Polartec CEO reminds the world that Yvon Chouinard was fleece catalyst
21/10/2014
During a recent discussion on innovation organised by Wharton Business School, Mr Smith recalled that, while Polartec gets the credit for inventing fleece fabric in 1981, Patagonia’s founder was the catalyst.
“Prior to 1981, the company was called Malden Mills,” Mr Smith said, “and was well known for making upholstery fabric. Yvon Chouinard showed up at the door one day with some prototypes for a synthetic sweater for alpinism that he had been working on and asked if we could make it softer. And so synthetic fleece was born as a result of this collaboration.”
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