Those Fabricated Fabrics

An Imaginative Guy might feel cleanly cool and crisply comfortable just thinking about summer suits made of those fabricated fabrics with the chemical-type names. He might also get hot under the collar trying to figure out which is which – and why one's righter for his purposes that another. If this describes your situation, feel no shame. Even women – who are credited with knowing all about material things – usually can't tell you the difference between Verel and Creslan, or Jetspun and Fortisan. And if they could, would you listen? Of course not. You'd tell them to go soak their heads (a courteous bit of advice in hot weather), and you'd peruse the following for all you need to know.

And what you need to know is merely what is meant – in terms of appearance, lightness, durability and comfort – when you read a maker's label giving the pedigree of the stuff from which a garment's made. A bit of background and a chart will do the trick.

The miracle about the so-called "miracle fibers" is that although many – or most – are made of organic ingredients and hence can't properly be called man-made, they are put together in ways not revealed to the lower animals and plants, on whom man had been dependent for his clothing for quite a few years – like back to prehistoric times. Wool, cotton, flax, silk, hemp, jute, sisal, kapok, ramie (a chinese nettle more useful for crossword puzzles than for clothing), all got in their sartorial innings – along with the hairs and hides of hundreds of beasties, and a few feathers to boot – long before DuPont. And each, in its way (even ramie, like we said), did its given job well.

Rather recently, historically speaking, some inquisitive types asked themselves and each other why man should restrict himself to these naturally-produced materials for his garb – fine though they were, alone and in cunning combinations. Why not do for clothing what had been done, ages earlier, for food? (Most of us prefer bread – a man-made wheat product – to nibbling a handful of grains of wheat.) But even man's laboratory technique, when he essayed to improve on nature by combining organic stuff in his own way, was borrowed from nature. The first successful man-made fabric was the work of an assistant of Louis Pasteur, Count Hilaire de Chardonnet. Pasteur was working on a disease of silkworms; his assistant enviously watched the little blighters chew on mulberry leaves, expectorate a juice from two spinnerets on the side of the mouth, and weave this juice into long, silk filaments as it hardened in the open air. So the Count did the same. (No, not harden in the open air.) He took solid cellulose and changed it into a liquid. He forced it through a spinneret – a thing like a thimble, with fine holes

drilled in it – and hardened it into solid filaments, or threads, as it emerged into warm air which evaporated the liquid solvents. Then he wove these threads into a glistening dress which his wife wore to the Paris Exposition. OK, so it was only rayon. But at that time it was deemed a miracle fabric and was called "artificial silk."

From then on, the progress of synthetics was downhill and faster and faster all the way to this day. In the interim, truly all-man-made fibers were developed. Like DuPont's Nylon, for instance (on which a purported 20 million clams were expended to produce the first pound). Nylon is composed of a wholly new chemical compound not found in nature. On its non-organic heels came Orlon. Dynel, Acrilan and Dacron. And there were and are more man-evolved fibers from such organic and natural raw materials as cellulose, milk, glass, corn, peanuts, coal and even rock (asbestos – not recommended for casual wear).

Anyway, while few lab-made fibers are miracles – in the sense that spooky teams of bifocaled Merlins and Mandrakes waved wands to produce summer suits – the fact is that you no longer have to go nudist to feel cool. Lab-produced fibers can be made to order, spun thick or thin, smooth or shaggy, soft or hard, shiny or dull, heavy or light. Nature's not through with you, though: the most successful fabrics are usually compounded of natural and man-made fibers in various proportions, designed to exploit the best qualities of each. Here's an example.

The Raeford Worsted Corporation, a member of Burlington Industries, has long made summer fabrics for all the best labels. This year, they've announced a summer-weight fabric that is part worsted, part Dacron. It weighs in at a mere 51/2-6 ounces per yard as compared with the 8 to 9 of most of last year's summer fabrics. And it's not only cooler because it's 20% lighter: the fabric has millions of air-conditioning pores: comparing the new fabric with the old under a microscope is like comparing a screen door with an old log wall that's got a wide scattering of small holes. Furthermore, there are better wearing qualities in the new fabric. We all know about wool and how good it is, even in summer, don't we, class? The Dacron is just as elastic and much stronger. In this new material, the natural and man-made fibers in combination give you ease of fit and retention of shape and press, because Dacron is a smooth, crisp fiber that won't wilt or droop. Not only that: dirt and stains only rest on its surface and won't sink in; it's insensitive to moisture; and it is "thermoplastic" – once set into a certain shape by the application of heat, it stays that way. Moths pass it by, too – tastes awful. What more do you want in a suit? Washability? You can get that, too – though we recommend dry cleaning and pressing as simpler and surer.

The purely visual fashion importance of the new synthetics and combinations is the interesting patterns they make possible. Raeford, for example, with a weather eye on the popular herringbone weave, has reduced the design with the aid of extremely fine Dacron-and-wool thread to a smooth and highly elegant pattern they have buoyantly and accurately labeled the "guppybone" weave.

So much for background; now let's get practical. On the accompanying chart you'll see that the new fibers comprise just five basic types, each with its own set of characteristics. Various manufacturers have their own names for these fibers, and a listing of the most widely used of these trade names is also given. Armed with the chart, you should be able to gauge fairly whether an article of clothing made of any one of them, in whole or in part, will give you the qualities you seek.

One hidden value you may find in this chart is that it should serve to educate you sufficiently to determine whether a clothing salesman knows what he's talking about when he pitches a particular suit. If he doesn't – if your questions about comparative coolness, wrinkle resistance, washability, etc., elicit some fast double talk – find another salesman or another store. Knowing what qualities you want in a suit's fabric, knowing enough to find out if you're getting them, you can then make your sensible selections (within the chosen fabric group) of those colors, textures and tailoring details which please you most.