Hypercolor
heat-sensitive clothing

Hypercolor was a line of clothing, mainly T-shirts and shorts, that changed color with heat.
They were manufactured by Generra Sportswear Company of Seattle and marketed in the United States as Generra Hypercolor or Generra Hypergrafix and elsewhere as Global Hypercolor. They contained a thermochromic pigment made by Matsui Shikiso Chemical of Japan, that changed between two colors—one when cold, one when warm. The shirts were produced with several color change choices beginning in 1991. The effect could easily be permanently damaged, particularly when the clothing was washed in hotter than recommended water, ironed, bleached, or tumble-dried.
Generra Sportswear Co. had originally been founded as a men's sportswear distributor and importer in Seattle in 1980. The company was sold to Texas-based Farah Manufacturing Co. in 1984 and bought back by its founders in 1989. In 1986, the company added childrenswear and womenswear items to their portfolio.
The public source identifies “Hypercolor” as heat-sensitive clothing. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hypercolor, heat-sensitive and clothing.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hypercolor” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.