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IPFS News Link • Inventions

New Fabric Tech Could Be Outerwear's Biggest Advance in 40 Years

• http://www.wired.com, BY JOE LINDSEY

A small Colorado-based company, Voormi, is touting a technology that produces a waterproof, breathable textile with only a single layer of material. It could be the most significant advancement in outdoor clothing since the first Gore-Tex jacket with a waterproof-breathable membrane debuted in the mid-1970s.

Voormi's new approach, announced late last month at the Snowsports Industry Association tradeshow, could eventually replace those stiff, bulky weatherproof shells and conventional layering systems in favor of garments that have multiple, customizable properties—wicking and waterproofing, or insulation and windproofing—all while remaining thin and light. At stake is nothing less than a shakeup of what is a $1.5 billion-per-year market in outerwear in the US alone.

"Our angle is to streamline waterproof breathables into a single-layer construction," says Timm Smith, Voormi's marketing director. "So it's 1978 all over again and we just hit the re-start button."


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