Taking SKYNFEEL™ condom material out of the bedroom and onto the athletics track
With great sports events lining up one after another this year, there’s been an increasing interest in performance apparel. Today, SKYN® Condoms brings something totally new to the world of performance athletics. SKYN® Condoms has created SKYNFEEL™ APPAREL, a one-of-a-kind conceptual long jump suit for elite athletes made of SKYNFEEL™, the same revolutionary condom material that lets you feel everything. With cutting edge design, drawing inspiration from biomimicry, SKYNFEEL™ APPAREL sets out to minimise body limitation and give extra airtime to the long jump athlete.
“In the world of competitive sports, athletes look for every advantage,” says David Chaker, Senior Global Brand Director, SKYN® Condoms at Ansell. “We custom-made an experimental suit for long jumpers to explore the possibility that our material could actually improve an elite athlete’s performance. SKYNFEEL™ APPAREL is amazingly light – like wearing nothing at all – and follows the body perfectly. It would be amazing to have an athlete wear it in a competition.”
“The SKYN® Condoms brand has innovation woven into its DNA,” Chaker continues. “We knew our SKYNFEEL™ condom material was revolutionary in our own industry, but we were curious about what else it could do. So we turned to the world of performance athletics and decided to conduct an experiment in apparel. We wanted to allow ourselves to think differently, outside of our own condom box.”
To create the one-of-a-kind concept garment, SKYN® Condoms partnered with fashion designer Pauline Van Dongen, whose wearable technology creations have won wide acclaim.
“What struck me about the SKYNFEEL™ material is that it’s super-elastic, super-lightweight and super-strong all at once,” says Van Dongen, “No matter how you mould it or shape it, it’s going to feel great on your body. We asked ourselves, can we create an ultra-lightweight garment and mould it in a way that could help long jumpers perform better?”
The resulting SKYNFEEL™ APPAREL garment features dragonfly wing- inspired flaps located on the edge of the body, constructed from a thin layer of SKYNFEEL™ and reinforced by a geometric laser cut grid. Designed with the long jumper’s technique in mind, the flaps stay flat during the run, to open up with the jump – just as the athlete twists his arms and straightens his legs. The aerodynamic design creates an upward lift that could help long jumpers stay in the air just a little bit longer.
“Experiments like this can point the way to the future,” says Van Dongen. “For me, SKYNFEEL™ APPAREL is about challenging the status quo, trying something totally new, daring to innovate, imagine and inspire.”
“We share the universal admiration for competitive athletes’ total commitment to what they love,” says Jeyan Heper, President and General Manager Sexual Wellness GBU. “Their constant search for innovative ways to gain an edge in performance inspires us. With the SKYNFEEL™ APPAREL prototype, we hope to inspire our customers with the thought that when you minimise the body’s limitations and maximise freedom, it’s liberating.”
Watch the video below to find out more.
About SKYN® and Ansell
SKYN® is a brand of Ansell, a world leader in providing superior health and safety protection solutions that enhance human well-being. With operations in North America, Latin America/Caribbean, EMEA and Asia, Ansell employs 13,000 people worldwide and holds leading positions in the personal protective equipment and medical gloves market, as well as in the sexual health and well-being category worldwide. Ansell operates in four main business segments: Medical, Industrial, Single Use and Sexual Wellness.