Obertshausen - A new warp knitted bra concept is making use of the possibilities offered by Karl Mayer's Jacquardtronic Lace technology

"Modern technology and fresh, new ideas produce stylish designs and offer production advantages," says Karl Mayer, explaining how designer Lisa Bahr has shown how this can be done in her work for her master’s degree. This student of Textile Products/ Textiles at the Hochschule Niederrhein (University of Applied Sciences, Niederrhein) has developed a completely new bra design and associated bralette using the features offered by the Jacquardtronic Lace machine – based on the motto, “smart and speedy”.

This innovative item of lingerie is made from just two lace pieces with two seams joining them together to produce the final garment – and moulding, pads or underwiring are no longer required.

The shape of the cup is built into the textile itself. “I wanted to give the bust the best possible shape, so I focused on the concept of two-way elasticity," Lisa explains. "Conventional lingerie lace is only stretch in one direction. When used in a design that requires very little making-up, the circular shapes are flattened out. The effect is the same as that of a sports bra or minimiser.”

As with normal lingerie fabrics, she processed all-over elastane on the high-performance lace raschel machine, but combined the uncovered yarn with a covered yarn as the pattern yarn. “The stretch, core-spun yarn can be processed better in the pattern guides. It also retains the textile characteristics of the fabric,” she says, adding that she was inspired by the organic shapes of floating bubbles when creating her design, which features circular motifs in a subtle interplay with transparent and opaque effects.

The result is a bralette with a seductive look, a comfortable fit with few seams, a short time-to-market, and low production costs. A special little trick was used during production, i.e. the design of the back section of the bralette can also be used to produce the matching briefs.