Plastic

Plastic (pronounced plas-tik)

(1) Any of a group of synthetic (and usually hydrocarbon-based) polymer materials which may be shaped when soft and subsequently hardened.

(2) In slang, a credit card, or credit cards collectively (an allusion to the material typically used in their manufacture); money, payment, or credit represented by the use of a credit card or cards.

(3) Something (or a number of things), made from or resembling plastic (sometimes merely descriptive, sometimes as a slur suggesting inferiority in quality).

(4) Capable of being molded or of receiving form; having the power of molding or shaping formless or yielding material.

(5) In psychology, the quality of being easily influenced; impressionable.

(6) In biology of or relating to any formative process; able to change, develop, or grow; capable of adapting to varying conditions; characterized by environmental adaptability.

(7) Figuratively and in slang, something superficially attractive yet unoriginal or artificial; insincerity or fakeness in an individual or group.

(8) A widely used combining form (plastic surgery, plastic bullet, plastic explosive, chloroplastic, protoplastic etc).

(9) A sculptor or molder; any solid but malleable substance (both obsolete).

In physiology, producing tissue (obsolete).

1625–1635: From the Latin plasticus (that which may be molded or relating to that which has been molded), from the Ancient Greek πλαστικός (plastikós) (fit for molding, capable of being molded into various forms; pertaining to molding), from πλάσσω (plássō) (to mold, to form).  In Hellenic use, in relation to the arts, there was plastos (molded, formed) the verbal adjective from plassein (to mold) and from the Greek plastikós was derived both plaster and plasma.  Words vaguely or exactly synonymous (depending on context) include elastic, molded, synthetic, bending, giving, yielding, cast, chemical, ersatz, phony, pseudo, substitute, ductile, fictile, formable, moldable, pliable, pliant, resilient, shapeable, flexible & amenable.  Plastic is a noun, verb & adjective, plastically & plasticly are adverbs and plasticity is a noun; the noun plural is plastics and the seventeenth century spelling plastick is long obsolete.

1968 Chevrolet Corvette L88 (left) & 1962 Trabant 601 Universal (station wagon) (right).

Materials with plastic properties were attractive for car producers for different reasons.  It made low-volume production runs viable because the tooling costs were a fraction of the cost of those using steel or aluminum and in some cases the light weight and ease of modification was an attraction.  In the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the old East Germany), the long-running Trabant's bodywork was made with Duroplast, a composite thermosetting plastic (and a descendant of Bakelite).  A resin plastic reinforced with fibers (the GDR used waste from both cotton & wool processing), it was structurally similar to fibreglass and it's a persistent urban myth that Trabants were made from reinforced cardboard.

The notion of being "capable of change or of receiving a new direction" emerged in 1791 and this idea was picked up in 1839 when the term plastic surgery was first used to describe a procedure undertaken to "remedy a deficiency of structure" is recorded by 1839 (in plastic surgery).  The most familiar use referring to the hydrocarbon-based polymers dates from 1909 when the expression "made of plastic" gained currency which remained literal until 1963 when the US counterculture adopted it as slang meaning "false, superficial", applying it both the political and consumer culture.  The noun plastic (solid substance that can be molded) however appears first to have been used in 1905 and was applied originally to dental molds.  Our plastic age can be said to have begun in 1909 when a US patent was issued for Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride (marketed as Bakelite), a resin created by the reaction between phenol & formaldehyde.  Chemists had for years been experimenting with various compounds, much of the research funded by the petroleum industry which was seeking some profitable use for its by-products but Bakelite was the first plastic material which had characteristics which made it suitable for manufacture at scale and adaptability to a wide range of uses.  Thus the first commercially available plastic made from synthetic components which retained its formed shape if heated, it was developed by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland (1863-1944) while working in the US.

The “plastics” at lunch with plastic packaging on plastic trays, Mean Girls (2004).

Plastic explosive (explosive material with a putty-like consistency) became familiar to the military only in the Second World War and more generally in the 1950s but the first use of the term dates from 1894.  Earlier uses include describing the creative or formative processes in art generally as plastic, an echo of the use which sometime prevailed in Hellenic culture but this faded after a few decades during the seventeenth century although the noun plasticity (capability of being molded or formed; property of giving form or shape to matter) endured after first being noted in 1768.  A nineteenth century adoption was in the biological sciences in the sense of “organisms capable of adapting to varying conditions; characterized by environmental adaptability and in the same era, in engineering it came to mean “of or pertaining to the inelastic, non-brittle, deformation of a material”.

The success of Bakelite triggered a rush of development which produced the early versions of the numerous substances that can be shaped and molded when subjected to heat or pressure.  Plastics gain their plasticity because they consist of long-chain molecules known as polymers which flex but don’t break their bonds when subjected to all but extreme stresses.  They’re almost always artificial resins (but can be made from some natural substances such as shellac) and the best known are Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polystyrene.  Useful as it is, plastic (with a life measured in some cases in centuries) has emerged as a significant environmental threat, both as visible waste (and thus a threat in many way to wildlife) and as micro-plastic, microscopic-sized fragments which exist in the environment including the human food chain.

Bella Hadid, Coperni show, Paris Fashion Week, October 2022.

Although many in the industry prefer to talk about natural fibres like silk or linen, it’s plastics like nylon or polyester which make possible both the shape and behavior of many modern garments and their mass-production.  One possibility offered by plastics was illustrated at the 2022 Paris Fashion Week in October when as the concluding set-piece of the Coperni show, Bella Hadid (b 1996) appeared on the catwalk wearing only G-string knickers.  There she paused while for about a quarter hour, two men sprayed her body with what appeared to be white paint.  Once done, a woman emerged to cut a thigh-high asymmetric slit and adjusted things slightly to render an off-the-shoulder look.  Essentially a free-form exercise in 3D printing, the spray-on dress was left deliberately unfinished so as not to detract from the performance; had such a creation been built behind closed doors, either on a human or mannequin, re-usable and adjustable formwork would likely have been used to catch overspray and allow things like hems, straps and splits more precisely to be rendered.  On the night though, the fraying at the edges was just part of the look and Ms Hadid looked wonderful, a thinspiration to the whole pro-ana community.  The term “sprayed on” had long been used to describe skin-tight clothing but the Coperni show lent it a literalism new to most.

On the catwalk, spray-painting a model had been done before, two robots used in Alexander McQueen’s spring 1999 show to adorn Shalom Harlow (b 1973) after the fashion of those used in car assembly plants but that was literally just paint onto a conventional fabric whereas Ms Hadid’s dress appeared over bare (though presumably some sort of lotion was used to suit the properties of the plastic) skin.  The spray-on material is called Fabrican, created by Dr Manel Torres who first demonstrated its properties in 2006.  It’s a liquid fibre, bound by polymers, bio polymers and greener solvents which evaporate on contact with a surface (like Ms Hadid’s skin and including water).  As a fabric, it’s said to have a similar texture to suede and can be manipulated like any other but the feel can be altered depending on the fibers (natural or synthetic) used in the mix and the shape of the nozzle used on the spray device.

Although an eye-catching example of the technology, Fabrican’s place in fashion business is likely to be as an adjunct device rather than one used to create whole garments.  It would be invaluable for Q&D (quick and dirty) solutions such as effecting repairs or adding something but it’s been demonstrated as long ago as 2010 at London Fashion Week without demand emerging though it may yet find a niche.  What more likely beckons is a role in medicine (perhaps especially for military medics in the field) as a sterilized (perhaps even an anti-bacterial) bandage-in-a-can.  Indeed, the style of dress created in Paris is known as the “bandage” dress.

Bella Hadid, Coperni’s 2023 show, Paris, 2022

Shalom Harlow, Alexander McQueen’s spring show, London, 1999.