When the demand for masks and gowns was off the charts, in response to the COVID pandemic surge for personal protective equipment, the domestic textile industry mobilized. Companies invested in materials, created capacity, converted production lines and pumped out PPE like nobody’s business.

Running masks are a newly evolving category filled with opportunity, if you can get past the challenges. Brands and retailers share their learnings in attempts to accommodate customers.

Innovation in anti-viral textiles in response to the COVID-19 crisis is taking off with ingredient suppliers around the world contributing new treatments to help protect from coronavirus. It will be a technology to watch in performance products in the upcoming seasons.

The COVID-19 pandemic could well have been the demise of the U.S. textile and apparel industry. Instead, it has presented the industry with an opportunity to respond in a cooperative effort that may harbinger the development of a robust vertical supply chain in the U.S. and Western Hemisphere.

Following up on the CDC’s new recommendation that everyone should wear a cloth face cover in public settings, a number of team sports suppliers have shifted production to making protective face masks.