It’s no stretch to say that neon spandex characterized the 80s, thanks in part to the sudden popularity of VCRs and the then-ubiquitous home workout tapes. The material was shiny, flexible, and rad, as the kids would say.
The synthetic fabric is like nothing else. It’s stretchable to 600 percent its original size, and holds up well under high heat. Its polymers are derived from the crude oil that’s processed every day in petroleum refineries. It’s one of the many products, other than fuel and other feedstocks, that come from the refining process. Once isolated, the spandex polymers are shipped to manufacturers where they’re combined with other materials and spun into threads. (1)
This is the chemical composition of spandex. Image source: George Mason University
Spandex was first developed in in the 1950’s as a replacement for rubber clothes. It happened in the Virginia labs of DuPont Textiles. Inventor and textile chemist, Dr. Joseph Shivers, called his curious specimen Fibre K. But it was the term Spandex that really caught on, a play on the word expands. DuPont went on to call the material Lyrca®, the name they still use to this day. The global spandex market was estimated at $6.43 billion (converted to Canadian dollars) in 2015 and is forecast to grow to $11.58 billion by 2021, according to Persistence Market Research. (2)
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- http://www.petroleum.co.uk/plastic-production
- https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/spandex-market.asp
