Toray Industries, Inc., announced that it has de-veloped Qticle, a polyester filament fabric that combines the structure of hair and wool with a smooth and supple texture and functionality.
he company will offer Qticle for everything from casual medium-weight fabrics for men’s and ladies’ outerwear through cut-and-sewn items, broadening the design freedom and potential for high-end apparel in Japan and around the globe. Toray aims to commercialize this fabric for spring/summer 2023 collections. It targets annual sales of 200,000 meters in fiscal 2022 (through end-March 2023), and 500,000 meters by 2025.
Hair and wool comprise numerous protein layers. Their properties and structure deliver excellent elastic-ity and luster.
Qticle is a biomimetic fabric. Toray created it by em-ploying its proprietary NANODESIGN composite spinning technology to design an eccentric yarn with an ultrathin shell layer with which it combined fiber processing technology to create a crimped structure and fine surface irregularities. An eccentric yarn has a cross-section with two different pol-ymers, each with different centers of gravity.
Toray’s technologies have enabled it to attain natural, lustrous, and deep colors, a pleas-antly smooth and supple feel, and functional stretch for comfort and easy care.
In the years ahead, Toray looks to also offer a range with polymers made from recycled materials to cater to sustainability needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic accentuated the need for fashion to learn from and respect nature, as ethical consumption and veganism do, rather than seeking to control and exploit.