The thread that changed our lives ...
By Glenda Cooper

DESIGNERS such as Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies had gathered in the Royal Albert Hall, to show off their latest couture creations in a miraculous new material. Vogue's exquisite fashion editor Lady Ashton, splendid in a turban and fur coat, proclaimed this `most dramatic' material would bring `untold blessings to us all'.

The time was the 1950s. The material was the latest development in nylon - polyester. Now nylon is the butt of jokes. But when it was introduced, it caused riots. An overnight sensation, it had taken 11 long years, $27 million in research and more than 230 scientists to create. The quest for an artificial alternative to silk had been pursued for centuries The turning point was the mid-l9th century, when scientists began looking at cellulose, a natural polymer (where hundreds of molecules are strung together like a necklace). This discovery led to viscose rayon.

An English company, Courtaulds, bought the rights to rayon at the turn of the century and quickly made a profit promoting it as `artificial silk'. Their success was noted by the American explosives and chemical company Du Pont. America was heavily dependent on the Japanese silk industry. 1.55 million silk stockings were bought each day in 1938 The U.S. needed fibre which could be manufactured at home. In charge of Du Pont's research was Charles Stine who had spent 20 years developing explosives and synthetic dyes. He persuaded the board to set aside $250,000 in 1928 for speculative research, then brought in a brilliant but depressive scientist from Harvard, Dr Wallace Hume Carothers, a specialist in polymer chemistry.

Dr Carothers tried heating molecules of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen to 400-600F to see whether the molecules would hook up in long chains. He succeeded, and when the first nylon fibre was pulled from a beaker, the scientists were so excited that they ran around the lab, covering it with a giant web of the new material, to see how far nylon could stretch.

BEFORE it could be launched it needed a name. Women could not be expected to step up to a hosiery counter to order a pair of `hexadecamethylene dicarboxylics'. Up to 400 suggestions were put forward, including Amidarn, Morsheen, Ramex and the director Ernest Gladding's favourite Duparooh (which stood for Du Pont Pulls A Rabbit Out Of Hat). Initially it was `Norun' - except that nylon did run. They tried 'Nuron' - but it sounded too much like `moron'. `Nylon' was agreed only two weeks before its launch at New York's World Fair.

On N Day - May 15 1940 - hordes of shoppers emptied the stores of 750,000 pairs of stockings within hours. Roadside kiosks and nylon bars sprang up along the highways, and cigarette girls sold stockings in bars and clubs.

When America entered World War II, the War Production Board took over all nylon yarns for military purposes - parachutes, ropes, tyre cord, tents, uniforms, etc. The only stockings to be found were from pre-war stock.

When they reappeared in 1946 in New York, 30,000 women joined the rush and in Pittsburgh newspapers screamed `Nylon mob, 40,000 strong shrieks and sways for mile'. In Britain, even after the war, they were available at first only to foreign visitors and passports had to be shown before a pair could be bought.

The stockings were so expensive that Sketchleys, the dry cleaners, employed girls specifically for knitting up the ladders in nylons. But as life returned to normal, nylon was everywhere. Du Pont and British Nylon Spinners used it for every conceivable form of clothing. Much to the chagrin of the cotton and wool industry, nylon's success spawned other synthetics such as acrylic.

Housewives rushed to buy `wash-and-wear' suits and no travelling salesman was without his drip-dry shirt. Nylon was turned into Christmas trees, fluorescent socks, net crinoline petticoats, and artificial mink, coats - even the U.S. flag planted by Neil Armstrong on the moon. It invaded high couture. In 1968 a Dior nylon wedding gown, valued at $4,437, was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

British Nylon Spinners dreamed up the name Bri-Nylon and gave fashion shows at the Royal Albert Hall with designers like Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell commissioned to make nylon gowns. British teenagers embraced Mary Quant's mini- skirts (worn with the new nylon tights). ICI's Crimplene was hailed as the fibre success story of the Sixties.

Yet its very success led to nylon's downfall. A new book, Nylon: The Manmade Fashion Revolution, points to the exact moment of collapse: when John Travolta stepped on to the dance floor in Saturday Night Fever in 1978 clad in a white polyester suit and a black nylon shirt.

LINKED to kitsch Abba performances, Elvis's excess in Las Vegas and, worst of all, the shellsuit, nylon seemed doomed. So unpopular was it that its name was replaced on labels with chemical alias polyamide in the hope of fooling customers.

Ironically nylon was saved by the people whose silk industry it was meant to destroy. In the 1980s and 1990s Japanese designers such as Issey Miyake turned to synthetic fibres for their bizarre designs.

As a result, ultra-fine nylons like Tactel were developed and proved amazingly successful. The Japanese industry then produced microfibres - more refined nylon and polyester. Exceltech was first used on an Everest expedition then made into ski-wear for many of the 1988 Winter Olympic medallists.

More recent developments include nylon swimsuits which can block ultraviolet rays while allowing the skin to tan, the anti-odour nylon Dericana and Esprit de Fleurs perfumed garments.

Devotees of Bri-Nylon and Crimplene can allow themselves a small smile at the vagaries of fashion. A limited edition Prada bag costing £400 caused riots in Milan Fashion Week. It is made of waterproof nylon.

BOOK REFERENCE: NYLON: The Manmade Fashion Revolution by Susannah Handley is published by Bloomsbury in October 1999 at £20.