NEW YORK — Malden Mills last week unveiled its fall 1994 collection of Polartec fleece outerwear fabrics made from Hoechst Celanese polyester, while at the same time challenging fiber producers to create better-performing yarns.
“That will allow all of us as mills to concentrate on making non-commodity-type goods,” said Howard Ackerman, Malden’s general manager, during a press briefing at the Hoechst townhouse here. “By and large, the importers have a lock on commodity items.”
Ackerman told the gathering of 45 that the textile industry also has to get better at sharing information throughout the pipeline, become more visionary “and stop crying for protectionism.”
Ackerman, in a highly unorthodox move, invited the heads of two key textile associations — who are also executives at key competitors of Malden — to attend. They were Ellen Green, president of the Knitted Textile Association and a vice president at Andrex Industries, and Isaac Kier, president of the Textile Distributors Association and chairman of Lida Inc.
The invitations were issued, Ackerman said, “because the fabrics we have to show are examples of how two companies
can work together to create something that will benefit the industry as a whole.” Green and Kier said they agreed with Ackerman, and said the industry must share more non-proprietary information.
The collection of new Polartec fabrics uses three Hoechst polyester specialty fibers.
Those fibers account for about 10 percent of Malden’s total apparel fleece line, said Ackerman, who added that last year the fibers comprised “less than 1 percent of the line.”
Hoechst’s Trevira II, a recycled polyester fiber introduced in August, is featured in Malden’s Polartec 100 line — a collection of underwear layer fabrics — and its 200 and 300 lines, a series of lightweight outerwear fabrics. Fabrics are available in prints, solids, overdyes and heathers.
ESP, a stretch polyester filament yarn coming in microfiber and full deniers, is being used primarily in Malden’s 100 and 200 Polartec series, in various microfiber styles and double-faced velours. Trevira Micro, a non-stretch microfiber, is used for single- and double-faced fabrics for applications such as lightweight shirts and tights.
“We’ve been working with Hoechst since 1988, doing mainly commodity goods,” said Ackerman. “But the last couple of years we really began pushing them to create new things. They did, and that’s how our involvement has grown.”
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Among Malden’s apparel manufacturing customers confirming they have integrated the new fabrics in their lines for fall 1994 are Patagonia, Timberland and L.L. Bean.”2.X>