High Tech Fabrics in Fashion

Pros and Cons of Wearing High-Tech Fabrics

Designers and retailers often times advertise a particular clothing item with words like "wrinkle free", "easy-care", "breathable", and so on. This is possible thanks to newer high tech fabrics. Advances in fabric making have created many new opportunities for clothing manufacturers to create fashionable, yet also functional clothing pieces.

The secret lies in applying nanotechnology to fabric and textile making. Nanotechnology is a science that studies materials that are smaller than 100 nanometers which is one billionth of a metric meter, or about 1/100th of the width of a human hair. The first one to apply nanotechnology into fabric making was Chemist David Soane in 1998. Creating microscopic thin yarns and weaving these into fabrics made clothing wrinkle resistant, stain repellent, and also able to wick away body moisture.

How "Nano-Fabrics" are Made
Let's look at the process of making Nanotech Cotton - a cotton fabric commonly used for wrinkle-free dress shirts and khaki dress pants. First, nanotech fibers are created by pressing the man-made, crystal-like building blocks through molecular scale nozzles. These so-called nanofibers are then immersed in liquids and mixed in with the much larger cotton fibers. After the nanofibers have bonded with the cotton, the fabric is spun into regular sized yarns - which actually appears completely unchanged to natural cotton fibers. This nano-tech cotton yarn is then woven into fabrics that look like cotton but is more wrinkle resistant and stain-repellent.

Pros and Cons
The benefits of using such high-tech fabrics is obvious: They are extremely easy to care for and much more convenient. They eliminate trips to dry-cleaners and make ironing almost unnecessary. So what are the drawbacks? First of all, some people prefer to have a crease in their dress pants that runs alongside the leg. Second, some nano-fabrics are less breathable making them much more uncomfortable to wear in hot climates. Finally, which is actually the largest concern to most, are formaldehyde fumes. The resin finishes of the fabric slowly emits fumes over its lifespan. These vapors have been associated with tiredness, headaches, coughing, and other allergic reactions.

Other Related Readings:
Eco Friendly Fabrics
Common Necktie Fabrics

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