Karl Mayer is continuing to explore the fashion trend for combining sportswear and leisurewear, which using the capabilities of the lace raschel machine. This has resulted in the formation of a brand new type of apparel fabric. This new textile innovation is based on the MJ 52/1 S, and is known under the new tradename of Leisuree.Fashion. This multibar jacquard raschel machine produces stretch and non-stretch all-over lace and tapes, as well as light, elegant lace creations catering for the trend towards Chantilly lace. As a result, new products, which come somewhere between classic lingerie lace and complex sportswear fabrics, can also be produced.
Valentina Krel, who works in textile product development at Karl Mayer, discovered during the course of processing trials that lightweight elastane cannot be processed currently as it is not strong enough. Processing elastane with very high yarn counts in both the ground and pattern bars requires further knitting trials to be carried out in order to be able to fully utilise the speed potential of the machine.
“If our expectations of the trials are met, we will step up our product development in the Leisuree.Fashion sector significantly. Our customers have already signaled that they are very interested in this,” said Krel, adding that she is currently working on customer trials involving the production of pre-made-up items directly on the machine.
According to Karl Mayer, the textile product innovations in the Leisuree.Fashion sector have been extremely promising. At one of the company’s 80th anniversary celebrations, an unusual, stretch fabric for shape wear brands was produced on an MJ 52/1 S. This fabric is lighter and more feminine than normal fabrics, creates transparent and opaque effects and, with its relief-like, superimposed design, is reminiscent of lace. A dense fabric with a light, two-way-stretch ground produced by the jacquard bar and the stitch-forming ground bar at the rear was also produced on the MJ 52/1 S.
“In the fashion world, the boundaries between the different types of clothing are being increasingly broken down,” says Karl Mayer. “Garments featuring an unusual hybrid mix of styles are generating good business for textile companies. They are eye-catching on the street and keep machine developers busy. The production machines must also be extremely flexible and Karl Mayer’s Leisuree.Fashion is precisely that.”
