The pattern was provided but we had to go and pick our own material at the fabric store along with thread to match.

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These range from breathtaking and extensive walls of cascading silk, silhouetted and stiff beamlike pieces, bolts of fabric and lumps of crumpled material, all artfully maneuvered by puppeteers.

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The most important material in the process is Kevlar, a fabric designed to stop bullet fragmentation and shrapnel.

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The fabric is actually 100% polyamide, a material that has been around for more than half a century.

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They built a thin layer, or "nanostructure, " using minute particles of titanium dioxide, a substance that reacts with sunlight to break down dirt and other organic material and can be coated on cotton to keep the fabric clean.

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One of Mr. Talbot's favorites is a fine, stiff netlike fabric used by the automobile industry as a support material between upholstery and metal or impact-resistant plastics.

WSJ: Polyester Is Back in Style at Alexander Wang, Talbot Runhof, Akris

Black holes are known to draw in material - gas and even stars - and to stretch the very fabric of space-time at their edges.

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If there is a gathering of fabric on the back or if there is excess shirt material hanging loosely off the front, you have to get the next size down.

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It's essential, in order for consumers to embrace a fabric, that it look like wool, silk or another natural material, Mr. Kriemler says.

WSJ: Polyester Is Back in Style at Alexander Wang, Talbot Runhof, Akris