that conversation, but also hesitance: mills that are uncertain about what digitization means for their proprietary data and processes need a trusted, independent institution to guide that transition. CITEVE's position as a neutral, non-competitive body makes that case convincingly, turning what can feel like a compliance burden into a tangible commercial opportunity — a digital presence inside the world's largest fabric library, accessible to brands actively sourcing materials they can design with in 3D.
Every fabric digitized through CITEVE enters the same connected CLO workflow: assets validated to CLO's drape-test standard and housed in CLO-SET, where brands and vendors can discover and design with verified European materials. A mill's physical collection becomes a digital catalogue inside the world's largest fabric library — a new channel to reach 3D-first brands actively sourcing materials they can actually rely on.
"Material digitization is where the next phase of 3D adoption gets unlocked, and that starts with making it easy for mills to participate," said Jorge San Martín, Business Development Manager for the Iberian Market at CLO Virtual Fashion. "CITEVE gives us the ideal local partner to bring that message directly to Portugal's textile community — an institution with the technical credibility and industry relationships to move mills toward digitization with confidence. The goal is to rapidly scale the volume of real European materials within our global digital ecosystem so brands can seamlessly design with them in CLO, and CITEVE provides the ideal local infrastructure to accelerate that onboarding process."
"Fabric digitization bridges materials science and advanced digital creation, transforming real textiles into accurate digital assets that replicate both their visual appearance and physical behavior. By enabling faster development, reducing waste, and improving collaboration across the value chain, it is helping drive the textile industry towards a more sustainable and competitive future," said Braz Costa, General Manager at CITEVE.
As CLO and CITEVE begin onboarding an initial group of Portuguese producers, they position Portugal as an early, demonstrative success story in scaling fabric digitization across Europe's manufacturing regions.
CITEVE – The Technological Centre for the Portuguese Textile and Clothing Industry is a leading European reference in promoting innovation, sustainability, technological excellence, and competitiveness across the textile and apparel sector. Since 1989, we have connected companies, universities, and knowledge centres to transform research into high value-added solutions. Through applied research, state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructures, and support for digital and sustainable transformation, we contribute to the development of new materials, products, processes, and business models. Headquartered in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal, with an international presence, we work every day to build a more innovative, sustainable, digital, and globally competitive textile and clothing industry.