Summer with the Selvedge Archives: Flexible Friend

If you ever watched the 80s American TV show Fame, you’ll remember the highs and lows of being a student of the performing arts – and you’ll also know a thing or two about Lycra. Lydia, Bruno, Coco and the other heroes of the New York City High School for the Performing Arts spent their lives in skin-tight leggings and garishly coloured leotards made from it. Along with aerobics, jogging and the fashion for looking at all times as if you were just about to go to a jazz class at Pineapple Dance Studios, it summed up the sportswear-obsessed 80s. More importantly, it was one of the most radical inventions in textile history.

The discovery of Lycra, and of stretch fabrics generally, ‘was without a doubt the most significant development in twentieth century textiles,’ says textile historian Mary Schoeser. ‘You couldn’t imagine today’s fabrics without it. The body beautiful, Jennifer Lopez look exists in both couture and high street fashion, and tight clothing is an essential part of it. Before Lycra or elastane came along, haute couture was the only route to having a tailored fit. Lycra democratised all that. Whatever fabric it’s mixed with, it hangs on your body as if it has been personally made for you.’ An elastane yarn made from petrochemicals, Lycra is lighter than rubber thread and does not degenerate with exposure to body oils, perspiration, lotions or detergents. It can be thrown in the machine without losing its shape, it doesn’t rub the skin and it stretches to six times its length. The downsides? If you ignore that fact that Lycra is currently off planet fashion’s immediate radar, what with our obsession for all things floaty, draping, decorated and layered, then there aren’t any. It still appears in everything from Marks & Spencer tracksuits, Calvin Klein undies and Jaeger woollen suits to Levi jeans – and even Porsche sunroofs. Says Schoeser: ‘Just because it’s not fashionable like it was in the 80s doesn’t mean it’s not used. In fact, the opposite is true. One fifth of all garments are knitted and Lycra is incorporated to provide a buoyancy that stops them sagging. It’s still a very important element in textile design.’

Photo: Dennis O'Clair, Getty Images

Lycra was invented in 1958 by American chemicals and fibres multinational DuPont as a response to diminishing supplies of natural rubber. It took ten years of research to discover the radical new elastane fibre, christened Lycra by DuPont. Before it, people had had to make do with sports and swimwear made from wool, silk or Neoprene – a synthetic rubber, also invented by DuPont in 1930. Schoeser recalls: ‘Throughout my childhood, swimsuits were made with Neoprene and came with ruching down the front. Every single one disintegrated. The ruching would suddenly unravel and catch you unawares. It was very distressing for an eight-year-old girl!’ It wasn’t until it appeared in the garments of the French Olympic ski team in 1968 that Lycra really hit the headlines, and Australian sportswear company Speedo snapped it up and produced their aerodynamic Racerback costumes of the 1970s.

Last year, DuPont sold the Lycra portfolio to American fibre multinational Invista, but until then the company had always kept the material’s chemical formula a closely-guarded secret – in 1989, five DuPont employees from the spandex plant in Mercedes, Argentina tried to extort 10 million dollars for the safe return of stolen production documents. They were eventually arrested. Schoeser believes DuPont’s sale was the result of having taken the Lycra brand as far as it could go rather than any financial difficulties. ‘DuPont is a hugely innovative company and it launched an exceptional branding campaign for Lycra. Throughout the 70s and 80s, clothing containing the fibre came with a ‘Lycra’ swing tag. Just as Brits call vacuum cleaners ‘hoovers’ and Americans call tissues ‘Kleenex’, all stretchy fibres became known as ‘Lycra’, even though many companies make their own versions of it. In the fibre world, this marketing exercise was on a par with that of Dulux and its English sheepdog. DuPont probably felt it was time to move on.’

For her first collection in 1981, American swimwear designer Liza Bruce, who has a shop in London’s Belgravia, took inspiration from the ‘ugly’ quality of early Lycra. ‘In the US, Lycra was being used in a very unsophisticated, unrefined and practical way and Liza saw an opportunity to use it differently,’ says a company spokeswoman. Thus her sporty, high leg, ultra-chic costumes were born. In the 90s, Bruce helped develop ‘matt crepe Lycra’, a tougher, heavier version of the material which she still uses in her costumes today, and have become her signature range.