How GORE-TEX revolutionized the techwear world

Last week, Robert W. Gore, the inventor of GORE-TEX fabric and CEO of W.L. Gore & Associates, died at the age of 83. His career spans 57 years during which his family business became a billionaire business and his invention, the GORE-TEX, the father of all technical fabrics. And it's strange to think that this invention was entirely random: on one night in 1969, Robert Gore was conducting experiments on expanded polythefluoroethylene tubes, or PTFE – produced by his father's company as communications cables and computers. After unsuccessfully attempting to extend the cables gently, Gore violently pulled the material, which suddenly expanded by 800% - the polymer could become a microporous structure consisting essentially of air. The following year the expanded PTFE was patented and, after a few years of experimentation, Gore introduced the GORE-TEX, the first breathable, waterproof and windproof fabric, to the market.

By the late 1970s, the thermo-sealing technology that hermetically sealed the pieces of fabric had been introduced, and Gore was able to apply its GORE-TEX laminate to pre-existing fabrics to create high-performance fabrics. In 1978, climber Jim Whittaker wore a GORE-TEX jacket for the first K-2 climb led by an American team. In the early 1980s, NASA astronauts of the Columbia and Challenger shuttles wore GORE-TEX fiber suits. The more research on the material progressed, the more applications you could find. Gore's obsession with material performance not only created a new standard in creating and testing technical fabrics, but also led to the famous slogan "Guaranteed to keep you dry" and the company's policy of extending a lifetime warranty not only for its products but also for all products from other companies that use the material and carry the slogan.

The GORE-TEX has been revolutionary for its versatility. It was in fact the first purely technical material to transcend the boundaries of its industry: before its invention, it was unheard of that the fabric of the spacesuits was the same as that of a puffer jacket or the sole of a pair of wallabees. If brands such as Patagonia, The North Face, Nike ACG and Arc'teryx have been using GORE-TEX for years, the first fashion brands to think of a crossover between GORE-TEX and fashion design were Japanese: visvim, Nanamica, White Mountaineering, Mastermind Japan and ACRONYM. When the techwear aesthetic began to expand riding the streetwear trend, Palace, Stussy and Supreme also began to integrate the material into their products. But also luxury fashion brands, all Prada, which has used and still uses the material for its technical garments, and Off-White™, especially in its FW18 collection. His ability to unify the market, to pose as a cross-cutting brand and very attentive to his own identity, made him the unwitting precursor to the very idea of luxury streetwear that would bring in the future sneakers and technical garments on the catwalks of fashion shows, challenging the old definition of luxury and proposing a completely new vision.