{besps}ss/santoniispo{/besps}Santoni?s Patrick Silva discusses the increasing role that seamless knitting is playing in the casual and athletic sportswear sectors and outlines the company?s latest technological developments geared towards this rapidly growing market.

While seamless underwear has grown formidably, especially in China - both in its domestic and export markets, establishing itself on the world market as a solid and ever expanding classic, the Santoni company was very pleased to see at the recent Ispo show in Munich in February that our market forecasts, our continuous research and development and our commercial strategies towards expanding seamless technology to the outerwear sector are beginning to make important strides not only in China, but all over the world.

We received a very positive sign of this at the Munich Ispo by seeing the presence of an abundance of seamless items in the booths of many of the major sports brands. These items were not only for athletic applications but also for the casual wear market. Moreover this trend was reflected in both Western and Chinese exhibitors? garments.

On the Santoni booth, there was a very conspicuous and constant flow of specialised and professional visitors from all over the world. The company exhibited products made on seamless machines, both in the circular seamless line and the Compact Warp seamless line (with an important addition of our garment length line in the traditional cut and sew systems). We specifically brought to Munich, a collection of these various sportswear ranges to illustrate what we believe to be the inherent advantageous features that the Santoni machines bring to this very important field of sports-specific clothing.

Circular seamless program

As everyone is aware, the global trends for apparel are increasingly moving towards clothes that combine comfort with hygiene and well-being both in one's leisurewear, daily workwear, and in the field of active sports and fitness exercise.

The old myth about seamless being only associated with synthetic yarns has been undoubtedly quashed by Santoni seamless circular technology successfully using all types of yarn - both natural and man-made.

Moreover, the necessary technical targets, which are very simple and particularly suitable for sportswear, are now being achieved by meeting the modern and specific needs of the sporting fraternity, made in the ?Santoni Seamless Way?.

In the collection of sportswear items Santoni presented, there was an emphasis on showing not only the use of natural and synthetic including uncovered elasticated yarns) yarns, but also those for obtaining the required technical targets. This demonstrated that seamless is the ideal way to construct the garment to achieve the following characteristics:

• moisture management for evaporation of perspiration
• compression areas that offer both body support and better temperature management
• padding thicknesses for greater body protection while still maintaining the all important moisture and temperature management requirements
• venting to remove heat from specific areas
• thermal pockets strategically placed to trap body heat, again in specific areas

These products shown, constructed on Santoni?s latest seamless circular machines for outerwear received a tremendous amount of interest from the visitors to the booth.

Of particular interest was the collection of very fine and light garments made on SM8-TR1 using natural yarns, particularly wool and cotton. These are first layer items that have a soft handle, are very pleasant in contact with the skin, and have all the inherent technology typical of this machine in order to make openwork fabric to permit the effective control and management of perspiration, whilst maintaining an attractive garment appearance.

Excitingly, the company also showed products knitted on this same model called ??second layer?, which are heavier items incorporating body mapping technology. The collection showed these heavier items having all those technical characteristics mentioned above with special attention to mock felts and specific transparent areas.

SM6-Rib 2

Here, the products on show emphasised the casual or leisurewear side of sport clothes.

Santoni exhibited both polo shirts and sweaters made in natural fibres such as wool and cotton as well as in plated fabrics combined with synthetic yarns such as polyester. These sweaters, produced in the finest gauges and at a very high productivity rate with the possibility of fabric knit structures in the latest fashion trends, generated significant interest.

In fact this machine was specifically designed for producing fine quality high production casual or sport knitwear in the most fashionable styles.

SM8 TOP 2 in gauge 40G

Part of the collection displayed at Ispo Munich was made with the brand new range of seamless fine gauge machines.

This fine gauge possibility represents a technological breakthrough for a new dimension of seamless garment. The surface of the garment is smoother and lighter offering an incomparable feeling of comfort like a second skin.

Lightweight fit and seamless technology offer an increased feeling of well being to the final customer and new performance benefits for the sportswear market. A strong content of elastane in such products offers a new performance features in the field of functional activewear.

SM-DJ2T

This machine is literally ?universal? and can produce both classic casualwear as well as technical structured wear with floats and perspiration management zones as shown in some of our sample collections. It uses all types of yarn and has the added flexibility of being able to produce also underwear that can be worn indoors like outerwear (e.g. loungewear).

Santoni also demonstrated one of our latest Seamless targets that we have been studying in the field of warp knitting, namely the compact warp knitting machine Model SWD 6/2J.

The major sportswear brands are always interested in warp fabrics due to their two inherent fabric characteristics ? that is breathable and non-run fabric structures.

Having now produced on our machine Seamless items with these fabric structures, visitors were especially interested to see these warp garments ?Free of Any Seams? and produced in the futuristic ?entire garment? way with the least possible post-knitting finishing operations required.

Another feature of great interest in our sportswear warp collection was a combination of mesh areas, body mapping with compression and support areas. All these features give a very promising potential especially in the specific athletic or active type of sport clothing.

In conclusion, this month?s Munich ISPO, has greatly encouraged Santoni?s belief that Seamless and sportswear go hand in hand and in many ways seem to be made for one another. The presence of seamless items in so many booths of so many well-known brands and the keen interest of the large numbers of visitors on our booth makes us confident that ?Seamless in Sportswear? is going to be an ever growing concern with beneficial results for all concerned.

So much so that Santoni is also participating this month at ISPO China, which is Asia's most important sportswear show.

We were very grateful to the fine organisers of the Ispo exhibition and to all those visitors from all over the world that came to see Santoni Seamless Sportswear in our booth.