RadiciGroup and the Italian Alpine Rescue Corps join the Politecnico di Milano in a quest for new solutions for high-performance technical apparel
 

From inserts made of special phase change materials that harden on impact to protect the body, to a jacket incorporating active visibility systems and simplified communication devices: the technical apparel world is continuously evolving and becoming increasingly more demanding.

For this reason, RadiciGroup, a manufacturer of synthetic fibres and plastics widely used in the sportswear industry, collaborated with the scientific-technological university Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) on a Sportswear Design workshop for the students enrolled in the Design for the Fashion System Master’s programme.
About 50 students from different countries attended the training course, which ran from September to December 2017. The workshop’s objective was for the students to develop and design sportswear apparel featuring innovative shapes, materials and styles.

In order to stay close to reality and challenge the students with a complex task, the Alpine Rescue Corps of Lombardy, Italy, was called on to participate. The students listened to the needs and requirements of the rescuers in emergencies and created a number of garment collections specifically for those activities, including, in particular, a high visibility jacket.

“As a producer of raw materials for use in the sportswear sector, among others” said Marco De Silvestri, marketing director of the RadiciGroup Comfort Fibres Business Area, “it is of the greatest importance to us that young designers know, already in the design phase, the specific performance characteristics afforded by the different materials. Polyamides and polyesters, two of the types of fibres most widely used for sportswear, are highly versatile and allow for combining various performance characteristics in a single product, optimizing its use for the needs of a specific case.”