Performance of home textiles – a book preview

The home textile industry is an upcoming sector in consumer forum that takes care of essential requirements of living in a house comfortably. Performance of varieties of home textile items is viewed and valued by customers in terms of class, quality, reliability and consistency. A thorough and comprehensive interaction with the different stakeholders of home textile industry reveals that this particular sector is in need of a digestive document that can be able to communicate majority of the requirements of product performance and quality in line with the value addition and to maintain the basic concept underlying in green consumerism.

Thus, this book arose out of a need-based philosophy that caters to the requirement in providing the service as a technical resource to home textile sector wherein all essential elements of product development, industry standards, regulatory aspects, and evaluation systems are built into it.

The book is aimed at industry professionals, domestic and international retailers, factory owners, buying institutions, and students intended to start their career in the home textile sector. Thus, the emphasis of the book is how to achieve the commercial success of desired end product through the knowledge of the key markets producing various home textiles, the scope of development through sustainable and eco-friendly fibres, various industry-specific standards, evaluation systems and above all safety aspects and environmental regulations.

Book: Performance of Home Textiles, 2nd Edition
Publisher: Woodhead Publishing India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India
ISBN: 978-93-85059-31-5
http://woodheadpublishingindia.com/BookDetails.aspx?BookID=143
Author:
Dr Subrata Das
Professor, Department of Fashion Technology
Bannari Amman Institute of Technology
Sathyamangalam, Erode District, Tamil Nadu – 638401 India

It is important to mention that same home textile product can be evaluated against different benchmarks because specification and regulation vary depending upon the country of export. It is always desirable to refer to the latest version of a document while applying any tests and regulations, which are difficult to cover in a book of this nature, and more so international standards, and regulations are continuously been updated, owing to the change in expectation of performance and for better consumer interest.

Knowledge and compliance of chemical substances that are either banned from use or restricted to a certain limit in the home product by global laws and regulations are important and usually monitored starting at the product adoption stage of development. Identifying “high risk” products and testing for restricted substances where applicable leads to product compliance. Different test methods pertaining to restricted substances which are applicable to the home textile industry are added to the second edition to increase awareness of the industry on this topic.

Home textiles products have been diversified over the years in the niche market based on the expectations and need of the consumer. Thus, the emphasis on the performance parameters and their evaluation systems cannot be overlooked. Like all other sectors of technology, when we are moving forward positively through the twenty-first century, the use of eco-friendly fibres for product development in home textiles is quite expected.

High performance and value addition are no longer treated, as attributes in the consumer world but become an essential feature of finished home textiles. We often heard about the fire hazards in home textiles, which is a potential safety concern and must be regulated by standard flammability regulations and interestingly, that are not common for every product. It is also important that home textiles should be properly labelled. This is not only to meet the regulatory requirement but also to guide the consumer for its proper care. Above all, the environmental aspect of home textiles has attracted attention in recent years and different eco-labels and standards are in place for its regulatory control.

Although topics covered in this book are not uncommon in the home textile industry in our general sense of the term, I have included those in this book because very little has been available in published literature. Latest updates on various global regulations for the home textile industry have been incorporated in the second edition of this book. I believe that the subject will be of sufficient interest to textile professionals to warrant its inclusion and so provide a wider circulation of information concerning this development in home textiles.