Word: spandex
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Dates: during 1964-1964
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...made a considerable impact on the nation's language and life. Besides nylon, Dacron and cellophane, the firm has contributed a whole lexicon of names, many of which sound like something right out of science fiction. While a man dons his suit of orlon and his socks of Spandex in the morning, his wife may be wriggling into a Lycra girdle, an Antron slip, Cantrece hose-or the Warner "body stocking," a new fashion rage made of Du Font's stretch nylon...
...knee bend, for example, caused the stuff to stretch 45%, a shoulder shrug, 16%. After as little as 30 bending, shrugging years, shape was sure to go. Fortunately, skilled technicians got to work on the problem, finally turned up with an ANo. 1 solution called polyurethane elastomeric yarn (spandex) that stretches like skin, leaves no telltale bags or sags, and springs back into good-as-new condition without benefit of plastic surgery...
...yarn hit the slopes, making ski pants a stylish as well as a sturdy business. Chemical processes like slack mercerizing (by which the fabric, not the raw fiber, is made resilient after it is woven) left cottons and wools horizontally stretchable, did wonders for men's oxford shirts. Spandex, a wholly elastic fiber produced by Du Pont in 1958, revitalized bathing suits, hosiery and undergarments. But the big breakthrough came only last spring, when Du Pont went one giant step farther with the discovery of a core-spun process (with spandex as the core around which staple yarns might...
...result: a versatile, sure-fire way to convert every conventionally rigid fabric in the world into stuff that stretched up and down, back and forth, to and fro, and never once ran out of breadth. Accordingly, a whole new galaxy of stretch fabric appeared, all developed around a spandex core, ranging from brocade to burlap, taffeta to twill. Not all of them cling to the skin, but the stretch qualities let them give when and where they have...
...Little Old Lady. But no one stood to benefit more than the 20 million American women who cannot fit into standard-size fashions without major alterations. For them, spandex means clothes that will give a little here or there and keep them out of the hands of the little old lady who lets out seams and fixes the collar lines. Even high-style couturiers, who have a tendency to sniff at anything not imported from foreign showrooms, showed high-style appreciation. Some-like Oleg Cassini and Hannah Troy-went so far as to rush right in with some select stretch...