Teijin Frontier, the Teijin Group’s fibre and products converting company, 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 US$ 9 million by the fiscal year ending in 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, the company reports. 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 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,” the manufacturer reports.

Teijin is a technology-driven group offering advanced solutions in the areas of environmental value; safety, security and disaster mitigation; and demographic change and increased health consciousness. Its main fields of operation are high-performance fibres, such as aramid, carbon fibres and composites, healthcare, films, resin and plastic processing, polyester fibres, products converting and IT. The group has some 170 companies and around 19,000 employees spread out over 20 countries worldwide.

www.teijin.com