Garment Durability
Durability
An important aspect of fabric quality is durability to repeated cycles of wash and wear. Durability performance testing involves measuring strength and resistance to abrasion and pilling and requires a basic understanding of sample preparation, testing, and evaluation. Although there are no universal standards for the durability of textile and apparel products, the customer and supplier need to agree on levels of satisfactory performance for individual products and end-uses.
Strength
To ensure value to consumers, textile and apparel products must have some degree of durability. Durability depends to a large degree on yarn and fabric strengths. Strength testing is designed to measure how a product might perform without subjecting it to numerous cycles of wearing and consumer care. Various testing methods are used to predict strength quickly and accurately.
Abrasion Resistance
A key attribute of durability is good abrasion resistance. Abrasion resistance is the ability of a fabric to resist loss of surface as a result of friction with itself or another material. Key factors in fabric abrasion are the type of abradant, the direction and amount of force, the tension on the substrate, and whether the material is wet or dry.
Fabric Defects: Pilling
In purchasing apparel and home products, consumers are attracted to products with clean surfaces that are free of defects and surface irregularities such as pilling, fuzzing, and other surface distortions. The consumer expects those items to remain free of those types of defects both during wear and laundering. At the same time, the brand or retailer expects their merchandise to have the same appearance and performance when they are offered for sale.
One of the most common complaints concerning product aesthetics and performance is that of pilling.
Pilling most often shows up in laundering; however, it can show up during wear as well. In many cases, the propensity to pill is discovered in testing of the goods by the manufacturer, the brand, and/or the retailer. At this point, there is not normally a solution for the pills. The causes of pilling are a result of the construction and mill processing—not the fault of the consumer. Therefore, controlling and eliminating pilling must begin in product materials specification and mill processing.
What is Pilling?
Pills are small balls of entangled fibers attached to the surface of a fabric, and pilling resistance measures the tendency of a fabric to form pills.
Pilling is a complex property, affected by many factors, including the type of fiber or blend, fiber dimensions, yarn and fabric construction, fabric finishing treatments, and end-use. Pilling may be accompanied by other surface phenomena, such as loss of cover, color change, localized frosting, or fuzzing.
Understanding & Overcoming Pilling
Fabric Defects 101: Understanding & Overcoming Pilling discusses how you can overcome pilling issues within the supply chain and grow your cotton business.
Don Bailey, Textile Technology Instructor, covers design, construction, dyeing, and finishing parameters that affect or improve pilling and what you need to know when sourcing cotton products.
