The long-established Swiss company Schoeller Textil AG, known for innovative, stretch woven and warp-knit fabrics for performance, protection, sports categories, has won the Design Preis Schweiz 2017/18 in the textile category for its heated fabric, E-soft-shell.

E-soft-shell fabric can be cut to size without affecting the embedded technology and is primarily suited to clothing for outdoor activities and motorcycling. Among others, the evaluation criteria were: technologies, material combinations, zeitgeist and innovation.

“Together with the whole Schoeller team, the Schoeller delegation – consisting of Roland Lottenbach Head of Research and Development, Dagmar Signer, Marketing, and Ruedi Kühne, CFO, – takes enormous delight in this recognition for the many years of intensive work,” the company reports.

“Electrically heated clothing which makes it possible for us to stay pleasantly warm in winter has long been a dream of the textiles industry. Projects in this field have hardly made it beyond the development and trial phase hitherto. But now Schoeller Textil has created E-soft-shell, a material that makes this utopia a reality,” the Design Preis jury commented on the Schoeller development.

E-soft-shell is a laminate consisting of bi-elastic tissue, machined lining and a functional corkshell coating. The heating technology is integrated with the fabric in a diamond-shaped geometrical pattern. It is based on metallic yarns, making it possible for the material to be evenly heated at standard voltages.

The fabric is designed to be sold off the roll, and can be cut up without affecting the embedded technology. It is suitable above all as clothing for outdoor activities or motor cycling – but applications in the fashion or wellness worlds could also come into consideration.

www.schoeller-textiles.com