Should We Be So Choosy About Fabrics? …
by
Marcy Mills
Do you care about what the garments you are wearing are made of? Of course you do, but most of us think of those materials in two simple dimensions, natural fibres and man-made synthetics. As ever, life is a lot more complicated than that and worthy of some further explanation.
The naturals… wool, cotton and silk… are the preference of many of us but whilst most materials are categorised by source, many so-called synthetics are also derived from natural products. Thus, there are natural fibres of animal origin such as wool obtained from sheep and lambs, mohair and cashmere from goats, angora from rabbits and silk from the silk worm. Others are of vegetable origin such as cotton and linen and still more are derived from minerals. So far so good, but if we turn to the fibres commonly known as synthetics we find many that are in fact made from naturally occurring materials, mainly wood and plant pulp or cotton lint. The most common example of this form of fibre is rayon.
In contrast, man-made fibres are produced by the polymerisation of synthetic chemicals where typical examples are nylon and polyester. Polyesters were originally developed in 1941 by chemists at the Calico Printers Association in the UK and have been commercially available since 1953.
Finally, there are fabric combinations where fibres of different origins are worked together to provide blends of such as linen, silk and wool with non-natural fibres, either synthetics or man-mades.
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In many respects this is the way the fabric market looks to most of us.
Nonetheless, a challenge for the non-specialist is the proliferation of names that are unfamiliar to us, modal and elastine to name but two, in addition to making sense of man-made and synthetic when the terms seem to be interchangeable at times and leave us uncertain as to the relative values or costs of each.
Synthetic to a materials scientist means the combining of several elements to form a whole but to most of us means artificial but a lot less artificial than synthetic. There is little doubt that there needs to be some much more precise index of terms. Take Micro Modal for example, it sounds scientific and almost industrial and probably not the sort of thing that we should be wearing next to the skin. In fact, this fabric is made from plants and is spun beechwood cellulose. The clothing industry likes it a great deal because it is light, smooth and soft and feels like silk. It does not produce electrostatic, doesnt shrink, is very practical and hangs well when worn.
So where does this put the natural fibres? Entirely natural and organic fibres will only do as their nature dictates and, of course, the more we enhance and change or add to their characteristics, the more expensive they become and the less we, the customers, are prepared to pay the price. It is worth considering three particular examples. Tussah Silk comes from the wild silk worms of India and China where the worms are fed on oak leaves to produce a gold colour. Sea Island Cotton is the finest of all cotton, very white and feels like silk. Before the American Civil War this type of cotton was grown on the islands of the Carolinas and of Georgia but today it comes from Mexico and Central America and is treated in such a way as to command the market for the most respected dress cottons and mens shirting. Class-one wool is the most respected wool, the fibre relatively short, strong, fine and elastic, comes from the Merino and offers superior warmth and spinning properties.
The designers and manufacturers are constantly trying to make their clothing work and behave better. The ideal is a cloth which is soft yet holds its shape, hangs well and can come out of a washing machine looking as good as new. This may be found in natural materials that have been refined so that they are better to work with, easier to use and more flexible offering crease-resistance, no ironing, washability and softness. In the case of blended fabrics, Modal, for example, when blended with linen, silk and wool or polyester blended with cotton and wool provide highly workable properties similar to those of the man-mades.
In the end it is what the clothing producers do with the fabrics available to them that counts. Whether an iconic label uses a plant derivative like Modal or a polymer textile fibre to offer the customer something that defines the brand by looking the business and is easy to take care of, matters little to a purchaser who is tuned in to the catwalk.
Having said that, cotton, cotton mixtures and silks remain the first choice for those suppliers whose expertise reaches beyond fashion and womens clothing in general to nightwear, a much trickier area of clothing design. This is much to do with how the material behaves when we are lying horizontally in bed, occasionally restless, encased in sheet and duvet and prone to changes in temperature. Nothing is simple it seems!
NOTE: Modal Micro is a trademarked microfibre from Austrian textile company, Lenzing. The fabric is delicate and light and its smooth surface prevents deposits of lime and detergent. It allows the skin to breathe. Made with cellulose from beech trees, this is essentially a variety of rayon, is 50% more water-absorbent than cotton, is soft, with a good drape and relatively crease-resistant and easy to care for.
Marcy Mills is a webmaster that optimize the
David Nieper
, a top fashion designer of
ladies nightdress
, nightdresses and nighties. That are made with fine design in fine fabrics.
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Should We Be So Choosy About Fabrics? …}
