emulsion form significantly improves the durability of the fabric in terms of subsequent handling such as would be the case if the fabric is subjected to washing and dry cleaning the elastomer resin is applied to the fabric with the fabric in a relaxed state elastomer treated fabrics also support a higher tensile load at a given elongation compared to untreated preferred elastomer include acrylic binders with high stretch v 29 available from the b f goodrich co and st 954 which is launderable from the rohm and haas co being two preferred commercial examples the elastomer is applied from a bath at 10 12 5 solids with an add on of 10 25 a urethane or epichlorohydrin fixative is also preferably included with the elastomer system it has also been found that the use of less dense apertured fabrics allow a higher level of compaction up to 50 versus the optimum 35 for more dense unapertured fabrics the optimum compaction value relates to optimizing the stretch and recovery features of the fabric of the invention there is a practical limitation to the amount of compaction that can be achieved for a given fabric based on the physical limitations of the compaction nip as well as the density of the substrate fabric a peak percent compaction is reaches as the compaction apparatus nip has physical insertion limits beyond which.