CHINAPLAS 2019: New sportswear creations use BASF materials to bring style and functionality to daily life
- New “athleisure” sportswear designs are co-created by BASF, streetwear designer Enchi Shen, ANTA, and Silueta
- Fiber from BASF’s innovative FreeflexTM TPU and Elastoflex® flexible PU system provides exceptional comfort and fit for sports bra and tights
- BASF at CHINAPLAS 2019: Booth no. 11.2A41, China Import & Export Fair Complex, Guangzhou, China, May 21-24
Guangzhou, China – May 10, 2019 – New “athleisure” sportswear designs are showing how fibers made of BASF materials can bring a unique combination of style and convenience to today’s sportswear. At CHINAPLAS 2019, BASF will showcase a new sportswear outfit co-created with ANTA, Silueta and fashion designer Enchi Shen. Designed for supreme comfort and performance, the new sports outfit epitomizes style and convenience, in line with the rising popularity of athleisure wear.
“The athleisure trend – in which clothing designed for workouts are worn for normal daily activities – continues to flourish, supported by growing health and fashion consciousness among consumers,” said Angus Wardlaw, Head of LAUNCH Innovation Team, ANTA Group, China’s largest sportswear company by market value. “Today’s consumers are looking for outfits that enable performance and comfort while providing the convenience to fulfill multiple roles in life. We co-created this new sports outfit with BASF materials to address these needs, and as part of our mission to bring the transcendent spirit of sports into everyone’s daily life. ANTA is a consumer-centric company that constantly explores new technologies, in order to create the most innovative sportswear for our consumers and deliver industry-leading innovation.”
The co-created outfit includes a sports bra, whose fibers are made with BASF’s FreeflexTM thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and Elastoflex® polyurethane (PU), as well as tights made with Freeflex. The seamless fabric enhances all body shapes and has excellent moisture wicking properties.
“Although the athleisure wear market is huge, competition is tough. Differentiation is key to success, meaning that branding and innovation are pre-requisites,” said Manfred Pawlowski, Vice President, Consumer Industry, Performance Materials Asia Pacific, BASF. “We combined style and functionality with the excellent performance technology of Freeflex to achieve these attributes in the co-created outfit.”
Comfortable sports bra with great lift
Owing to high elasticity and excellent flowability for various geometries, BASF’s innovative materials in the sports bra provides good lift and support for low to high-intensity exercises, without compromising on comfort.
“Consumers’ buying patterns for sports bras predominantly center around comfort, ease of movement, weight, durability, and support. These were the key focus for us during the collaboration,” said Ranesh Handunnethi, CEO, Sileuta, a leading molded bra pad supplier to intimate apparel manufacturers in the region, renowned for its commitment to the continuous improvement of processes to offer superior products and services to its customers.
The foam was made possible with Sileuta’s new injection molding process, which enables bra foam manufacturing to stay cost competitive with the same or superior product performance as conventional thermal foaming process.
Tights for stylish all-day wear stay cool and dry
Enchi Shen, an award-winning designer known for her edgy streetwear designs, focused on the aesthetic aspirations of consumers in athleisure wear for the new sports outfit, and chose a neutral color palette – making it easy to match and appropriate for every occasion.
“I chose Freeflex for its soft, cozy feel, and functionality. It keeps the body cool and dry while being easy to care for. It also delivers ample stretch and recovery for an impeccable fit,” said Shen, Creative Director of fashion powerhouse Seven Crash. Seven Crash is known for its innovative use of advanced materials – most recently in its “Quantus” collection at New York Fashion Week.
The “Quantus” collection will also be on display at BASF’s booth during Chinaplas 2019. For more information regarding the collection, visit http://basf-nyfw.com
For more information on BASF at CHINAPLAS 2019, please click here or follow BASF_in_Action on WeChat.
About BASF’s Performance Materials division
BASF’s Performance Materials division encompasses the entire materials know-how of BASF regarding innovative, customized plastics under one roof. Globally active in four major industry sectors – transportation, construction, industrial applications and consumer goods – the division has a strong portfolio of products and services combined with a deep understanding of application-oriented system solutions. Key drivers of profitability and growth are our close collaboration with customers and a clear focus on solutions. Strong capabilities in R&D provide the basis to develop innovative products and applications. In 2018, the Performance Materials division achieved global sales of €7.65 bn. More information online: www.plastics.basf.com
About BASF in Greater China
BASF has been a committed partner to Greater China since 1885. With larger production sites in Shanghai, Nanjing and Chongqing, BASF is a major foreign investor in the country’s chemical industry, and operates the Innovation Campus Shanghai, a global and regional research and development hub. BASF posted sales of over €7.3 billion in 2018 to customers in Greater China, and employed 9,317 people as of the end of that year. For further information, please visit www.basf.com/cn/en
About BASF
At BASF, we create chemistry for a sustainable future. We combine economic success with environmental protection and social responsibility. The approximately 122,000 employees in the BASF Group work on contributing to the success of our customers in nearly all sectors and almost every country in the world. Our portfolio is organized into six segments: Chemicals, Materials, Industrial Solutions, Surface Technologies, Nutrition & Care and Agricultural Solutions. BASF generated sales of around €63 billion in 2018. BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the U.S. Further information at www.basf.com.
