Could Spray-On Clothing Be the Future?

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via <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2010/sep/16/spray-on-t-shirt">Guardian</a>

Does this take skin-tight too far?

Spanish fashion designer Manel Torres has developed the world’s first spray-on clothing. Torres worked along side scientists from Imperial College London to invent the spray, which forms a seamless fabric on contact with the body. The spray consists of short fibers that are mixed into solvent, allowing it to be sprayed from a can or high-pressure spray gun. The fibers are mixed with polymers that bind them together to form a fabric. The texture of the fabric can be varied by using wool, linen or acrylic fibers.

“I really wanted to make a futuristic, seamless, quick and comfortable material,” said Torres. “In my quest to produce this kind of fabric, I ended up returning to the principles of the earliest textiles such as felt, which were also produce by taking fibers a way of binding them together without having to weave or stitch them.”

It took Torres 15 minutes to spray a T-shirt onto a male model in a demonstration this week. So, spray-on clothing might not be the most time effective way of dressing. It also probably wouldn’t be particularly flattering for those of us who are anything but size zero.

But what use could spray-on fabric be? “The spray-on fabric may be produced and kept in a sterilized can, which could be perfect for providing spray-on bandages without applying any pressure for soothing burnt skin,” said Torres.

Not quite the glamorous space age catsuit we had in mind, but definitely more useful.