Suitable fabric for lingerie

Suitable fabric for underwear

We decided to find the right fabric for lingerie with a more delicate look. Whereas all the men´s underwear is mainly made of cotton mixed with elastane, this blog would be almost the same as our blog about jeans. 

Style

The style for which we will find a fabric is this Balconette bra in lace and mesh with underwired, moulded cups that lift and shape which has detachable shoulder straps that can be fastened in several different ways. There is an corresponding string in lace and mesh with a lined gusset. 

Our research on affordable, but luxurious looking, lingerie showed that synthetic fibres mixed with elastane are most common in these styles. Though cotton is frequently combined in the bottoms, we will address two fabrics in this blog, with the emphasis on polyamide. The fabric we’ve chosen is made out of 87% of polyamide and 13% of elastane. For the crotch lining in the bottom we´ve chosen 100% cotton. 

History of Polyamide

In 1939 there came a substitute for the expensive silk fabric. It was the first man-made fibre called Nylon. This name is the brand name, the scientific name for Nylon is Polyamide. Wallace Carothers was working for the DuPont Company when he invented Polyamide. 

Technical construction 

Polyamide

Polyamide is a synthetic fibre. The easy explanation of how polyamide yarn is made is that polyamide solid chips are melted into a liquid form. This liquid polyamide will run through spinnerets, which look like big showerheads. The polyamide comes out of the holes as a long filament. The filaments are cooled in a cold air system and can be turned into yarn by using multiple filaments. There are two different types of raw materials for polyamide, namely Nylon 6 and Nylon 6.6. The difference is in the composition of the molecules. Nylon 6 has six carbons in the repeating unit and Nylon 6.6 has two sets of six carbons. The composition of the fabric that is chosen does not tell which type of Nylon is used. 

Elastane 

The polyamide is mixed with elastan, respectively 87% and 13%. Elastane is a synthetic polymer filament and has a structure of hard and soft segments. The hard segments give strength and coherence to the filament and the soft segments give elasticity because they are highly extensible. The elastane is probably folded into the textured polyamide filament. There are several reasons for blending fibres/filaments;

 

· The blend gives quality improbementd in performance in use, clothing comfort or 

aftercare performance;

· The blend gives a better appearance, i.e. optical effects;

·The blend provides better production costs.

There are two stages in the production process where fibres/filaments can be blended, namely during the staple yarn production, by blending different types of fibres/filaments, or during the fabric production, by mixing yarns made of different fibres or filaments.

Our fabric is probably blended during the staple yarn production, where the elastane is covered by the polyamide. 

Cotton

The crotch lining is made out of 100% cotton. The production of cotton is briefly described in our blog about a suitable fabric for men’s jeans. 

Fabric construction

The lace material is probably yarn dyed with a water insoluble dye stuff in the disperse class. It is definitely not printed, whereas all the filaments are evenly colored. The dyestuff diffuses into the filament at a high temperature which gives good fastness properties. This is also shown in the color fastness tests and is needed, whereas lingerie is frequently washed at a higher temperature. 

There are two types of knitted fabric; weft knitted and warp knitted. Our fabric is a warp knitted fabric of multi-flat-filaments. The fabric has several types of knit construction and we think most of it is made as a Rachel lace on a warp knitting machine with latch needles. The fabric is argued to be the raschel lace, because it is not a bobbin lace, whereas the pattern is not formed by twisted yarns, and it is not an embroidery lace, whereas the pattern has not the specific embroidery look and the lace has not cut out openings. The raschel lace is made on a base of net fabric with a patterns formed from inlay yarns. There is one thicker yarn added to give relief, this yarn is s-twisted. When you take this thicker yarn out of the knit, the knit stays structured. This also proves that the knit can be a raschel knit with a base net. There is not twist in the yarns that are used for the base knit. Besides the raschel knit, there is also a Gauze weave fabric added. This is mainly used at the back side of lingerie. 

The cotton is may be yarn dyed or fabric dyed. All the yarns are colored evenly and there are no white spots, which assume that it is yarn dyed, but the fabric can also be fabric dyed. It is definitely not printed. It is probably dyed with a dyestuff of the reactive class, which forms a chemical link with the fibre and has very good fastness properties. The color fastness of the cotton is also tested and the results will be discussed later. The color fastness is needed to not notice a difference in color between the crotch lining and the lace after washing.

The cotton is produced in a plain single jersey knit, whereas the face side has the v shaped face loops and the back has the purl appearance. There are 12/13 wales and 19/20 courses per cm of fabric, which means that the fabric is knitted very fine with 12/13 needles per cm. 

Testing

The strength of the fabric is tested with the bursting machine Trubust in the laboratorium at TEKO, using the EN ISO 13938-1 standard. The video shows the test. You can see that the fabric bursts at 144 Kilopascal (KPa). There was 71.6 mm and 3 seconds needed to burst the fabric. 144 KPa is equal to a force of 20,89 pounds per square inch. We couldn’t find references giving an indication of the strength, but we think this is quite a strong fabric.   

The color fastness of the fabric is tested two times. Firstly the fabric is washed using the ISO 105-C06 standard. The fabric is washed on program A1M, meaning 45 minutes on 40 degree with a detergent and 10 metal balls. Both the lace fabric and the cotton fabric are tested. The results of the test are shown at the pictures and are fairly the same for both fabrics. There is no change in color and the other fabrics haven’t adopted the color. The left water that is colored pink a bit is from the polyamide washing test, the other water is from the cotton washing test.

The color fastness is also tested by rubbing the fabric with a wet cotton pad. The ISO 105 X12/X16 standard is applicable for this test. The results are shown in the picture again. The cotton didn’t adopt any color, there is no change, which means that grade 5 is applicable. Both tests conclude that the color fastness is really good, for both the lace and the cotton fabric.

We tested the abrasion resistance using the Martindale machine with the ISO 129452 standard. We performed 4 tests, rubbing the fabric 125, 500, 1000 and 2000 times. The results are shown in the picture and also this time there is no change seen on the fabric (grade 5). Whereas lingerie is warn under the clothes the abrasion resistance is quite important. The test shows that the fabric is really abrasion resistance, which indicates that the fabric will not pill easily while wearing. 

The weight of the lace fabric is 81,9 grams per square meter, which is converted to 3,45 ounces per square yard.

Properties

A knitted fabric with a composition of 80 percent nylon and 20 percent elastane has a high stretch factor which makes the fabric ideal for styles that require a skin-thight fit. The feel to the skin is very comfortable, since polyamide is a very soft fibre. Polyamide absorbs only around 4% of water. That is probably the reason why the crotch lining is made out of cotton. Cotton lining is also even more comfortable on the skin.

Polyamide has a really low thermal insulation, which is not applicable to this type of lingerie, for lingerie is no functional underwear.

Polyamide is really strong, it is even used in bulletproof vests. A lace fabric is really thin, but it still needs to hold up woman´s breast and polyamide is strong enough not to break under these forces. When the fabric is wet it is even 80 to 90% stronger! We tried to cut a a piece to weigh the fabric, but the fabric was so strong that we couldn't use the tools to cut out the fabric and needed to get siccors.

As we’ve seen in the test and also the book, clothing technologies, explains that polyamide is very abrasion resistance. This is quite important for underwear, because you wear under trousers like jeans, which rub against the underwear. Therefore the lingerie will look good after you wear it long time, since there will be no pills.

Care instruction

The fabric can be easily washed on 40 degrees, but it cannot resist tumble dry or ironing, because polyamide is sensitive to dry heat. Polyamide is drying very fast, therefore tumble drying is not important. Polyamide does not wrinkle, so the lingerie will always look good after washing. Furthermore polyamide does not shrink, so there are no problems with washing.

References:

Fabric for Fashion The swatch book

Clothing technology book  

Suitable fabric for men´s jeans

For this blog about the suitable fabric for men’s jeans we have chosen a dark blue denim. We will talk about the history of denim, the technical construction, the properties and the care for this fabric. 

History

Denim fabric was used in the uniforms of the U.S. Navy. Levi Strauss used the fabric to create jeans by putting rivets on stress points of workman’s waist high overalls in order to supply gold miners with strong clothes that did not tear during the mining in 1880.

The word Denim comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called serge, originally made in Nîmes, France, by the Andre family. Denim was originally called serge de Nîmes, it was then shortened to Denim.

Technical Construction

The fabric we’ve chosen is made of 100% cotton. Cotton is natural fibre which is made by the cotton plant. It is often used in clothing, because of its comfort. Cotton is also used in Denim fabric, but not only for its comfort.

Denim is usually constructed in a twill weave. You can recognize a twill by the diagonal lines, which can run to both sides. The used fabric is a 2/1 twill, which means that one warp is woven over 2 wefts. Therefore you see a dominance of warps. Why is a twill weave so common for denim? Soil and stains are less noticeable on the uneven surface of twills than on smooth surfaces, such as plain weaves. Thus, twills are often used for sturdy work clothing. 

 The peculiarity of denim is a blue warp and white weft. The warp is often dyed with indigo, which is a natural dye that gives an intense blue color and is significant for the jeans. So the fabric is yarn-died. Both yarns have a Z-twist. The warp is thicker than the weft.

To show the usability of the denim for a men´s jeans we tested the fabric. The test of the tear strength shows that the fabric tears at very high weight. The chosen fabric had a 20,45 N. The fabric is tested in the weft direction. The strength is even higher in the warp direction, because the warp yarns are thicker and stronger. So the fabric can be used for a jeans, because this strength is suitable for a jeans that needs to be strong.

 

Furthermore we tested the wear resistance. The Martindale-machine rubs the fabric 5000 times against a woolen fabric. Afterwards you can see the change of the fabric.On the fabrics are nearly no pills and there are also no holes in it. So the denim is really robust and is therefore perfect for a men´s jeans.

Denim often loses its color, which makes it seem old very fast. Therefore we tested the colour fastness to washing and the colour fastness to rubbing. We washed the denim with a piece of multifibre fabric to show which fibres take on the denim-blue. Cotton did not adopt the colour. But fibres like acetat, polyamid and polyacryl adopted the colour. This indicates that denim should not be washed together with textiles of these fibres. The care of denim will be discussed later. The colour fastness to rubbing shows that the fabric loses its colour when a wet cotton fabric-piece rubbing on it.

 

The weight of the fabric is 418 grams per square meter. (418X 0.0352739619=14,745 ounce per 1.1959900463 yard) Most blue jeans are made from medium weight denim at 12 to 16 ounces per yard. This fabric is 12,4 ounce per yard so it indicates a light-weight denim, which is not as strong as other denim fabrics with a higher ounce per yard.

Properties of the fabric

Denim fabric has a range of specific qualities that make it an excellent, hard-wearing garment fabric. The durability of cotton is the most desirable property of denim fabric. Cotton is comfortable next to skin, since the fibres are very fine and soft.

Most denim fabrics will last for years with proper care and laundering. As with most woven fabrics, denim will not fray if the fabric is sliced lengthwise, but will shred if it is cut along the width. In order to avoid fraying, it should be cut along the length. Denim also has a relatively low elasticity which keeps it from stretching while the cotton fibers are being put to work.

The thermal insulation is not so good like in other materials, which is suitable for working clothes when workers work in warm environments. Cotton is considered a breathable fabric, due to the highly porous nature of its fibers. Cotton fabric can absorb up to 27 times its weight in water.  This makes cotton clothing comfortable, because it absorbs sweat, keeping the fabric off the skin. This characteristic makes denim clothes more comfortable in hot weather, despite their heavy weight. Cotton is also the only fiber that strenths when it is wet, at least 20% of the strength when it is dry. This property is good for cleaning, particular for working clothes. It can withstand higher temperatures than most fabrics which makes it ideal for ironing, probably this property is not as important for working clothes as washing.

Cotton has some disadvantages which makes it not a good fabric for other uses. It shrinks and wrinkles easily, which makes it unsuitable for professional clothing. Its tendency to soak up water also makes it a poor choice for exercise and sports clothing. Cotton is more suitable for jeans than for the other garments.

Care of denim fabric

One of the chief benefits of cotton fabric is its ease of care. When it comes to working clothes it can be washed thoroughly to keep them clean. When it comes to more fashionable jeans the washing should be careful to keep the color and the newness. Cotton can be washed at a fairly high temperature (higher than the care instruction says), but this is not recommended for denim. Any good detergent can be used to wash cotton, but when it comes to the jeans, there shouldn’t be bleach in it and preferably a detergent for dark clothing. A higher heat setting is needed in the dryer to dry cotton. Cotton will take much longer to dry than less absorbent fibers. To keep the jeans’ appearance look as new as possible it shouldn’t be tumble dried. To keep the color of the jeans as long as possible the jeans shouldn’t be washed frequently. It really depends on the use of the jeans how the jeans should be washed.