Article taken from the July 26, 2010 edition of KansasCity.com

Camouflage is one thing you can’t hide from this back-to-school season.

The print has been growing in popularity for kids, especially as designers develop new color combinations — for boys and girls — and feature it in places such as pant cuffs and bag straps. And camo cargo pants have gone from novelty to classic status.

But doesn’t that defeat the purpose of camo, which, in theory, should be flying under the radar?

“I think kids are seeing it from street fashion, more of a cool-kids point of view,” says Betsy Schumacher, senior vice president/chief merchandising officer for American Eagle’s 77 Kids. “It’s very savvy from a fashion standpoint. Kids gravitate toward things that feel real, and it feels like something easy to wear. … This trend is one kids can have fun with.”

While sticking to the authentic pattern, the spirit conveyed by color, style and other embellishment makes it clear that children’s clothing isn’t trying to mimic modern military uniforms.

“We don’t base it on current uniforms,” says A.K. LaMonica, senior director of apparel at The Children’s Place. “For our boys’ line, our inspiration truly comes from vintage.”

Boys’ shorts and pants most often get the camo treatment, and camo-covered baseball caps are the brand’s best-sellers. LaMonica says camo is the boys’ equivalent of, say, the embroidered butterfly for girls.

“Girls always have flowers, hearts, butterflies and whatever the trendy print of the season is. Boys don’t get that. They get plaid. Camouflage can be an alternative to that,” LaMonica says.

Brit-based brand Mini Boden says it has been successful translating camo for both sexes.

Girls usually get their camo with a splash of lilac or pink, boys like theirs brown or gray in the fall and winter, but like a bright blue in the spring or summer, says design director Emma Stevens. The pattern is a favorite on board shorts, soft twill trousers and an anorak jacket.

“We don’t want to imply a uniform at all. We use it just like a pattern, and it can look quite surfy, especially in sun-washed colors,” Stevens says.

“We try to do camouflage in a softer way, with more colors and increased scale,” says Stevens, who also designs the company’s teen-oriented Johnnie B. line.

The look grows up into capris and miniskirts, among other silhouettes, for tween and teen girls, says Sonya Cosentini, style adviser for T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. It works for the younger market and for the teen set.

“Camouflage is a print that you don’t always see on the shelves, but it’s a trend that makes its way back every year in a different way. This year, that way is absolutely in the details, and we will continue to see that into the fall fashion season,” Cosentini says.

The print is a direct complement to the from-the-runway military look that’s hot this season in every market — from womenswear to infant clothes.

“Kids are really savvy from a fashion standpoint. When they see a trend on adults, they want it, too. There’s no lag time,” says Schumacher. And, she added, unlike some adult trends, this one translates to childrenswear because comfort is at its heart.

There’s also an implied durability, and the back-to-school catalogs, for example, are full of camo-clothed kids running, jumping and playing in the autumn leaves.

Schumacher says children’s clothing has to appeal to two audiences: the kids who wear it and the moms who typically shell out the cash.

“Military works as a trend because of its classic heritage and comfort,” she says. One other selling point to mom: Camo is pretty good at masking dirt and stains.

Article taken from the July 3, 2010 edition of Atlanta Business News

Four seconds.
The difference between life and death, between third-degree burns and walking away whistling, between falling and fighting. When a burst of flame engulfs a soldier, his protection better be as close as his skin or he quickly becomes more casualty than combatant.

And in a war fought against rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the right defense can quickly turn a target back into an attacker.

“Four seconds is what they need to dismount a burning vehicle, to stay alive and to fight the enemy,” said Lt. Col. Mike Sloane of PEO Soldier, the U.S. Army’s acquisition organization. “It’s got to be scary to see a soldier, his uniform on fire then extinguishing itself — and the soldier continues to fight.”

To see how that can happen, you must follow a thread that leads roughly 7,000 miles from the combat zone to a tiny town 50 miles south of Atlanta.

It is in Zebulon where they are weaving protection.

In a plant set back from U.S. 19, just across from Elmo & Buster’s West Texas Bar-B-Que, the looms are working around the clock to turn yarn into fabric that will become uniforms that can give soldiers those few precious seconds.

TenCate Protective Fabrics, based in Union City, owns the plant. Its corporate parent, based in the Netherlands, bought the plant from an investor in 2002 after its original owner — Thomaston Mills — had shuttered the facility and left it vacant.

Now, the din inside the plant makes earplugs mandatory. Three shifts of workers, soon to be four, methodically move among more than a hundred frenetically quivering, intensely chattering looms as they interlace tons of yarn into a fabric called Defender M.

Fabric slow to burn

The material will be made into camouflage-patterned uniforms offering an additional edge — that four-second edge.

If typical clothing catches fire in an attack, it keeps burning after the explosion subsides, said Michael T. Stanhope, vice president of innovation for TenCate Protective Fabrics.

“And what normally injures and may kill people is not just the thermal exposure, but when the garment ignites.”

Where roadside bombs are a constant danger, so is the risk of a deadly burn. Stop the flames and you limit that risk. The Defender M fabric is chemically engineered to reduce or even block that threat.

Exposed to extreme heat, Defender M will react much more slowly than typical fabrics.

“The polymers we deal with are very stable and they don’t want to react to anything — period,” Stanhope said. “When you remove those extreme conditions, they stop reacting. They self-extinguish.”

Once loomed, the fabric must be cut and sewn. Finished uniforms are sold to the Army by three prime contractors: American Apparel, DJ Manufacturing Corp. and Propper International Sales.

But Zebulon is a crucial link in the chain from lab to the line of fire, as are a handful of other companies. The yarn on its looms was spun in Senoia, 20-something miles up Hollonville Road and U.S. 16. And when Zebulon’s work is done, the material will be trucked about 15 miles to Molena to be dyed, then printed by companies elsewhere.

Along the way, some material is taken to the company’s U.S. headquarters in Union City to be flame- and heat-tested.

Industry survivor

As a relatively new presence in Georgia, TenCate (pronounced ten-CAH-tuh) seems to be threading against the warp of history. A generation ago, the textile sector was among the largest employers in the state — but that dominance unraveled.

Globalization, outsourcing and technology shifted jobs elsewhere or eliminated the need for workers. A decade ago, the state had about 110,000 textile and apparel jobs. Since 2000, Georgia has lost more than half of them, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those that remain, like TenCate, have a niche or specialization.

About 115 employees work in the Zebulon plant, producing more than 9 million yards of material a year. Defender M, which has been made for the military since 2007, is only one of its products. TenCate also makes fire-resistant coats for firefighters and various industrial uses.

The non-military business had slumped a year ago, but it has picked up lately, said Joseph M. Glovier, vice president of operations.

After the Independence Day holiday, the company will add 25 workers so production can run around the clock all week long, he said. “The industry has basically left the United States — not just the Southeast. The technology we have has helped us keep the business here.”

Turnover is minimal, the company said — employees tend to stay. The plant represents a steady, decent paycheck in a region where unemployment has hovered above 11 percent for more than a year.

The military fabric adds something else.

“We know there are people who die every day in Afghanistan and Iraq — we know the numbers,” said Shannon Michael, 36, a process engineer at the plant. “For us to make a product to wear in combat — if that gets in the way of an explosive and saves somebody’s life, it makes us feel pretty good.”

‘Burn rate’ down

And the military says the material has made that difference.

The rate of burn injuries soared after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. But for the past two years, U.S. troops deployed to one of the war zones have been issued four sets each of flame-resistant fatigues.

What the material covers, the material protects, said Sloane, who is product manager for soldier clothing and individual equipment at PEO Soldier. “The burn rate has gone down significantly. We find that the soldiers who were wearing [flame-resistant] uniforms have sustained nearly no burns.”

The current uniforms cost $129.31 a set, and the Army needs about 30,000 uniforms a month, Sloane said.

A new version — featuring a new camouflage pattern, baked-in insecticides and a price tag of about $140 — is coming next month.

It was only a few years ago that uniforms were just clothes, which could — in the wrong circumstances — burn the soldier inside. Now, the uniform adds a layer of defense, Sloane said.

“It’s a pretty incredible capability that the fabric has.”