Materials Matter16.10.26
From Space to Sportswear
True performance is also about style
We see them everywhere, even now that we had hoped falling temperatures might finally deter them. They wake up at 6 am, weekdays included, to flex (in Gen Z speak: proudly show off) their athletic prowess in parks of every description—as long as those parks are clearly visible. There they are, those seven fearsome letters, running past to remind us—one cushioned stride at a time—that sport, a personal life and a career can coexist in perfect harmony: R-U-N-N-E-R-S. I could write a thesis on just how candidly we are prepared to admit our envy of their unwavering motivation, but today’s question is another one: why is their pursuit of performance so often not reflected in the aesthetics of what they wear? This time, the answer is not hidden beneath a discordant layering of garments that would sabotage any performance from the off. It lies light-years away.
A REVOLUTION THAT WAS QUITE LITERALLY OUT OF THIS WORLD
In this episode, our journey to the truth is a long one—and takes us backwards. Almost 40 years, in fact. 1987, NASA. A problem that has nothing to do with aluminium-and-titanium-alloy capsules or potential damage to circuitry: an astronaut’s hand, enclosed in a glove, has to survive just centimetres away from a vacuum that swings from scorching heat to freezing cold without the courtesy of anything in between. The problem, as you can imagine, is anything but trivial, and has nothing to do with cut or silhouette. Solving it calls for pure chemistry and engineering ingenuity—with no gravity and no time to worry about fit. And so, somewhere between a brutal temperature swing and a federal budget, came the realisation that only an evolution in materials could save the mission—or at least keep those being sent into space intact. The revolution arrived, and it had a name: phase change materials. In simpler terms, materials capable of absorbing and releasing heat precisely as temperature and pressure change, giving astronauts back the stability that the physics of space conspires to deny them. Not a coating or a surface treatment, but a property that resides within the material itself—in the very essence of the fabric rather than on the skin of the person wearing it.
Even more surprising is the trajectory those materials took after that glove—one that no satellite could ever have tracked: they returned to Earth and, largely unnoticed, landed in our modern sportswear departments.
BETWEEN THE MOON AND THE CLOTHING RACK
Whether in ski suits, outdoor jackets, close-fitting base layers, cooling-effect T-shirts (which, sadly, often have a greater cooling effect on our wallets) or technical underwear, PCM (Phase Change Materials) technology, which sent us so far into the unknown almost half a century ago, still underpins much of today’s sportswear promising thermoregulation. The problem is that, on its return orbit, an innovation created to meet a technical need gained little or nothing in terms of aesthetic appeal. Could this have been where the binary choice between “performance or beauty” first emerged—in another space of infinite dimensions? Behind the appealing English label of performance fabrics, many technical fabrics designed to keep body temperature at an optimal level of comfort still bear the original sin of the glove that came before them: a design that never quite manages to land on a solution that is equally satisfying to the eye.
If NASA in 1987 could hardly afford the luxury of vanity because it had other things to worry about (like saving the astronauts’ skin), today the textile industry faces another daunting mission: bridging the gap left between the Moon and the clothing rack, for the benefit of runners and earthlings everywhere.
ONE GIANT STEP STILL TO TAKE
Proving that performance and aesthetics can finally go hand in hand is therefore the next step if the NASA story is to become more than an anecdote to trot out in LinkedIn panel discussions and instead provide a tangible textile response that gives sportswear the performance it deserves also in terms of style. Taking up the challenge—quite literally throwing its glove into the ring—Jersey Lomellina has developed B-Mélange: an advanced solution that does not apply thermoregulation as an external finish (another major black hole in the story), but integrates it directly into the fabric structure. A three-dimensional surface, soft handfeel and double visual appeal—with a solid-colour cotton inner layer and a polyamide outer layer featuring a mélange effect—meet the codes of contemporary fashion. And on the performance side, two-way stretch, exceptional comfort, breathability, excellent coverage and a perfect fit tick all the right boxes for technicians. Could the next step towards the future actually come from returning to the Earth’s core, where temperatures approach those of the Sun’s surface but our needs—without apology—remain proudly superficial?
The new goal is clear: to stop chasing yet another invisible performance benefit and pursue an innovation that remembers that beauty, too, has to perform.
And the answer to today’s question? Perhaps aesthetic responsibility, before lying with the person wearing the garment, lies with the person who conceives it—too often forgetting to come back down to our planet and respond to human needs.