With its resistance to harsh chemicals and high heat, XLA™ frees designers to innovate and create ambitious styles that maintain the essential properties of their preferred base fabric. The durability of XLA also gives designers continuous confidence in the ability of clothes to remain true to their vision from the mill to the wardrobe.

XLA is the first and only stretch fiber that can withstand the high heat and harsh chemicals inherent in processes applied to garments containing cotton and polyester. Resistant to temperatures of up to 220ºC (428ºF), XLA is also impervious to severe dyeing, bleaching, mercerizing and garment washing. The fiber is also tolerant to the thermosol dyeing process. This remarkable product can even be chemically finished as the base ‘rigid fiber’.

Heat-setting in order to fix the width of a fabric can dramatically limit stretch. Unlike less advanced stretch fibers, XLA does not need to be heat-set, and at 50ºC it shrinks to normal size in harmony with the base fiber.

Furthermore, the elimination of the heat-setting process allows mills to significantly shorten the long and resource-intensive dye process. The absence of a heat-setting phase and associated fabric shrinkage means that mills using XLA can create fabrics of greater widths, maximizing the number of garments they can produce.

Finally, clothing with XLA never needs to be laid out after it has been rolled for shipping – unlike fabrics made with less sophisticated stretch fibers which can lay idle for 24 hours after they have reached their destination.