Bio-sensing clothing, and clothing connecting to the IoT are new and rapidly expanding, according to the head of Supreme Corporation, a company that manufactures innovative specialty yarns and safety apparel. It makes sewing threads and yarns with highly conductive wires using multiple types of raw materials including wool, cotton and polyester.
Volt Smart Yarns, a new division of Supreme Corporation, makes highly-conductive custom yarns with specific levels of conductivity, resistance, and strength. Medical and sportswear industry essentially makes use of these yarns, Matthew Kolmes, CEO, Supreme Corporation told Fibre2Fashion.Bio-sensing clothing, and clothing connecting to the IoT are new and rapidly expanding, according to the head of Supreme Corporation, a company that manufactures innovative specialty yarns and safety apparel. It makes sewing threads and yarns with highly conductive wires using multiple types of raw materials including wool, cotton and polyester.#
When asked about the applications of the Volt Smart yarns, he said, “We were taken off guard by the number of applications in the automotive industry. Seats and seat liners, replacing bulky wires in the headliners. We always think of the sportswear or casualwear applications and connecting to the IoT.”
Kolmes said that one of the major problems of the industry is that electronics people and textiles people do not speak the same language. “The other problem I see is that textiles people are used to low-priced commodity types of products. Electronics prototyping costs tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands. So, the hurdle is helping textile companies or clothing brands to understand exactly what they want. That is hard to do. Then you have to get them to pay for the development. This may be impossible to do. It is not in their business model.”
Supreme Corporation plans to keep engineering high-tech yarns that improve people’s lives. “We have expanded our location twice in the last four years. We are building new production lines, and implementing lean lines for our garment production now. We plan to keep changing and growing,” concluded Kolmes. (KD)
Click here to read the complete interview.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India
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