Wonder Fabric of the 1990's

With a surgence of popularity in outdoor winter sports in the early 1990's, a demand grew that called for a textile material that presented better dimensional stability and tenacity for water exposure compared to standard wool. The answer to this demand came in the form of a synthetic material that became known as "fleece."

Although initially invented in the 1980's, the use of fleece gained momentum in the 1990's with the development of PolarTec®.

Marketed in 1991 as an improvement over a previous invention patented as PolarPlus®, Polartec® offered greater advantages than its predecessor such as:

-versatile enough to be used for different layers of clothing (outerwear to underwear)

-used for warm and cool

-insulating and breatheable

-blocking wind and rain

-quick drying

-"wick"'s moisture and sweat away from skin

-high warmth-to-weight ratio

In 1999, Time magazine named PolarTec® fleece "one of the most important inventions of the 20th Century." Statements such as this further cement the importance of fleece today and in the future.


Posted by: Rob Goodman

Sources:

Espen, Hal. (1998, February). Fleeced. The New York Times Magazine. pp. 20-23.

The Northface. (2007). Technology Partners. Retrieved September 30, 2009 from http://content.thenorthface.com/na/partners_technology.html.