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Textiles

Textiles: Environmental issues and sustainability

Textile designers and manufacturers are under social pressure to reduce the impact of textiles on the environment. Careful use of raw materials and natural resources in textile production will ensure that they are available to future generations. Textile technologists are constantly seeking to develop new fibres that have improved performance and are sustainable.

Advancements in Reactive Textile Dyes

The market for reactive dyes will continue to increase. This will arise partly from a marginal increase in the production of cellulosic fibres, essentially cotton, and more importantly from the replacement of other classes of cellulose dye, such as azoic and sulphur dyes, by reactive dyes.

Costumes: During Indus Valley Civilization

The earliest evidence of textile production in India comes from the Indus Valley, where a complete Urban civilization centred around the two cities of Mahenjodaro and Harappa, thrived between 2500 and 2000 BC. Along with the many figurines and engraved seals, numerous spindle whorls of wool and coarse cotton, some copper sewing needles were found.

The recent discovery of excavated seals at the port town of Lothal on the west coast of Gujarat and Dhula-vira in Kutch, indicate that the sophisticated culture, already engaging in the export trade, was in place before this time. The earliest textile impression found in the subcontinent comes from Mehergarh, an Indus Valley site in Beluchistan. This impression of a woven fabric and a large number of cotton seeds also unearthed, date from 5000 BC. , by which time that appears cotton cultivation and textile weaving were already advanced.

Origin and History of Clothing

The first known humans to make clothing, Neanderthal man, survived from about 200,000 B.C.E. to about 30,000 B.C.E. During this time the earth’s temperature rose and fell dramatically, creating a series of ice ages throughout the northern areas of Europe and Asia where the Neanderthal man lived. With their compact, muscular bodies that conserved body heat, Neanderthals were well adapted to the cold climate of their day. But it was their large brain that served them best.

Neanderthal man learned to make crude but effective tools from stone. Tools such as spears and axes made Neanderthals strong hunters, and they hunted the hairy mammoths, bears, deer, musk oxen, and other mammals that shared their environment. At some point, Neanderthals learned how to use the thick, furry hides from these animals to keep themselves warm and dry. With this discovery, clothing was born.

Pashmina Wool Fibers

Pashmina is another name for Cashmere is a downy undercoat of the Capra Hircus Laniger goats that mainly live in the Trans-Himalayan regions classified as speciality hair fibres which possess special qualities of fineness and lustre, which is used for making finest quality shawls and hijabs.

Basic concepts of colour measurement

People involved with colour and colour reproduction needed a unique and unambiguous specification of colour, leading to colours being expressed in numeric codes, which is explained in detail in this article like the perception of colours, the representation of colours, and other interesting semantics of it.

Textile composite materials

A composite textile material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite) is a material made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties that, when combined, produce a material with characteristics different from the individual components.