Judging from the best-selling sportswear on the market at present, both international and domestic brands are pursuing fabrics with excellent moisture absorption and perspiration performance. This kind of fabrics are basically chemical fiber products, most of which are polyester. At present, CoolMax, CoolBST and so on are common in the market, but the basic principles are similar. By increasing the capillary action of the fiber itself, the sweat on the surface of the human body can quickly spread through the clothes and evaporate into the air without staying on the skin, keeping the clothes dry and making people feel comfortable.
Chemical fibers, especially polyester and polypropylene fibers, are water-repellent fibers and absorb little water, but through capillary action, they can absorb and conduct water along the pores and gaps between fibers. The reason why this kind of chemical fiber fabric can absorb moisture and sweat is that after it absorbs sweat, the sweat spreads very fast and can evaporate quickly on the other side of the fabric. In fact, our traditional cotton fiber can also be used as sportswear. Although cotton fiber has excellent moisture absorption performance, its moisture release speed is very slow, and the diffusion speed of sweat is also slow, which makes sweat easier to concentrate. Once people exercise and sweat a lot, cotton fibers will feel wet after sweating, and it will be very uncomfortable to stick to them.
From the perspective of fiber structure, most fibers used as fabrics for moisture absorption and perspiration sportswear are not conventional circular cross-section fibers, but fibers with special cross-sections, such as "four-leaf", "five-leaf" and "cross". The fiber with multi-leaf cross section can form many fine grooves on its surface, which has good capillary effect and enhances moisture conductivity. Sometimes the fiber is made into hollow fiber, and many holes are processed on the hole wall of the fiber, which is also based on the same principle. When water touches these fibers, it will be carried away along the pores on the fibers. The reason why this kind of fabric has good evaporation and heat dissipation is that once the fabric absorbs sweat, the sweat can quickly spread around through capillary effect. For example, if you drop a drop of water, the water will quickly spread on the surface of the fabric, and the evaporation area will be larger and the evaporation speed will be faster. On the contrary, cotton fabric does not have this fiber structure, and it will gather together after moisture absorption, instead of spreading it in a large area, with small area and slow evaporation. In addition, cotton itself has the characteristics of slow release of water, and people will feel uncomfortable once they sweat more during exercise. So now many sportswear fabrics are basically chemical fibers, but the fibers are cross-sectional to achieve good capillary effect.
Comfort of multilayer chemical fiber fabric
In addition to moisture absorption and perspiration performance, another reason for choosing chemical fiber fabric for sportswear is that this special cross-section chemical fiber fabric is not easy to fit. When the chemical fiber is processed into a special-shaped section, its own bending modulus increases, and it is not easy to cling to the skin after moisture absorption, and it will not make people feel wet. However, cotton fiber has a small modulus in wet state and is easy to fit. Of course, when the clothes are worn next to the body, as long as the human body sweats less, the comfort of cotton fiber is much better than that of conventional synthetic fiber.
We often see multi-layer fabrics in sportswear market, and different fabric layers have different functions. In fact, many years ago, there was a polyester-cotton fabric on the market, with cotton inside and polyester outside, which achieved a close-fitting and comfortable effect. Now this kind of fabric for sportswear on the market is to reverse the positions of chemical fiber and cotton, with cotton outside and chemical fiber inside to enhance moisture absorption, perspiration and dryness. The inner layer is not all chemical fiber, but there are some cotton "cores". These wick-shaped things directly contact the human body, and with the help of the "core" and the small holes in the inner layer of chemical fiber fabric, sweat is guided to the cotton outside. The inner fabric has good moisture conductivity. If there is no good hygroscopic material outside, people will still feel wet when the chemical fibers inside are saturated with water. Therefore, when this kind of fabric (mainly knitted fabric) is used as sportswear, when people sweat, the inner layer of the garment will not feel particularly wet, because the sweat is led to the outside. Some sportswear suitable for spring and summer wear are thin and made of nylon fabric. Nylon fabric is easy to stick to the body after absorbing moisture. If you add a layer of mesh cloth to isolate it, it won't be very close. The principle of improving comfort by adding mesh layers is similar to that of multilayer chemical fiber fabrics.
In addition, some fabrics on the market are made by laminating several layers of fabrics together. In fact, it also uses the above principle, the purpose is to make the sweat of the human body quickly guide away. In this microclimate environment between human skin and clothes, it is necessary to reduce the water vapor content as much as possible.
The elastic fabric is comfortable to fit.
From the perspective of sportswear, first of all, different sports have different requirements for style, color and appearance. Secondly, sportswear can not affect people's sports, but can give full play to people's sports ability. Therefore, materials with suitable properties should be selected for production according to different movements. For example, swimming can use fabrics that imitate shark skin; Cycling, gymnastics, skating and skiing, these sportswear are not only brightly colored, but also flexible.
The reason why elastic fabrics are added to sportswear is for the convenience of sports. When people are exercising, their elbows, knees or hips will be severely deformed. If the clothes are loosely structured, these places will be unfettered when exercising, but they will feel heavy and inflexible because the clothes are too wide. If some elastic fabrics are added to the severely deformed parts of the tailored sportswear, it will not affect the movement in function and will be neat and beautiful to wear. The elasticity of these elastic fabrics is very important. When it is elastic, it will have a sense of bondage to people. When the elasticity is very small, it is easy to deform and lose the meaning of existence. Therefore, for the elastic fabric used locally in sportswear, the elasticity should be just right.
At the IspoChina (Asia International Brand Sporting Goods and Sports Fashion Expo) held in Beijing on March 14, we can see that many top outdoor sports brands displayed their competitive products. Some of these clothes use elastic fabrics on the back, elbows and other parts.
Imported fabrics are favored, but the processing technology of domestic fabrics still needs to be improved.
In China sportswear market, well-known big brands still rely on fabrics from well-known imported brands to attract customers. Although China is a big textile country, we still need to make continuous efforts in the design and processing technology of new domestic fabrics. Take a kind of waterproof and moisture permeable coated fabric as an example, outdoor clothing is often used. At present, many of them are produced by designated manufacturers. The thickness of this fabric coating is very important. If it is thick, it won't get wet; if it is thin, it will be permeable. So the thickness of the coating should be just right. For domestic fabric enterprises, it is necessary to continuously improve the technical level of operators.
Sports brands play an important role in the whole fashion industry. On the one hand, the market capacity is very large. Ordinary sports brands in China market can sell tens of millions a year, and the sales of sports brands in shopping malls are often the best for a single brand. In addition, the sportswear market is growing rapidly. Therefore, for domestic fabric enterprises, it has a good prospect to innovate constantly, improve production technology, improve fabric processing technology and break through the scientific and technological problems in the design and production of sportswear fabrics.