When filmmaker John Waters created his seminal 1981 send-up of the ills of suburban America, he chose a suitably unseemly title: Polyester.
“It was the dirtiest word you could say in fashion,” Waters relates over the line from his beloved hometown of Baltimore. Indeed, in one scene, a mistress character played by actress Mink Stole brags from her motel bed that her pornographer paramour showers her with clothes made “of the finest polyester.”
Yet time has a way of healing all wounds. For although it has been one of the most maligned materials in recent fashion history—derided as tacky, scratchy and even smelly—polyester has quietly undergone a sly rehabilitation, aided primarily by Japanese design mavericks Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garçons and Issey Miyake. And now it’s on the verge of becoming downright fashionable, thanks to Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz and Louis Vuitton’s Marc Jacobs, among others, who made polyester an important ingredient in their hit spring collections.
More than half of the Lanvin line is made from a polyester developed by a Japanese company and available in a dozen colors. “I just loved the feel of it and the volume, but had no idea initially it was polyester,” Elbaz says. “It’s amazing what new technology brought to the fabric.”
The designer says his wish was to create dresses and coats that could “fly away,” and polyester fit the bill perfectly. “It inspired me so much that I could not look at other fabrics. It felt so soft and familiar, yet so new,” he says. “Clients thought it was washed silk.”
For her part, Kawakubo is nonplussed by polyester’s sudden resurgence. “We don’t take trends into account. We have always liked polyester and have experimented with and used it for the last 25 years,” she says. “We have always believed since day one that fabric technology is vital in making creative fashion, and have designed each collection starting with the thread.”
Miyake is of a similar mind. He established his Pleats Please franchise back in 1993, basing the popular label on a crinkled, high-twist 100 percent polyester he originally developed for a William Forsythe ballet. “I always wanted to create clothing that was universal—easy to wear, to care for, and that was also beautiful,” Miyake says. “As such, I became interested in polyester, and its potential, from the beginning of my career. Polyester is easy to work with and results in clothing that is well suited to the needs of a modern lifestyle.”
Jacobs certainly had no qualms about sending polyester knits, including cardigans and skirts, down Louis Vuitton’s runway. “There’s always that strange thing in fashion when something’s so hideous, it’s great,” he muses.
Made of acids and alcohols derived from petroleum, polyester initially accrued no negative connotations when it was invented in the Forties. By the Sixties it had found its way into myriad consumer products, especially bedding, curtains and clothing. In fact, it was greeted as a godsend. “It crystallized the modern life because it was wrinkle-free and easy to care for. You could just pop it in the washing machine,” says Pamela Golbin, chief fashion curator at the Arts Decoratifs museum in Paris.
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