Why use nonwovens in clothing and footwear?

Nonwovens are an ideal material for the fashion industry. Used for many decades in hidden functions, such as interlinings and components of shoes and bags, today young designers are using nonwovens as a creative and versatile new material.

The elegance, style and function of clothes can depend on the presence and performance of interlinings. The success of nonwovens is due to their versatility and the ability to engineer many different properties into them, such as shape-retention, adaptation to the characteristics of the outer fabric and lightness in weight.

Today, the global retail sector is fascinated with the prospect of incorporating nonwovens fabrics in fashion, sports and outdoor performance apparel as a means of providing something “different” to current woven and knitted apparel.

Nonwovens Training Courses

The different uses are:

Interlinings (fronts of overcoats, collars, facings, waistbands, lapels etc)
Shoe components (shoelace eyelet reinforcement, athletic shoe & sandal reinforcement, inner sole lining)
Bag components

Bonding agent
Composition and (wash) care labels
Disposable underwear

The advantages of using nonwovens in clothing and footwear

Dimensional stability (even in high temperature such as clothes dryer cycle)
Easy to slit, die-cut, sew, seam, glue, laminate and trim, without fraying
Light weight
Ease-of-use
Improved adhesion
Softness
Easy to add scent, anti-static, and softener treatments
Non-ravelling edges
Colour stability
High tear, breaking, puncture and abrasion resistance
Stretchability
Strength
Chemically inert

Nonwovens technologies used in clothing and footwear

Drylaid
- Thermobonded
- Needlepunched
- Hydro-entangled
- Chemically bonded

Spunlaid

More information on nonwovens test methods

Participate in Working Group

Some interesting articles on clothing and footwear

The bigger picture behind a first for fashion
The adoption of needlepunching for the production of sustainable fleece garments by sports brand Nike is a major development in finally ushering nonwovens into the field of mainstream fashion.
Read more

A role for the black sheep
Complex combinations of performance fabrics make up the outfits for those who practise Winter sports. Skiers, mountaineers and other outdoor enthusiasts will often be swaddled in outfits comprising a base layer, a mid-layer and an outer-layer – in addition to gloves, hat, goggles – that can be taken on and off as the activity levels and varying temperatures require.
Read more

Thinking with your feet
Nonwovens are employed in many components going into modern footwear, especially in today’s sports and training shoes.Perhaps their longest established use has been in conventional, heavily-impregnated cellulose-based insoles, historically for leather and then plastic shoes. These were known as ‘Strobel insoles’ after the technique for stitching them to the uppers and linings of shoes, which provided much higher flexibility and strength than other construction methods.
Read more