Kevlar ® is a very crystalline polymer. It took a
long time to figure out how to make anything useful out of Kevlar ®
because it wouldn't dissolve in anything. So processing it as a solution
was out. It wouldn't melt below a right toasty 500 ^oC, so
melting it down was out, too. Then a scientist named Stephanie Kwolek came up with a brilliant plan.

Aramids are used in the form of fibers. They
form into even better fibers than non-aromatic polyamides, like
nylon 6,6.

Why? Why?

Ok, since it seems everyone just has to know, I'll tell you. It
has to do with a little quirky thing that amides do. They have the
ability to adopt two different shapes, or conformations. You can
see this in the picture of a low molecular weight amide. The two
pictures are the same compound, in two different conformations. The one
on the left is called the trans conformation, and the one on the
right is the cis- conformation.