Markets – Page 2 – Specialty Fabrics Review

Sustainable sourcing

April 1, 2019 | Markets

Following her recent podcast Sustainable Textile Sourcing for Performance Textiles in Munich, I caught up with Anne-Marie van Hoof, owner and creative director at 4-Options Studio in The Netherlands, to get her take on what she sees as driving sustainability within the industry now and into the futu…

Providing comfortable high-tech clothing

April 1, 2019 | Advanced Textiles, Markets

Comfort for the human body needs to be comprehensive. This complicates the technologies that are available to reach the ultimate goal of providing physiological, environmental and psychological comfort. A definition of technology that matches consumer expectations of clothing is a “feeling of reli…

Advancing sustainability in textiles

March 1, 2019 | Advanced Textiles, Markets

Textiles are part of a larger drive to protect and preserve resources for the future. Sustainability may be understood as a way to judiciously consume resources while leaving or even enhancing the availability of resources for future generations. The term “sustainability” has developed a powerfu…

Making it easy: the benefits of keder

March 1, 2019 | Markets

Hidden within aluminum extrusions, shaping both simple tents and extravagant clearspans, lies the years-old invention that continues to help advance the success and technology of the tent industry today: keder, a bead or core that attaches to a fabric panel and then slides into a corresponding track…

Fabricators and boat owners have a world of choices in windows

February 1, 2019 | Markets

When it comes to choosing their windows, most boat owners don’t want to make it too complicated—they want a quality product that will last at a reasonable price. As fabricators know, however, it’s not quite that simple. In fact, according to Zach Grant, marketing manager at Sailrite®, a distr…

Advances in smart medical textiles

February 1, 2019 | Advanced Textiles, Markets

A series of novel developments in medical textiles see smart textiles coupled with smart design to deliver benefits to both patients and medical professionals. With the medical textile market predicted to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 4.23 percent during the period 2018–2022, the…

Taking the lead: women in the tent rental industry

January 1, 2019 | Markets

When Sarah Crews, director of sales and marketing for Miami, Fla.-based Economy Tent International (ETI), started going to outdoor trade shows 13 years ago, she didn’t see many women attending the events. Tent rental companies headed by women were even scarcer. But over the years that situation ha…

Growing interest in using natural “smart” fibers

January 1, 2019 | Advanced Textiles, Markets

Since the industrial revolution, textiles have transitioned from natural fibers of cotton, wool, silk and linen to textiles created from petroleum products and reconstituted wood pulp. Today’s synthetic fibers are stronger, cheaper to manufacture, and have proven easily adaptable to a wide range o…

New smart fabrics and protective gear innovations keep first responders safer

December 1, 2018 | Advanced Textiles

First responders—from firefighters to law enforcement to emergency medical services technicians—need to be ready to handle any situation they encounter, and they need the appropriate gear to respond quickly to emergencies. Responders draw on their experience to make sound decisions in the chaos …

Early adopters affect product development

November 1, 2018 | Advanced Textiles, Markets

IoClothes describes itself as “A Community Fusing Tech & Textiles™” that exists to support those who innovate in the smart textile industry by providing information and helping them to establish the right connections to move forward. Managing director Ben Cooper says, “About 30–40 perc…

Category: Markets