along with valuable properties, cloths made of chemical fibers have some severe disadvantages. they easily pick up dirt, become electric, exhibit a low vapor permeability, which strongly deteriorates their quality and complicates their handling. one can change the properties of cloth in various ways $em dash$ by chemical or physical modifications. one of the methods for chemical modification is to coat threads with thin polymeric films directly formed from monomers. the present work was carried out using monomers of the acrylic series containing various functional groups allowing to vary the properties of polymeric films over a wide range the authors have studied a modification by monomers of fiber-forming polymers of different nature: polyamide, polyether, di- and triacetate, acrylonitrile, etc. polymerization of monomers on fabric was accomplished in contact with the atmosphere. the kinetics of the polymerization process was studied by the thermometrical and the polarographical methods. extensive experimental data are plotted and evaluated. 6 refs