A completely new breed of fleece

A central part of what makes Mono Air Houdi special is the fabric. The garment is made in the new Polartec® Power Air™ Lightweight. It is a revolutionary knit construction that encapsulates air to retain warmth and reduce microfiber shedding.

When Houdini and Polartec® set out together on the project that resulted in Mono Air Houdi, we had three main ambitions: To reduce microfiber shedding, improve performance and eliminate waste by designing a circular garment. The engineers at Polartec® have accomplished all of them in a beautiful high-performance fabric.

Item: Main fabric — Power Air™ Light Supplier: Polartec Art nr: 1709

Synthetic fleece fabrics have been associated with microfiber shedding that contributes to microplastic pollution of oceans, lakes and other waters. The solution to this problem was to encapsulate lofty filament fibers that trap body heat in small pockets of air in between an outer and an inner face fabric. The surrounding knit serves as a barrier to prevent fibers from escaping as well as contributing to insulation and weather resistance. Extensive testing has shown that this fabric construction sheds up to 5x less than other premium mid-layer fabrics. The construction of the fabric is a perfect example when innovation solves environmental problems and enhances performance at the same time.

Polartec® Power Air™ Lightweight is made in 73% recycled polyester from used PET bottles and 27% virgin stretch polyester. The mono material (polyester only) enables recycling at the end of the garment's lifespan. Circular design is central in our strategy towards a sustainable outdoor industry and a world without waste. A linear system where nature’s resources are extracted, used and then discarded are not working in the long run and the process causes environmental problems along the way. We envision a world where we take care of the resources we already have and never ever create products that become waste. Besides reducing waste that would go to landfills, incineration or in the worst case end up in nature, using recycled fibers reduces CO2 emissions.

Illustration from Polartec® showing how the encapsulated fibers in the Power Air™ Light fabric trap body heat.

Besides the environmental benefits, Polartec® Power Air™ Lightweight excels as a performance fabric. The encapsulated air pockets trap the heat from your body and provide great insulation. The smooth, stretchy fabric is easy to layer, making it relevant all year around for everything from climbing expeditions in the spring to skiing in the winter. The knitted face fabric is enforced with a polymer treatment that makes it highly durable and resistant to snagging and abrasion. It’s a fabric made for serious adventures and will last for many years of hard use.

Transforming the outdoor and textile industry is a complex task and depends on many factors working together: Better product design, responsible consumption, new ways of doing business and policy decisions that support a new system. And textile innovation has a big part to play. Polartec® Power Air™ Lightweight is the start of a new generation of sustainable performance fleece fabrics. 

Mono Air Houdi is the first garment from Houdini featuring the new Polartec® Power Air™ Lightweight, but it won’t be the last. We also see a huge potential for other players in other fields to use this new breed of fabrics to transform their design and products and this is the reason why we decided to share the design work and ingredients of the garment with the public. Polartec® Power Air™ Lightweight is a game changer within sustainable performance fabrics. Hopefully the Mono Air Houdi will merely be the first example in a new wave of anti-shedding, circular textile products.

Do you have more questions or want to explore making your own products in Power Air Light? 

Get in touch with Polartec here.