Innovations up for discussion at Dornbirn for Lycra
Representatives of fibre developer The Lycra Company used the occasion of the Dornbirn Global Fibre Congress in Austria in mid-September to address questions on sustainability and on garment construction.
At a session on September 15, the company’s sustainability director, Jean Hegedus, spoke on the subject of scaling up the production of recycled fibres from textile waste. She focused on two specialty polyester fibres developed recently by Lycra from 100% pre-consumer textile waste collected from cutting-room floors. The company has called these products Coolmax EcoMade and Thermolite EcoMade.
“These cooling and warming fibres help address the issue of textile waste, significantly reduce environmental impact, and help set the stage for circularity in the future,” Ms Hegedus said.
In another presentation at the Dornbirn event, senior Lycra research and development scientist Nicholas Kurland spoke about the effect of seam-slippage on garment quality and aesthetics. He described this as one of the biggest technical problems in producing stretch denim, and something that can lead to consumer dissatisfaction and product returns.
He explained that, as part of an ongoing effort to help improve the quality of denim fabric and “solve pain points”, Lycra had developed a fibre it calls Anti-Slip to reduce the puckering caused by seam-slippage, especially after washing.
“At the heart of this patent-pending solution is a unique filament structure and proprietary chemical composition that is engineered to increase the adhesive and frictional force between the surrounding fibre and Lycra fibre,” he said.
