Gore’s fabric division announced Friday that it’s extending its decade-long partnership with Taiwan’s Formosa Taffeta Company Limited (FTC), from which it sourced laminated base fabrics, to produce select consumer materials.
“We have successfully worked with FTC for more than 10 years. This extension of our partnership with FTC, a prominent textile manufacturer, will enable Gore’s consumer fabrics business to streamline its’ operations without compromising our quality and also enables Gore Fabrics to focus even more on product innovation,” said Mike McCollam, Gore Fabrics’ global divisional leader, who helped FTC open a new purpose-built manufacturing facility in the Taiwanese city of Douliu last week.
Described as a state-of-the-art facility, the new FTC plant is dedicated to the production of Gore consumer fabrics and occupies some 3,000 square meters (roughly 32,000 square feet). It contains several new production lines and will use Gore’s equipment, materials and processes.
According to Gore, this new collaboration with FTC will provide the company’s consumer fabrics division greater flexibility to bring more innovative products to market. This past summer marked the 40th anniversary of Gore’s first commercial order for ePTFE (expanded polytetrafluoroethylene) and today its Gore-Tex fabric is a household name in hiking and outdoor equipment and clothing.
“As someone who was introduced to the outdoors and hiking as a toddler, it seems fitting that [founder] Bob Gore’s material has gone on to become a leader in this sector,” said Christian Langer, a global leader of the fabrics division. “Forty years on, whether it’s for running or cycling, skiing or hill walking, Gore is still proving that it’s the market-leader in all sectors of the outdoors activities market, continuing to build upon the groundwork laid by Bob Gore and his family.”