Behind brands like: Outlier, Arc’teryx, Patagonia, The North Face, adidas, Snow Peak, Palace, Supreme

Iconic Products: Patagonia Snap-T Fleece, US Special Operations Forces “PCU Level 3A Jacket”, Supreme Polartec Hooded Sweatshirt

Polartec, LLC is a privately-held fabric developer based in Andover, Massachusetts. The company traces its roots back to the historical “Malden Mills” (founded in 1906), inventors of the now-iconic Polarfleece from which the firm takes its name.

“Polartec, as an entity, really started in the late-’70s with the initial development of synthetic fleece.” Polartec CEO Gary Smith, speaking to Dry Clean Only earlier this month. “Prior to that, Malden really had made upholstery.”

Polarfleece—which Malden branded in the ’80s as “Polartec”–revolutionized performance wear as we know it. Made from napped polyester, Polartec (the fleece, not the company) provided a lightweight, breathable and weather-resistant alternative to heavy wool/cotton fleeces of the time. Within years, the company had scored what are to this day still its largest customers: Patagonia (Polartec makes all its era-defining fleece) and the United States Military.

“As the story goes, Yvon Chouinard and his cohorts at Patagonia had developed an alpine sweater out of synthetic polyester,” explains Smith. “They found their way to Malden because the upholstery fabrics Malden were known for at the time were also soft and fuzzy. The Patagonia crew said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this alpine sweater that works great but isn’t comfortable–can you help us?’”

The rest is history.

A boom in fleece sales left Malden rich, yet exposed. Despite Time naming Polarfleece one of the 100 Most Important Inventions of the 20th century, foreign competition caused sales to drop right as tragedy struck. In 1995, a catastrophic fire burned Malden Mills to the ground. Although the factory was rebuilt, Malden declared bankruptcy in 2001, then again in 2007. But that’s not where the story ends.

On the eve of the financial crisis, a private equity firm recognized Malden’s potential to innovate and stepped in. A new company–Polartec, LLC–was created, and both production and R&D were streamlined. The result: A product-creation boom that has led to Polartec supplying technical fabrics everywhere from Supreme to Outlier to the U.S. Special Forces.

In Smith’s own words: “We had to stop thinking of ourselves as an ‘outdoors’ company. We make fabric.”

In 2011, Polartec took its first steps into the waterproof-breathable realm with the launch of NeoShell, a fabric now used everywhere from Mission Workshop’s urbanwear to 66North’s Icelandic jackets. Two years later, the company unveiled “Alpha,” an “active” synthetic insulation designed for Special Forces soldiers, now found in gear from Houdini and Outlier. In 2015 came PowerWool, a merino-synthetic hybrid meant for performance layers like The North Face Progressor. In the background, a trend-shift towards Sherpa fleece and the “gorp-core” aesthetic revived interest in Polartec’s classics, granting the brand a place in capital-F fashion with Supreme hoodies, Palace zip-ups, and more.

“Frankly, there were other places where our technology and our capability to solve problems through textiles could be deployed,” tells Smith. “It’s like that brick in your hand: Is it a phone, yes; is it a camera, yes; is it a computer, yes. You have one thing that does a lot for you now. That crosses over into apparel.”

While its fortunes are still tied to retro-inspired fleeces, Polartec’s historical strength is its position as a “product creation company.” Unlike other more-specialized ingredients brands, they truly offer everything: insulators, rain-repellers, fashion fabrics, recycled materials, and now, even the base layers that once differentiated tech-adjacent consumer brands like Icebreaker.

If you live anywhere cold or wet, there’s a good chance you’ve owned a Polartec garment.

Behind brands like: Outlier, Acronym, Mission Workshop, Arc’teryx, vintage Prada Sport

Iconic Products: Outlier OG Classics pant, Acronym P10-DS, Mission Workshop Eiger Wool Field Jacket

A 150-year-old mill is pushing fabric innovation. Crazy, right?

Schoeller Textil AG is a Swiss textile maker whose founder, Rudolph Schoeller, opened Switzerland’s first worsted wool yarn mill… in 1868. When “Schoeller & Söhne” opened for business, Japan’s samurai class was still alive (but disbanding) and the Edison bulb was still 10 years away. There’s “old ways are best ways,” and then there’s Schoeller.

“I first completed an apprenticeship as a textile refiner, then completed my studies as a textile and business engineer,” says Vedran Gartmann, a Product Developer at Schoeller who joined the company in 2007. “Schoeller has an excellent reputation as an innovative textile producer, so it was clear for me to try to get here.”

After almost a century spinning natural fibers, Schoeller began its first trials with synthetics in 1954. Polyester (the petrochemical-derived fiber at the core of modern fleeces) is commonly produced as a yarn. Given Schoeller’s expertise in producing textiles from woolen yarn, the inclusion of synthetics was not so much a paradigm shift as an area for growth. By 1961, the first all-synthetic fabrics were rolling out of mills. These fabrics–sold, in true Swiss Alpine fashion, under the name “skifans”—were unlike any performance textile seen before. Schoeller’s invention soon gained another name: “softshell.”

To quantify just how big impact the original launch of softshells were for the company, consider this: Among older outdoorsmen, the phrase “Schoeller” still describes softshells as a category. But that invention alone is not the Schoeller Textil story.

“Schoeller is the right size for an innovative company,” comments Gartmann. “We are small enough so that there is no inertia that so often paralyzes large corporations. But we are also big enough to be able to carry forward projects.”

In 2001, Schoeller launched 3XDRY, a multi-function DWR (durable water repellent) coating that provides the water-beading property of tech garments from brands like Acronym and Maharishi. Five years later, the company unveiled “c_change,” an “intelligent” waterproof membrane that opens and closes its structures based on the ambient environment (see it in action on Mission Workshop’s Eiger). Most impressively of all, Schoeller—then pushing a century and a half of life—did all this while embracing a rather contemporary ideal: ecological stewardship.

“My personal main focus is to make highly functional, environmentally-friendly apparel,” comments Gartmann. “The focus is more and more on sustainability.”

In 2008 (the year techwear darling Outlier was making its first pants from Schoeller stretch fabrics), Schoeller became the first company to win the bluesign Award. The honor is not given lightly. bluesign, the standard-bearer for ecological textile manufacturing, has partnered with Schoeller since 2000 to introduce then monitor sustainable practices at factories all over the globe. Schoeller, in turn, has since launched environmentally-friendly version of nearly every one of its iconic products—from a natural, cork-based softshell (2012) to the CFC-free “ecorepel” coating (2013) and beyond.

In the techwear scene, Schoeller fabrics are typically found among the most expensive consumer brands—to quote Gartmann, “We are a high-priced producer.” An Acronym product with the initials “CH,” “SS,” or “DS,” for example, will include Schoeller textiles (and more often than not, a price tag north of $500). However, given its history of innovation and devotion to sustainability, a Schoeller garment may just pay for itself. Who knows what 2168 will bring?

Behind brands like: Acronym, Nanamica, Arc’teryx, Visvim, The North Face, Patagonia, Goldwin

Iconic Products: Acronym J1A-GT, Arc’teryx Veilance Monitor Coat, The North Face Mountain Jacket

Some know Polartec. Few know Schoeller. Even George Costanza knows W.L. Gore.

“We are a product leadership company,” states Benedikt Schlichting, Global Business Leader of Performance Wear Garments at W.L. Gore & Associates, makers of Gore-Tex. “The product, and product performance, is in the center of everything we do.”

As Intel is to Windows and Horween is to leather boots, W.L. Gore & Associates is arguably the most famous component creator in techwear. The Newark, DE based company was founded in 1958 by the husband-and-wife duo Wilbert L. and Genevieve Gore. Over 10 years later, Gore’s son Robert would invent the “expanded polytetrafluoroethylene membrane” (ePTFE) which put W.L. Gore on the map—and it, like most great inventions, happened entirely by accident.

The same year Neil Armstrong took his “one small step,” Robert Gore got angry at some plastic. “We were having really bad luck” developing a stretchy PTFE, as he tells it. “One evening, I took a piece that had been treated at high temperature and gave it a fast yank.” The material expanded close to 1000x, resulting in a plastic that was “very porous and very strong.”

W.L. Gore laminated the ePTFE membrane to synthetic textiles and sold the fabric as “Gore-Tex,” a miracle product claiming the then-outlandish fusion of waterproofing and breathability. The first Gore-Tex jacket launched in 1976 to rave reviews. In 1978, a brand called “Bleeding Edge” launched the first lifestyle piece with Gore-Tex. By 1981, even astronauts on the Space Shuttle Columbia had Gore fibers in their suits.
Today, “Gore-Tex” is a cultural pass-phrase for “high-performance tech gear.” The brand’s ubiquity reflects that. Rather than list all of W.L. Gore’s customers (there are hundreds), here’s a list of brands that use Gore products, organized by general perception and segment:

Outdoors Gear: The North Face, Patagonia, Arc’teryx, BlackYak, Mammut, Tilak and others

Techwear: Acronym, Arc’teryx Veilance, Prada Sport, White Mountaineering, Goldwin and others

Streetwear: Supreme, Palace, Nike, adidas, Off-White and others

You get the point. In outdoor stores and boutiques alike, Gore’s black-and-yellow tag is as familiar a sight as a clerk with a beard.

“When we first invented the material, we developed a completely new category—waterproof and breathable materials,” says Schlechting. “What we are venturing towards now is that we would like to set similarly-new standards in the contemporary fashion space.”

The Gore family of textiles has since expanded to include Windstopper (a lighter, windproof but water-resistant fabric) and ShakeDry (an ultralight, “film-out” ePTFE with no crinkly face-fabric), but it’s the traditional line of Gore-Tex laminates that captures the hearts of both customer and designers, especially in the techwear space.

“The brand will let us know which end use they intended for the garment,” describes Schlichting. “A jacket designed for urban environments won’t have to endure harsh weather to the extent of a jacket designed for 6000m alpinism. The test for the Pro material may be a harsh rain shower with rains coming down on you (and at you) in winds. For another material, it might be a lighter amount of rain.

“Acronym and Arc’teryx Veilance, actually, decide to test a selection of their products on the harshest conditions, and the products they test, pass. It really depends on the philosophy of the partner brand.”

Even for products that may never see alpine slopes, the Gore nameplate and its association with performance can be as emotional—and effective at opening wallets—as visions of Everest.

W.L. Gore, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, has since grown to record over $3 billion in yearly sales—more than The North Face (“topping $2 billion”), more than Patagonia ($750m as of 2015), and likely as much as the two combined. It’s this awesome scale—combined with a reputation for excellence and “the guarantee to keep you dry”—that makes W.L. Gore & Associates the most well-known of the techwear suppliers.

Behind brands like: Stone Island, The North Face, NikeLab, adidas, Aether

Iconic Products: Stone Island Featherweight Leather Jacket, The North Face Thermoball Jacket, NikeLab Essentials Insulated Jacket

In 1983, the United States Army approached industrials firm Albany International with a rather unique problem. This was the Cold War—soldiers could be deployed anywhere from the Afghan desert to a Siberian tundra. Across such a range of environments, goose down insulation couldn’t be relied on to perform. On May 13, 1986, “synthetic down” was patented, and just like that, there was a viable, all-weather alternative to the classic: plucked feathers.

To soldiers and geese alike, it was (forgive the pun) a big honkin’ deal.

Three years later, the first commercially-available PrimaLoft garment hit the market. The PrimaLoft story since is one of quiet focus.

“Where we excel is in high performance, high loft insulation,” Vanessa Mason, Director of Engineering & Technology at PrimaLoft, Inc., tells Dry Clean Only. “That is our core business, but the DNA of our business is innovation.”

Indeed, the company’s history seems, well… rather insulated. Consider that its three main lines (the Gold, Silver, and Black Series Insulations) contain a total of 20 different products, compared to just four across the rest of its website. Or, consider that its latest R&D breakthrough, Cross Core, involves the use of proprietary aerogel fibers to make—you guessed it—a better synthetic insulation.

“Aerogel is a solid porous network of interconnected nano-structures,” explains Mason. “That structure makes it nearly impossible to conduct heat, hence, it’s an incredible insulator. We tried to partner with other suppliers to do this, but everybody we connected with said this production of aerogel fibers was impossible. We put in the effort, time, and resources to make the impossible, possible.”

From the outside, PrimaLoft appears maniacal in its quest to invent, then reinvent, a better way to keep warm. If this sounds like what got Polartec into trouble way back when, consider one important difference: there’s no external aesthetic component to a filling.

Ever since Eddie Bauer invented the down jacket in 1936, “puffers” have become a trend-immune component of dressing for the cold. Make one bubble parka perform as well in more environments than the other, and you’ll win fans of all but the romantics and die-hards. Make that same coat cost less by virtue of not harvesting animals to make it, and well, even Castro mellowed with age. It’s this omnipresence of the garments themselves (combined with great products and a clever business case) that grants PrimaLoft its prominence.

At present, a range of technical brands from Stone Island to Nike, adidas to Patagonia, even Alexander Wang, count PrimaLoft as a trusted partner. The North Face’s innovative Thermoball range was even entirely co-developed with PrimaLoft’s engineers.

“A lot of people don’t realize that PrimaLoft wasn’t actually the first supplier to work on Thermoball,” tells Mason. “In that particular case, The North Face came to PrimaLoft with a problem statement and certain criteria they wanted to meet. We were able to achieve all the requirements.”

When brands set lofty expectations, the insulation-obsessives in New York deliver.

The interviews above have been edited for clarity.