NEW DRESS FABRICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 69, 6 January 1947, Page 6

NEW DRESS FABRICS

SEAWEED AS BASIS

DISCOVERY OF ALGINATE RAYON

From the beaches of the Hebrides and the forests of Brazil comes the basis of much modern dress. We are living in a world of synthetics, producing scientifically things as good as, and sometimes better than, Nature herself. ►Seaweed is the source of what is known as “alginate rayon.” Latest research is devoted to a new plastic which is convertible in to a fantastically fine and soft fibre.

A recent discovery is a wool fibre called drill, made from peanuts. A complicated chemical process produces a cream-coloured, woolly material superior to the natural article in being non-inflammable and mothproof. Although it does not wear so well as wool, a mixture of wool ardill gives a highly satisfactory result, and the production is much cheaper. A filament rayon yarn discovered in Leeds produced the finest worsted cloths the world had yet seen. It had one drawback —it was soluble in an alkali solution, which meant having to have it specially processed every time it required washing.

There is, however, a limit to the amount of processing certain cloths can stand, and fine yarns in particular cannot bear so much as coarser types. That is where the seaweed comes in. Alginate rayon, the seaweed fabric, acts as a strengthenef to the rayon without , coarsening it or adding weight. From the mixture emerges a cloth weighing U ounces a square yard. Nylon, inevitably associated in our minds with stocking, has provided dressmakers with a fabric the like of which they have never imagined. Worth, of Paris, has designed one nylon dress composed of pleats and folds and drapes which will hold their shape almost indefinitely.

Incidentally, nylon, accidental discovery of a laboratory assistant nearly 20 years ago, is invisible before it is dyed. During the early days of research a pair of nylon stockings was dropped on the floor, and completely disappeared. The fineness of the untreated' fibre rendered it beyond the vision of the human eye.