Word: waterproofers
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Shoes for Orphans. Copeland has even higher hopes for Corfam. The product of 30 years of research and $30 million, it is different from any previous synthetic-the first leather substitute that is truly waterproof, shape-retaining, scuff-resistant, porous and long-lasting. Since leather is a remarkably complex material much like human skin, creating the substitute has taken longer and cost more than Du Pont expected when it set out on its search. Corfam is a complicated combination of several synthetics with seemingly opposite properties: tight on the outside, loose on the inside and porous throughout...
...1920s the company moved to less martial fields by buying the French-owned rights to a transparent cellulose thought to be of small value because it broke up in water; Du Pont found a way to waterproof it, called it Cellophane and revolutionized packaging. Du Font's growing group of scientists followed up with a series of breakthroughs: the first commercial U.S. synthetic rubber, the first nitrogen synthetic fertilizer, and the first synthetic fiber -nylon, which now comes in 450 varieties and rings up some $500 million in yearly sales for the company...
...many artists call it, is made from acrylic and vinyl resins consisting of emulsion polymers, long strands of molecules floating in water. Wound into these strands, like prickles on barbed wire, are standard pigments. When the water evaporates, polymers and pigments bind into a film that is actually waterproof and can be scrubbed with soap and water...
...dots and patterns. This year's favorite is flowers: from A for aster to Z for zinnia, they make a coat a serenade to spring; its wearer becomes a veritable walking garden. All make superb between-season coats, but then there is this little problem: not one is waterproof...
Down the Neck. As for hats, the situation is no better. Scarves are perky as can be, but as waterproof as sponges. Hoods, helmets, bonnets and the currently chic sou'wester hats are serviceable, but leave the hair underneath a disaster area. Alternative? The nowstandard plastic rain hood, which folds away to nothing and can be carted around in the smallest purse...