New vilene might help hold costs

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33060, 30 October 1972, Page 6

New vilene might help hold costs

With the introduction of equal pay pending, clothing manufacturers are being urged to find ways to reduce labour content and so help hold the cost of their products. A new vilene from West Germany might do just that.

The vilene, with a new, fast-fusing adhesive, is quick and easy to usie, particularly in comparison with the conventional application of woven interlinings which require much stitching.

For the first time, the "computer dot” vilene can be applied with a conventional steam press instead of the expensive hot-head press especially designed for this purpose. A new development, too, is the stretch characteristic—when stretched the vilene opens out in width, but the length remains stable—making it especially suitable for use with knit fabrics. EXPERT’S VISIT

Mr Roland Malzer is in Christchurch this week showing manufacturers and retailers the new vilene. The interlining is used in a collection of 32 women’s and men’s garments with which he has been travelling since May. He tells of the creaseresistance and recovery properties of the garments. “I have not pressed them once,” he said yesterday. “Where we have used the vilene there is no sign of creases or wrinkles.”

The company for which he works, Carl Freudenberg, pioneered the production of vilene in 1948. The vilene division is a small part of the company, which has the largest tannery in Europe, employing 20,000. The vilene division employs 3000, and also has a workshop which produces the garments Mr Malzer is showing. Earlier this year he saw the European fashion showings and brought back ideas for his travelling collection. LEFT UNLINED

The garments are left unlined so that the interlinings can be examined. One of the treat advantages the bonded bre has over a woven cloth, Mr Malzer says, is that it is porous and so allows the fabric to breathe. The feather-weight interlining give clothes body, but not bulk. With the sleeker, more body-conscious line of men’s wear today, the vilene can be used to produce a

natural-looking shape to jackets—an extension of its already widely-accepted use in women’s wear. It can prevent the curling of the coming, wider lapels for men’s and women’s jackets without making them look stiff. And it can shape

trouser cuffs which keep getting deeper. Mr Malzer is always asked how the adhesive vilene withstands dry-cleaning. Samples of the company’s vilene were test dry-cleaned eight times; in Christchurch and the results show that the interlining and its garment are not to be parted. A qualified master tailor of both mens and women’s clothing, Mr Malzer has been trained in mass production methods.

His job is to solve the problems in incorporating a designer’s ideas into mass production—with the help of his companys product. Born in [ Vienna, he now spends 11 months of the year travelling.; Before coming to New Zealand he had been in South Africa and Australia.