Spandex or elastane is a synthetic fiber known for its exceptional elasticity. It is strong, but less durable than its major non-synthetic competitor, natural Latex. It is a polyurethane-polyurea copolymer that was invented in 1959 by chemists C. L. Sandquist and Joseph Shivers at DuPont's Benger Laboratory in Waynesboro, Virginia. When first introduced, it revolutionized many areas of the clothing industry.

The name "spandex" is an anagram of the word "expands". It is the preferred name in North America; in many European countries it is referred to as "elastane", and is known in Britain mainly as Lycra. Brand names for spandex include Lycra (made by Invista, previously a part of DuPont), Elaspan (also Invista), Creora (Hyosung), ROICA and Dorlastan (Asahi Kasei), Linel (Fillattice), and ESPA (Toyobo).

Spandex fibers are produced in four different ways: melt extrusion, reaction spinning, solution dry spinning, and solution wet spinning. All of these methods include the initial step of reacting monomers to produce a prepolymer. Once the prepolymer is formed, it is reacted further in various ways and drawn out to make the fibers. The solution dry spinning method is used to produce over 94.5% of the world's spandex fibers.

Luciana Salazar Ortega (born November 7, 1980, in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a glamour model, singer and actress.

Salazar began as a model at 4 years old, when she recorded her first television commercial.

In her adolescence she began to work as a model in Buenos Aires and began to take classes of dance and song. Slowly she won a place in the media and on the covers of magazines and pages in newspapers in Argentina, Spain, United States and Europe.

Then she charged to fame with her appearance as an actress in the comedy show Poné a Francella. Though the political fact that she was a niece of Argentine singer and then governor, Palito Ortega helped her into the acting world, it was by her own conditions that she began a successful career. Also she appeared on Chilean television, invited by Televisión Nacional de Chile on the program De Pé a Pá on October 24, 2004. She took part in the erotic television series Luli in Love on Playboy TV. During the FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 campaign, Salazar was voted the national football team's representative, a role which many called "Godmother". On December 2, 2006 the model was presented in the 2006 Telethon of Chile to host a segment called vedetón.