Alcantara (material)

Alcantara (material)

Alcantara is a tradename given to a composite material used to cover surfaces and forms in a variety of applications. It can be described as an artificial substitute for suede leather. The material was developed in the early 1970s by Miyoshi Okamoto, a scientist working for the Japanese chemical company Toray Industries, as a variation of their other product Ultrasuede produced around the same time. Around 1972, a joint venture between Italian chemical company ENI and Toray formed Alcantara SpA in order to manufacture and distribute the material.

Alcantara is created via the combination of an advanced spinning process (producing very low denier bi-component "islands in the sea" fibre) and chemical and textile production processes (needle punching, buffing, impregnation, extraction, finishing, dyeing, etc.) which interact with each other.