Materials developer Sympatex has released a sustainable functional jacket, developed as part of the company's wear2wear European industry partnership which aims to close the textile loop. 

The jacket, to be presented at 2019 A+A in Dusseldorf, was designed by Munich’s Design2Recycle team of sustainable functional textile experts, in collaboration with Swiss wear2wear cofounder Schoeller Textil. It’s said to be fully waterproof, highly breathable, and made from Inspire functional fabric. 

Inspire is a 100 percent polyester workwear fabric that features a non-PTFE, non-PFC and climate-neutral Sympatex membrane. Developers also used fully reusable polyester in the selection of the materials for the jacket components, such as cord, zippers, Velcro fasteners, for a recycled, unmixed polyester product that can be fed back into the upcycling process at the end of its life cycle.

With creating the wear2wear industry partnership in 2017, Sympatex is pushing its goal and corporate strategy of offering 100 percent contaminant-free, recycled functional textiles, which can then be reused, by the year 2020. By next year, the functional specialist will begin offering closed loop laminates made out of used textile materials in all of its business areas. 

“Each [wear2wear] partner makes its own individual contribution to the textile loop,” said Dr. Rüdiger Fox, CEO at Sympatex Technologies. “Only by bundling our technology knowhow and our innovative services and expertise, will we be in a position to fully close the polyester loop for textiles in the near future.” He adds that 50 percent of textiles from the industry are made from polyester and they need to particularly focus on its circular manufacturing.