WSA Intimate details

Vital eco-wear is a new name for the market, but its founder and chief executive, Talya Hanan, is an old hand at this. She's been in the textile market for a long time, principally at Israeli base-layer garment manufacturer Tefron.

It was she, she explains, who was responsible for introducing the seamless panty to Tefron in 1997 and the seamless bra in 1999. In 2002, she introduced Tefron to the sports market and, by 2004, she had moved up the corporate ladder to become vice-president of innovation there, having worked on collections with Nike, Adidas, Patagonia and many others.

An outsource manufacturing partner for the number of big-name brands, Tefron was also instrumental in bringing the Nike Pro range of base-layer garments to market. "Their design, our fabric," is how Ms Hanan puts it. "Nike want a very light fabric with the properties of the best wicking products on the market, something similar to those products but with the added value of seamless. Seamless-plus-light was a difficult combination."

Her intimate knowledge of yarns, materials and production, and of the sports market convinced Talya Hanan that she could make a success of her own brand, for which she had specific ideas.

She explains: "I wanted to do something for ordinary people, rather than for serious athletes. I had 40+, in age, in mind, for men and for women, but especially for women, women who are from different countries and have different mentalities, but who are doing this (exercise) for their health. So i want them to have some support-depending on the product: some you can wear without a bra, if you like-but also want to feel good. I have decided to put all my knowledge and all my textile background into this."

She's trying to make the Vital eco-wear collection as 'eco' as possible (the clue is in the name), using organic cotton she has sourced in India, recycled polyester and bamboo fibre in her yoga lines. She also has prototype thermal base-layer products that contain merino wool (and polypropylene), and says: "Wool is very important if I want to see my products succeed in Europe. People there are used to wool."

There are various combinations of these, shorts with organic cotton on the outside and polyester on the inside, for example. But in many cases, the garments have an element of elastane to help them keep the shape their creator had in mind.

WSA March/April 2009