By Louis Iannaco
Can technology be utilized in order to achieve art, or an art form, as it relates to carpet fiber? With all that fiber producers can do nowadays with the technology at their fingertips, why not?

According to Bart Rich, director of brand management for Mohawk Industries, the mill’s newest fiber innovations include both nylon and polyester advancements that focus on enhancing durability and softness. “In nylon, Mohawk introduced Wear-Dated SoftTouch featuring our new soft fusion technology. This proprietary process combines the benefits of superior durability along with ultra-soft comfort. We market it as the softest soft nylon in carpet. This fiber gives consumers an irresistibly comfortable carpet that is tough-tested and long lasting.

Steve Sieracki, vice president of product development for Shaw Industries, also touted the soft story. “The advancement in fiber recently has been in its overall softness. BCF nylon and polyester have continued to increase in softness. This is matching the trend to consumer preference as well. The female consumer wants soft in her home today.”

The newest fiber from Shaw is the innovation in its soft Anso nylon BCF fiber, he explained. “The featured item here is the Anso colorwall. It is industry leading in soft nylon and it also contains 25% recycled content.”

Ralph Boe, CEO of Beaulieu of America, believes the biggest thing in fiber over the last few years has been the introduction of products constructed of polyester BCF. “For years nylon was the primary fiber, whether it was nylon BCF or nylon spun yarns. Polyester BCF hadn’t been given much consideration because most of our supply came from outside fiber companies that weren’t really interested in making it. But now, as the industry has backward integrated to the extent that we and our two biggest competitors make our own fiber, we’ve gotten more involved in polyester BCF, and that’s been the growth fiber.”

The mill’s SoftSense is constructed in either filament nylon or solution-dyed polyester. It has eight nylon styles that come in textures, friezes and level cut loops from 35 to 50 ounces. Two solution-dyed polyester styles are all friezes and range from 45 to 70 ounces.

Steve Griffith, Invista’s vice president, residential, said he sees most of the growth happening in BCF because “it is more flexible, you can make more, different constructions from it, and it is a lower cost way to extrude fiber. The interesting thing is, at least through the end of 2009, nylon BCF had not lost share to polyester. What has lost share is polypropylene and nylon staple. Polyester BCF has grown predominantly at the expense of polypropylene and nylon staple.”

Griffith also commented on the fiber producer’s three new platforms for 2010—920, launched under its Luxerell nylon fiber label; 925, launched under the same label, and 1127, launched under Extra Body II. “The first two, 920 and 925, are expansions of our soft fiber platform. They are extremely soft BCF and have much better hand than the original Tactesse fiber that came out about 10 years ago, while having retained the original performance characteristics of Tactesse.

“As we continue to make our products softer,” he explained, “they perform at the same standard because of the LotusFX Fiber Shield technology we use on the fiber. We believe it’s equal to the same softness of anybody else’s, but it performs. We’ve had an excellent launch. From the day it hit the street we’ve been running at capacity. We’ve actually added capacity. It’s been every bit as strong as any fiber we’ve ever launched. That’s one of the reasons why we are gaining share right now.”

The green story

Invista’s other new product, 1127, has quite the green story. Designed to go into cut pile constructions, it offers a bio-based renewable raw material—a nylon extract from the castor bean. “We are going to put a small percentage of it in this product,” Griffith said. “It’s being driven pretty hard by Tuftex right now. It’s going to be called ExtraBody II EcoSoft. The bio content comes later this year.”

Rich also touted Mohawk’s green story, noting the rise of carpet’s newest fiber, triexta, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary. “Our SmartStrand triexta line has set a new, higher benchmark in performance by combining durability, built-in lifetime stain protection and softness, all with a renewable resource, corn sugar, in the fiber. We’ve had strong dealer support in helping us carry the triexta message to consumers thanks to the high retail visibility of SmartStrand.”

Another major innovation, Rich said, is EverStrand PET BCF carpets. “All Mohawk EverStrand and Mohawk EverStrand BCF carpets include post-consumer recycled content from plastic bottles. Additionally, Mohawk provides On Demand Certification Letters to document how much recycled content is used in every EverStrand carpet style.”

Tim Blount, nylon business leader at commercial producer Zeftron, said within the commercial fiber industry nylon 6 continues to gain market share over nylon 6,6. “Nylon 6 offers equal performance and a better environmental alternative because of its true, closed-looped recyclability. Although some manufacturers have had some success in recycling nylon 6,6, they still cannot offer the 100% closed-loop recyclability that nylon 6 offers.

“We continue to provide the marketplace with Zeftron nylon’s premium branded nylon 6ix fiber systems,” he added. “We guarantee 25% recycled content in every color and continually refresh our color line. Zeftron has existed as a premium branded fiber system for 40 years and we continue to offer yarns known for their high style, performance and, most importantly, their recyclability. We continue to promote our 6ix Again commercial carpet program and are always looking for ways to add value to our brand, like our MBDC Cradle to Cradle Silver certification, our performance certification program and maintaining a fresh and current color offering.”

Economy a big factor

As Boe noted, over the last three years, with the market having turned down, “the industry probably lost half a billion yards of business. If every yard is two pounds of fiber, you’ve lost almost a billion pounds of fiber consumption. At the same time, much of that reduction was in spun nylon, and the prices of the nylon staple that go into spun nylon had increased pretty dramatically to the point where today, it’s more expensive to buy a pound of nylon staple than it is to buy a pound of nylon BCF. The cost of converting staple into yarns is more expensive than the cost of converting BCF into yarn.

“All of a sudden, you’ve got a situation where people find nylon spun is unattractive from an economic standpoint,” Boe noted. “As business starts to come back, it’s coming back on the growth of polyester and the growth of nylon BCF.”

As far as fiber’s green story goes, he noted that there are more opportunities to make polyester products green. “It’s being done with nylon, but not to the degree it can be done on polyester.”

Stainmaster, Lowe’s: What it means

In commenting on Stainmaster’s exclusive deal with Lowe’s, and what it means for the industry, Boe said he believes Invista probably felt it wasn’t getting the kind of share of the business it would have liked to have gotten from Lowe’s and Home Depot combined, “so it felt that by getting one dedicated to supporting the Stainmaster brand it’ll be committed to the necessary advertising to promote the sale of Stainmaster at Lowe’s and, as a result, Invista will get more business at Lowe’s than both companies together.

“Secondly,” he added, “if Lowe’s is out there doing the advertising, Invista will get a residual effect from the independent dealers who will see that advertising, knowing the consumer is going to have that much more opportunity to identify Stainmaster carpet, and they’ll be coming into the independent dealers looking for it as well. I believe Invista feels it will get an even wider assortment of Stainmaster ads with the independent dealers and be able to improve its overall position in the market.”

Griffith noted one of the benefits of the agreement will be a huge amount of advertising around floor covering, and the Stainmaster brand that is going to create a positive umbrella for the industry [as this] high quality carpet drives people into retail locations. We believe not only will this benefit Lowe’s and Stainmaster, it will be a benefit for the entire industry.”