"MOB WOOL" development story
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MOB Wool has established itself as Teton Bros.'s staple base layer.
This column is written by Yoshinari Sobue of Sobue Sangyo Co., Ltd., who was involved in the development.
It was four years ago that Teton Bros. approached us with a request to develop a new type of underwear.
At the time, the common practice was to layer clothing by wearing moisture-wicking materials on the skin side to reduce chills caused by sweat, and then layering on top with highly absorbent materials to allow sweat to escape.
The request was, "We want to somehow combine all of this into one piece." And what's more, we wanted it to store plenty of dead air to ensure heat retention, and also have excellent ventilation capabilities, which was an extremely difficult task.
As someone born and raised in Bishu, I naturally chose wool, the world's oldest high-performance fiber, and combined it with polypropylene, which does not absorb moisture at all. I then chose merino wool, the most technologically advanced wool, which is said to "function like a second skin," and as a first step, I began thinking about shrink-proofing processing technology.
There are many companies involved in wool processing in the Bishu region, and we consulted with a dyeing factory that has environmentally friendly shrink-proof processing technology.
When shrink-proofing is done using conventional chemicals, the chemicals released during the process have a negative impact on the global environment. With this in mind, we approached a dyeing factory that has processing techniques that do not place a burden on the environment. They developed a unique technology that uses protein (hybrid collagen) to modify the surface layer of wool, and already obtained a patent in 1998. We decided that this was the only method we could use, so we began prototyping.
With two types of materials available - polypropylene and protein-preserved merino wool - the next step was to decide how to combine them. After asking the opinions of several artisans in Bishu, they decided that jersey (circular knitting) would be the best way to overcome this challenge, so they decided to try knitting it.
Taking into consideration breathability, reducing stickiness on the skin, and the inclusion of dead air, we decided to go with a three-dimensional mesh knit and created several dozen test knits.
Two challenges arose during this knitting stage. The first was lightness. Polypropylene has such a light specific gravity that it floats on water, and when set on a knitting machine with a blower, the yarn got tangled in the wind and could not be knitted. The second challenge was that polypropylene is sensitive to heat and will melt if it exceeds 100 degrees.
However, this would not allow for the final finishing of the fabric, so we looked for an alternative finishing method.
To overcome these two challenges would not have been possible without the technical know-how of Bishu and, above all, the passion of local craftsmen.From the dozens of types of mesh fabric that were created, we chose merino wool, which has a three-dimensional surface that is in contact with the skin as much as possible and contains the most dead air.
We are extremely grateful to the artisans of the Bishu region.
We are also extremely grateful for the name "MOB," which stands for "Master of Oshu."
Yoshinari Sobue (CEO of Sobue Sangyo Co., Ltd.)