Driving Innovation through automation in tights production

Our story

Conventionally, tights are made as individual undyed legs. These legs are sewn together and large batches are then dyed, washed and dried. This method requires high levels of labour, work in progress, uses significant amounts of power and water and creates residual chemical dyestuff waste.

We believed that technology could be adapted to create more automation in tights production which would not only deliver a high quality product but also a cleaner and more flexible process.

We recruited talent with extensive technical and market expertise, identified a supply base who would collaborate with us and invested in this vision. We targeted the production of black seamless opaque tights.

Our automation journey has been demanding but we have now been rewarded with a clean, efficient process with minimal human intervention and one which uses around 75% less power and water than traditional methods and creates no residual waste.

Our Products

Our product development was driven by extensive consumer research and we now have a range of black opaque tights in 40, 60 and 100 denier in petite, standard and tall fittings.

They are seamless for a smooth, comfortable contour during wear and there are no sew in labels. Product information, washing instructions and bespoke branding are knitted into the waistband.

Our tights don’t streak or fade and don’t lose colour during washing.This is because colour is part of the DNA of the yarn and not added after the knitting process which has been the industry standard. We use a super microfibre yarn with LYCRA® which gives density of colour, great fit and super softness during wear.

"They felt super snug yet had plenty of stretch for easy movement. I expected some sagging around the ankles (since this happens even in a small size) but in fact there was a good balance in body length to overall width and sizing. I’m looking forward to wearing them more!"

"Fabulous tights and look great! Wonderful to have tights that stay up and the crotch doesn’t end up heading towards my knees during the day"

"All in all I loved these. Fit and shape excellent."

"I absolutely loved the lack of waistband, that felt really comfortable and is the bit I like least about normal tights. I am a regular size, but I usually end up snipping the waistband because I find it so uncomfortable."

www.lycra.com

Our technology

Legs are produced as one single unit in yarn spun with black pigment. Through automated transfer they are moved to a sewing unit to attach the tummy band. Once complete, the tights are transferred again by robot to a state of the art machine for washing and drying. The finished product is then collected for packing. Take at a look at our technology in the video below.

Adria 2 have developed a state-of-the-art washing process which reduces massively the water and energy usage in production.

By using spun dyed yarn, the water usage in our knitting and finishing process is dramatically less, Our closed tank system uses approximately 83 millilitres litres of water per pair against 200 millilitres in conventional production. In addition to this, the energy use is 5kWatts less per 10 pairs than in the conventional dyeing route.

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SUPPORTED BY A RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT FROM INVEST NORTHERN IRELAND

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Driving Innovation through automation in tights production

Our story

Our Products

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