Penelope CAD Extends DeSL PLM into Woven Fabric Design

Through Textile Solutions Group (TSG), DeSL’s Product Lifecycle Management platform now reaches into advanced woven fabric design with Penelope CAD. Together, Penelope and DeSL connect woven textile development directly to the broader product lifecycle, giving brands and textile manufacturers a single digital thread from fabric creation through to production.

The move responds to a familiar pressure across fashion and textiles: the need to work faster, cut waste, and collaborate more effectively across global supply chains. Many organisations still depend on disconnected systems, physical samples, spreadsheets, and manual approvals during woven fabric development — processes that slow product development, add cost, and open communication gaps between design, merchandising, sourcing, and production teams.

Bringing Woven Fabric Design into a Digital Workflow

Penelope is a textile CAD solution built for woven fabric design and visualization, enabling teams to create and review woven fabrics digitally before any physical production begins. Instead of waiting on physical samples, designers can assess hyper-realistic fabrics on screen, share them instantly, and reach development decisions sooner — the basis of a more connected and efficient fabric-development workflow.

Penelope supports:

• Digital fabric creation
• Realistic fabric visualization
• Faster fabric approvals
• Reduced physical sampling
• Stronger collaboration between design and production
• Dobby and Jacquard woven fabric design

By lowering their dependence on physical sampling, textile manufacturers can keep looms dedicated to revenue-generating production rather than repeated sample weaving, while brands benefit from quicker approvals and shorter development cycles.

Extending Fashion PLM into Woven Textile Development

DeSL PLM acts as a central hub for product development, sourcing, supplier collaboration, and workflow management. Paired with Penelope, woven fabric design stops being a separate exercise and becomes part of a connected digital ecosystem.

Textile development can then align directly with product specifications, material development, tech packs, supplier collaboration, workflow approvals, critical paths, and product timelines. The result is greater visibility across teams and fewer of the communication gaps that typically slow fashion product development. Rather than managing woven fabric design apart from product creation, brands can run both within one structured digital workflow.

Faster Time-to-Market Through Digital Fabric Development

Much of the time lost in fashion product development falls between design approval and production readiness. Traditional woven development tends to involve several rounds of physical samples, manual reviews, and repeated revisions — each one delaying approvals and, ultimately, collection launches.

Penelope reduces that lag through digital woven fabric visualization and faster collaboration. Designers can explore more woven options digitally, adjust earlier, and secure approvals sooner, without waiting days or weeks for physical samples.

This helps brands:

• Reduce sampling rounds
• Accelerate approvals
• Improve development speed
• Launch collections earlier
• Respond faster to market trends

For manufacturers, digital approvals also cut the production interruptions that repeated sample requests tend to cause.

Combining Woven Fabric Design with Digital Color Approvals

Color development is another persistent source of delay and rework across textiles and apparel. DeSL’s Color Lifecycle Management solution manages digital color approvals within a centralized workflow, and when combined with Penelope, teams can handle woven fabric structure and color development together — forming a more complete digital woven textile workflow.

With this combination, brands can:

• Reduce physical lab dips and strike-offs
• Improve color consistency
• Speed up approvals
• Share accurate color standards globally
• Strengthen supplier communication

Digital color approvals also advance sustainability goals by reducing waste, shipping emissions, and unnecessary material use, letting teams make faster, data-driven decisions while preserving quality and accuracy.

Supporting Sustainability and Smarter Textile Development

Cutting physical sampling delivers more than speed — it lowers environmental impact. Every sample avoided means less material waste, reduced shipping, and lower energy consumption throughout woven textile development.

As brands continue to invest in sustainability and digital transformation, connected digital workflows grow in importance. DeSL‘s broader ecosystem supports centralized product data, supplier collaboration, digital approvals, traceability, AI-powered workflows, and 3D and digital product development — allowing brands to modernise woven fabric development while improving visibility and operational efficiency.

Building a Connected Digital Backbone for Woven Textile Development

Fashion brands need connected systems, not isolated tools, to collaborate effectively across the entire product lifecycle. By extending DeSL PLM into woven fabric design, Penelope CAD helps brands and manufacturers move toward a genuinely connected digital workflow.

Combining digital fabric design, PLM, and digital color approvals lets companies reduce sampling, improve accuracy, accelerate approvals, and bring products to market faster. As development cycles keep shrinking, connected woven textile workflows will play an increasingly decisive role in helping brands stay competitive — and reflect TSG’s wider ambition to build an integrated digital backbone for textile and apparel manufacturing.