TOKYO — August 30, 2018 — Teijin Frontier Co. Ltd., the Teijin Group’s fiber and products converting company, announced today that it has developed a new highly water-repellent fabric incorporating enhanced elastic properties. It plans to market the new product from the beginning of the 2019 spring/summer season.
The new fabric is designed primarily for trousers and outer-clothing applications requiring medium thickness materials. Teijin Frontier is targeting annual sales of 1 billion yen ($9 million) by the fiscal year ending March 2021.
Based on the company’s existing water repellent fabric, 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 percent, and maintains water-repellency when stretched thanks to its flexible structure; conventional water-repellent fabrics are unable to achieve similar levels of stretchablility because of the high density of their yarn arrays.
The demand for highly water-repellent apparel, including stretchable clothes such as trousers and outer-clothing applications, is growing in response to the increased frequency of heavy rain in Japan.
Posted August 30, 2018
Source Teijin Group