Toray Industries, Inc., announced today that it has developed Camifu™, a polyester filament fabric that combines the softness, smoothness, and comfort of synthetic fibers with the natural feel and random unevenness of traditional Japanese paper. The company will recommend the fabric for an array of apparel uses, from casual medium-weight fabrics for men’s and women’s outerwear to cut-and-sewn apparel, broadening the horizons of upmarket fashions in Japan and overseas markets. The company plans to commercialize Camifu™ from Spring/Summer 2022.

Unlike conventional fabrics, Camifu™ can match the Japanese paper features that inspired it. That is because Toray employed NANODESIGN®, its conjugate spinning technology, to develop a flat C cross-sectional shape that delivers a precise arrangement of three different polymers.

Using NANODESIGN®, Toray created a special cross-sectional structure in which it has arranged polymers with different heat shrinkage properties in special shapes on the left and right of a flat cross section, with a soluble polymer in the fiber center.

Using NANODESIGN®, Toray created a special cross-sectional structure in which it has arranged polymers with different heat shrinkage properties in special shapes on the left and right of a flat cross section, with a soluble polymer in the fiber center.

Toray heat treated polymers on the left and right side of the fiber to bend along the fiber. This, coupled with a flat shape, creates a unique twist and stretch. Varying the arrangement and shape of the polymer with adjacent fibers generates different torsional structures for each yarn, resulting in a yarn bundle structure containing complex voids.

A yarn bundle structure produces a random unevenness in the fabric texture so it feels like hand-made Japanese paper. Single yarns comprising polymers with different colorations and dyeability cover the fabric without aligning, for attractive fluctuations like those of Japanese paper. Camifu™ is eco-friendly, as one of its polymer is recycled from film scraps.

In designing Camifu™, Toray created a hollow structure inside the fiber by placing a soluble polymer within, augmenting yarn bundle voids from filament twisting during relaxing and weight reduction process on textile. This hollow portion imparts a lightness and resilient feel to the fabric. A precisely designed slit keeps functional agents within the fiber, making it possible to incorporate a range of features in the fabric.

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