Teijin Frontier Co., Ltd. has developed a new highly water-repellent fabric incorporating enhanced elastic properties. The company plans to market its new fabric from the beginning of the spring/summer 2019 season.
This new fabric is designed primarily for trousers and outerwear applications requiring medium thickness materials. Teijin Frontier is targeting annual sales of 1 billion yen by the fiscal year ending March 2021.
Based on the company’s existing water-repellent fabrics, the new design incorporates a convex structure with horizontal surface tension which is smaller than waterdrops, allowing water to run off the surface smoothly.
The fabric achieves a grade four out of five in water-repellent rating initially, and a grade three rating after being washed 20 times. It is able to stretch by 10%, and maintains water repellency when stretched thanks to its flexible structure; conventional water-repellent fabrics are unable to achieve similar levels of stretch because of the high density of their yarn arrays.
Demand for highly water-repellent apparel, including stretchable clothes such as trousers and outerwear applications, is growing in response to the increased frequency of heavy rains in Japan.