Polyester; the New Fabric-Fashion

As Paris fashion week wraps up, several designers are lauding polyester as high fashion's next big thing.
Lanvin's Alber Elbaz, Nina Ricci's Olivier Theyskens and the American designer Narciso Rodriguez all have elaborate thousand-dollar polyester creations that women are starting to see in expensive stores. Designers say recent improvements in the synthetic fiber have made polyester lighter, thinner and more delicate. Mr. Elbaz, who got a standing ovation for a series of $5,800 polyester evening gowns at his runway show last fall, said the texture of the new polyester was like cream. "It was so light," he said, as he rubbed an imaginary piece of cloth between his fingers. To Mr. Theyskens, who also used polyester fabric for the first time last season, polyester is "an interesting subject." He likes it. But the fabric does have its limitations. Because it's so thin and stretchy, the new polyester is very difficult to sew, and can't be ironed. Mr. Theyskens struggled with it last season, while trying to create a diaphanous pleated gown with a metallic sheen. "You must handle polyester with care," he says. The gauzy, light polyester that designers are using today is a far cry from the stiff cardboard-like Dacron suits mass-marketed in 1954. The thick DuPont yarn made from petrochemicals was pushed as a godsend for postwar Americans because it didn't stain, didn't require ironing, dried quickly and was cheap to produce. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, polyester went undercover and got a sexier name: "microfiber." The thinner, lighter polyester fabric found new purpose in undergarments and athletic wear, where it wicks away moisture and protects against cold and wind. Intrepid designers like Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani then began blending microfiber with cottons and wools in trench coats and suits to endow them with water- and wrinkle-resistant properties. Avant-garde Japanese designers such as Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons also experimented with the fiber throughout the 1990s. But polyester's appearance in super-luxe European designer apparel is another matter. Its emerging popularity among prominent designers has been driven by both technological innovation and clever marketing. This season, he showed polyester-silk blended garments on the runway. Consumers who once thumbed their noses at polyester now deem the fabric très chic. "If Lanvin uses it, then it's cool," says Tracey Overbeck, an interior designer in Austin, Texas, who has bought several polyester-blended ensembles by designer Diane von Furstenberg. Giorgio Armani, an early adopter of the new synthetics, says he now prefers polyesters to natural fabrics such as linen, which wrinkles. The Italian designer, who himself enjoys wearing cashmere-and-polyester blend jackets, urges men to wear blends for better fit and elasticity. These days polyester, is anything but cheap, in part because of the soaring cost of the fossil fuels from which it is derived. A pair of pure polyester women's pants from Armani Collezioni sells for $615. The highest-quality polyester fabrics top out at about $37 per meter. That's more expensive than some silks.

(Sourced from TheWallStreetJournal.com, by RACHEL DODES and CHRISTINA PASSARIELLO)