Put on your mozzyproofs
Jaeger founder gets the fashion bug again – making clothes to help f ight malaria
HE SPENT almost half a century building up a fashion empire, but lost it over a bank holiday weekend.
Now Jaeger founder Harold Tillman is back in the clothing business but in a very different style – making outfits to combat malaria.
The determined 68-year-old will be producing suits, shirts, trousers and other clothes impregnated with a powerful insect repellent.
The revolutionary technology used will allow the clothes to be washed dozens of times before they lose their repellent effect.
The new venture comes two years after he lost control of Jaeger and Aquascutum in a bitter powerstruggle with bankers.
He was away in Italy over that Easter when he learned that Lloyds Bank had sold Jaeger’s debt to venture capitalists Better Capital, which put the firm into administration. He says bankers ‘stole’ his company – a charge they deny.
Detractors may see Tillman’s new adventure as a little crazy, but the entrepreneur insisted: ‘I don’t think I’ve gone off my rocker at all. I’m doing things that I want to do, that give benefit back to the world.’
According to the World Health Organisation, half the world’s population is at risk of malaria. In 2012 it claimed an estimated 627,000 lives.
Tillman’s new clothing – and new mosquito nets he is helping produce – will be embedded with SIL2U, tiny porous silica particles with microscopic holes that can be filled with different biological agents.
For the anti-malarial garments, the substance will be the repellent IR3535, just as effective as DEET – the most common active ingredient in insect repellents – but far less toxic, oily or smelly.
Mosquitos can bite through thin fabric, so the repellent works by stopping them coming near.
Tillman is also bringing out a spray that temporarily ‘mozzyproofs’ normal clothes and that can be sprayed on skin, and wet wipes containing repellent and sunscreen.
He is also working with top chemists to create antibacterial hospital bedding – and even paint – by putting peroxide into the particles.
Tillman said the projects were ‘very exciting’, adding: ‘I never realised the market for these sort of products was so big. We are talking billions.’
Jane Kaye-Bailey, founder of UK malaria prevention charity The Butterfly Tree, which works in Zambia, said: ‘I would welcome anything that has the potential to save lives.’
She urged Mr Tillman to make his new products affordable for those in poorer parts of the world, or to give them directly to charities.