In 1970, Toray Industries colleagues Dr. Toyohiko Hikota and Dr. Miyoshi Okamoto created the world’s first micro fiber as well as the process to combine those fibers with a polyurethane foam into a non-woven structure – which the company trademarked as Ultrasuede®. In April 2009, Toray announced “a new environmentally responsible line of products which …
For millennia mankind depended on the natural world to supply its fiber needs. But scientists, as a result of extensive research, were able to replicate naturally occurring animal and plant fibers by creating fibers from synthetic chemicals. In the literature, it is often noted that there are three kinds of man-made fibers: those made by …
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum L., which is a delicate and graceful annual that stands about 3 feet high and produces attractive blue flowers. Its Latin name means “most useful,” and for good reason. Though technically a wildflower, flax has been cultivated for thousands of years …
King Cotton. The cotton textile industry has perhaps been studied as much as any industry in history, and the fiber itself is so important that it’s traded as a commodity. “In high cotton” means to be wealthy, somebody can be out of his “cotton picking mind”, and “to cotton” has even become a verb! Today …
Silk has set the standard in luxury fabrics for several millennia. Silk is highly valued because it possesses many excellent properties. Not only does it look lustrous and feel luxurious, but it is also lightweight, resilient, and extremely strong— the strongest natural fiber known to man, one filament of silk is stronger then a comparable …
When we talk about wool, we almost always mean the fiber from sheep, although the term “wool” can be applied to the hair of other mammals including cashmere and mohair from goats, vicuna, alpaca and camel from animals in the camel family and angora from rabbits. As with many discoveries of early man, anthropologists believe …
We were charmed by this quote, which was written by Yitzac Goldstein of Earth Protex, many years ago: Before Huang-Ti’s time clothing was made from skins of birds and animals. But as time went on people increased and animals were few Causing great hardship. So Huang-Ti ordained that Clothing should be made from hemp fiber. …
Since the 1960s, the use of synthetic fibers has increased dramatically, causing the natural fiber industry to lose much of its market share. In December 2006, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2009 the International Year of Natural Fibres (IYNF); a year-long initiative focused on raising global awareness about natural fibers with specific focus on …
I’ve been ranting about plastics for the past three weeks, and you might be wondering why, especially since we’re in the fabric business. Well, the chance is that most of the fabrics you buy are either 100% synthetic (polyester, acrylic, nylon, etc.) or they’re blended with natural fibers – such as the very popular cotton/polyester …
I was going to go on to other subjects, but just saw in the Seattle Times that the whale that washed up on a West Seattle beach last month was discovered to have 3.2 lbs. of garbage in its belly – including 20 plastic bags and 37 other kinds of plastic (read entire article here.) …
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