Contents
1. Past of Clothing Technology ………………………………………. 7
2. Textile and Its History …………………………………………….. 37
3. Fashion: An Overview …………………………………………….. 64
4. Types of Textiles ……………………………………………………. 110
5. Fibre ……………………………………………………………………. 123
6. Making Textiles …………………………………………………….. 165
7. Textile Personalities ………………………………………………. 179
Preface
Technological improvements in the last forty years of the 20th century have aiso improved fabric technology and automated garment construction techniques. Busy lifestyles, easier home laundering and workplace changes embracing dress down Fridays, have encouraged a more relaxed attitude to clothing in many situations. Dresses adapted to meet these needs.
Fashion, by deftnition, changes constantly. The change may proceed more rapidly than in any other fteld of human activity. For some, modern fast-paced change in fashion embodies many of the negative aspects of capitalism: it results in waste and encourages people qua consumers to buy things unnecessarily. Young people enjoy the diversity that changing fashion can apparently provide. The constant changes satisfy their desire to experience new and interesting things. Note too though that fashion can change to enforce uniformity, as in the case where so-called Mao suits became the national uniform of Mainland China.
Materially affiuent societies can offer a variety of different fashions in clothes or accessories. At the same time there remains an equal or larger range designated (at least currently) ‘out of fashion’.
Practically every changeable aspect of appearance has been changed at some time. In the past, new discoveries and lesser-known parts of the world could provide an impetus to change fashions based on the exotic: Europe in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, for example, might favour Turkish things at one time, Chinese things at another and Japanese things at a third. The global village has reduced the options of exotic novelty in more recent times. Fashion houses, fashion designers and clothing technology appear to have some role in determining the rates and directions of fashion change.
This book is a sneak into the world of clothing and the technology involved in it. Come along with us into the world of Know All about Clothing Technology.
Past of Clothing Technology
Clothing refers to coverings and garments intended to be worn on the human body. The word cloth is related to fabric or textile. But clothing means fabrics used to cover the body. The earliest garments were made ofleather and other nonfabrics, rather than of cloth; but these nonfabric garments are included in the category of clothing.
Fashion refers to the kinds of clothing in a desirable style worn at a particular time. At different times in history, fashionable dress has taken very different forms. In modem times, nearly everyone follows fashion to some extent. A young woman wo~d look odd if she wore the clothing that her grandmother had wocn:when she was young.
It is not always easy to differentiate between basic clothing and. . fashionable clothing. Today, fashion designers often use inexpensive and functional items of clothing. For instance jeans, originated as functional work clothing for miners and farmers. But it has become a popular fashion today.
Clothing historians trace the development of dress by studying various sources, including magazines, catalogue, paintings, photographs, hats, shoes and other surviving items. Reliable evidence about everyday clothing from the past can be hard to obtain because most publications and images concern the fashions of the elitist. Furthermore, clothing that has survived from the past tends not to be typical of what was worn in daily life. Musewn collections are full of fashionable ball gowns, for example, but have very few everyday dresses worn by ordinary working-class women. Even fewer examples of ordinary men’s clothing have been saved. Images, such as paintings, prints and photographs, do provide considerable evidence of the history of everyday clothing. These sources indicate that although everyday clothing does not usually change as rapidly as fashionable dress, it does change constantly.
The History of Clothing
Since prehistoric times, people in almost all societies have worn some kind of clothing. Many theories have been advanced as to why hwnans began to wear clothing. One of the earliest hypotheses is the so-called theory of modesty or shame, also known as the Fig Leaf Theory. This Theory is based on the biblical story of creation. In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve, the first hwnan beings, realised that they are naked after they ate an apple from tlle tree of knowledge(the forbidden tree). Ashamed of their nakedness, they made clothing for themselves out of fig leaves. As late as the 19th century, most Europeans and Americans believed that people wore clothes primarily for reasons of modesty. With the rise of a nonreligious worldview, however, people began to offer other theories. Some argued that the origin of clothing was functional-to protect the body from the environment. Others argued tllat some clothing was designed for sexual attraction-to display the body’s beauty.
Evidence that early clothing was indeed functional came from a 1991 discovery of a S,OOO-year-old male body, frozen on top of a glacier near the Austrian-Italian border. It was clothed in a fur cap, a crudely tanned leather cape, a loincloth (strip of clOtll wrapped around tlle waist and between the legs), leggings and leather shoes. A grass cloak covered the fur and leather clotlllng. These clothes would have provided protection against the cold and rain. The Iceman, as he is called, also had tattoos, which may have been marks of decoration or tribal identity or were perhaps intended to provide magical protection.
Decoration seems to satisfy a fundamental human need. Not only human beings have ornamented themselves. Other animals also groom themselves. Although in some societies people have worn little or no clothing, as far as we know, people have decorated their bodies in some way in all societies throughout history. Archaeological and anthropological evidence suggest that early people may have decorated their bodies with paint, tattoos and other types of ornamentation even before they began wearing clothing made of fur or fabric. Body decoration, like clothing, has served a variety of social and symbolic purposes.
Modern scholars believe that clothing provides a mark of identity • and a means of nonverbal communication. In traditional societies, clothing functions almost as a language that can indicate a person’s age, gender, marital status, place of origin, religion, social status or occupation. In modern industrialized societies, clothing is not so rigidly regulated and people have more freedom to choose which messages they wish to convey. Nevertheless, clothing can still provide considerable information about the wearer, including individual personality, economic standing, even the nature of events attended by the wearer. When a woman who usually wears blue jeans puts on a frilly, flowered dress, she may be stating that she wants to look more traditionally feminine. A person wearing a T shirt emblazoned with the name of a rock band is probably a fan of that music group and may have attended one of the group’s concerts.