Japan's Toray develops Camifu polyester filament fabric

The company will recommend the fabric for an array of apparel uses, from casual medium-weight fabrics for men’s and women’s outerwear to cut-and-sewn apparel, broadening the horizons of upmarket fashions in Japan and overseas markets. The company plans to commercialise Camifu from Spring/Summer 2022. Unlike conventional fabrics, Camifu can match the Japanese paper features that inspired it. That is because Toray employed Nanodesign, its conjugate spinning technology, to develop a flat C cross-sectional shape that delivers a precise arrangement of three different polymers, Toray said in a media statement.

Using Nanodesign, Toray created a special cross-sectional structure in which it has arranged polymers with different heat shrinkage properties in special shapes on the left and right of a flat cross section, with a soluble polymer in the fibre centre. Toray heat treated polymers on the left and right side of the fibre to bend along the fibre. This, coupled with a flat shape, creates a unique twist and stretch. Varying the arrangement and shape of the polymer with adjacent fibres generates different torsional structures for each yarn, resulting in a yarn bundle structure containing complex voids.

A yarn bundle structure produces a random unevenness in the fabric texture so it feels like hand-made Japanese paper. Single yarns comprising polymers with different colorations and dyeability cover the fabric without aligning, for attractive fluctuations like those of Japanese paper. Camifu is eco-friendly, as one of its polymers is recycled from film scraps, according to Toray.

In designing Camifu, Toray created a hollow structure inside the fibre by placing a soluble polymer within, augmenting yarn bundle voids from filament twisting during relaxing and weight reduction process on textile. The hollow portion imparts a lightness and resilient feel to the fabric. A precisely designed slit keeps functional agents within the fibre, making it possible to incorporate a range of features in the fabric.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)