Sniafiocco & Vistra

Little swatches of cloth, in gay colors and designs, reached the U. S. last week from Italy, accompanied by such explanations as: " 'Wooden overcoats' for live Fascists the rage this season.'' Some of the samples resembled wool or flannel, others mercerized cotton. All were specimens of Sniafiocco, a textile made from wood pulp and lately developed by engineers of Italy's big Snia Viscosa, makers of artificial silk.

As in making rayon by the viscose process, cellulose is first reduced to a viscous mass. For Sniafiocco the stuff is passed through a fine-mesh screen; the threads are coagulated, cut, finished. They are then ready for the spinner. Snia Viscosa loudly protests against labeling Sniafiocco a synthetic or substitute cotton. It is superior to cotton, say the Italians, in that the staple length of its fibre is precisely even and can be given any length wanted by the spinner, and that it is free of dirt and leaves which contaminate raw cotton. Thus although Sniafiocco fibre costs more than cotton (7 lire against 5.50 per kilo) Sniafiocco textiles cost less than cotton cloth (3 to 8 lire against 10 to 15 lire per metre). Sniafiocco fabrics of varying texture and appearance can be made by admixing small amounts of wool or hemp.

Not until last month did Sniafiocco reach Rome's shopwindows, but for months before that the Snia Viscosa plant was turning it out at an estimated rate of 90,000 lb. per month. Most of this was exported to Germany. Snia Viscosa now looks for a drop in German purchases because Germany has developed an artificial cotton of her own called Vistra. At Vistra, which looks very much like raw cotton, textile men in the U. S. few weeks ago had their first look.

Developed by Germany's great I. G. Farbenindustrie, Vistra is made from wood pulp, has three-fourths the tensile strength of cotton. Vistra fabrics are made with 30% admixture of natural cotton. It is said that they do not wash well. Nevertheless two Vistra plants are running day & night and two larger ones are reported near completion.

With no silk, no cotton and only 3,500,000 sheep, German efforts to find synthetic textiles are at fever pitch. Rayon production is rigidly protected by import quotas and encouraged by a complex system of rebates to manufacturers. Substitute fabrics, mostly rayons, have been developed to replace woolen and worsted dresses, knitted dresses and full-fashioned silk hosiery. Next problem is men's suits and overcoats. At a recent chemical congress in Cologne the prophecy was made that suits of zelluloid, zellon and galolith (artificial wools) would soon appear, and hats of flirro (fibre made from Cellophane).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.