Communities of weavers: A methodology for analyzing textile and cloth production

In this study, the production and comprehensive characterization of graphene based electrically conductive textile products, which will allow lower processing costs, such as, low temperature and short process times, and known textile production processes without losing their flexibility, lightness, permeability, and washability characteristics of textile products. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) was applied with a single step process by impregnation to woven fabrics and various properties of fabrics related to performance and comfort were analyzed besides electrical conductivity. The results obtained in the study have shown that it is possible to produce flexible and soft conductive textiles with low resistance values below 100 kΩ, resistant to mechanical deformations, such as, bending, rubbing, and stretching (cyclic test). In addition, the findings indicated that the fabrics applied rGO with the one‐step production process will provide significant advantages to the electronic textile market in terms of wearability, cost‐effectiveness, and applicable processes.

BackgroundIntegrated textile and garment factories are growing in low and middle-income countries, where workers expose to workplace hazards. However, workers’ health condition in the sector is inadequately investigated.ObjectiveThis study describes...

7 - Life cycle assessment and product carbon footprint modelling of textile products

It is well known that textiles and textile products may contain hazardous compounds. Formally, all imported textiles and textile products must be registered through the Indonesian Custom. Ideally, the Indonesian Custom has the capability to detect chemicals of concern in textiles or textile products entering Indonesian territory. However, this is not the case, particularly for chemicals listed in the Stockholm Convention. The difficulties arise from the lack of identification regarding substances listed in the Stockholm Convention that might be present in textiles, textile products, and finished products. The Indonesian Government has initiated programs to assess the presence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in Indonesian territory. Results of the assessment were elaborated in the National Implementation Plan Document on POPs, which was updated recently. Not all substances listed in the Stockholm Convention can be described in depth. Some POPs such as short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) and polychlorinated naphthalenes have not been included in Indonesian regulation, particularly in Indonesian Customs Tariff Book, making it extremely difficult to assess them. Nevertheless, a preliminary assessment of polybrominated diphenyl ethers and SCCPs has been carried out. Using the Tier 1 approach, it was revealed that 2,194 tonnes of SCCPs was imported from India to Indonesia, which was listed under HS code 38249090 that covered CP52 (containing 50–54% chlorinated paraffins). Furthermore, another prominent issue for chemicals of concern (CoC) in textiles was the use of lead-containing dyes, nonylphenols, and nonylphenol ethoxylates. The latter two compounds are known to be used in detergents and surfactants during textile manufacturing processes. At present, nonylphenols and nonylphenol ethoxylates are not listed in Indonesian laws for regulated chemicals in textiles and textile products, as well as in the wastewater quality standard for the textile industry. Therefore, to avoid circular economy obstacles of used textiles and textile products and support sustainable Indonesian textiles, a systematic inventory of CoC in textiles is very important.

Clothing is something required by all human beings. It is one of the most fundamental requirements needed to survive. It is the biggest economic activity the textile industries are involved into satisfy the ever growing demands in terms of quality, variety and other technical requirements. Increasing public awareness and sense of social responsibility related to environmental issues have led the textile industry to manufacture products with improved environmental profiles. In recent years, environmental benefit claims such as environmentally friendly, environmentally responsible, eco-safe, recycled and green materials have often been used to describe and promote products which supposedly have minimal negative environmental impacts. Sustainability does not just mean ecologically sustainable, although that is often the part of sustainability focused on today. This chapter aims to give an insight into the comprehensive details relating to the various processes in the value chain of textile and clothing manufacturing such as fibres, yarn and fabric production processes, textile chemical processing and their influence on the environment.

This paper discusses a Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) with a global Scottish heritage brand to develop a year-round sustainable business model through a design-led approach to new product innovation that improves their sustainability credentials. Sustainability in textile production is under increasing scrutiny from the media, governments, regulators, and consumers, all demanding transparency in the supply chain. The company has an excellent track record of sustainable employment in rural communities and sought through the project to improve their production processes and waste output. Sustainability is a vast topic, where collaboration can help to address these key challenges. The company manages an artisan hand-weaving manufacturing system where yarn production and fabric finishing are regulated by the 1993 Harris Tweed Act of Parliament that protects and restricts production to the Outer Hebrides. The success or failure of the Harris Tweed® industry directly impacts the wider economy of the Outer Hebrides, which is considered “remote, rural, fragile” by UK and Scottish governments and their economic development agencies. The paper describes how academic/business collaboration can positively encourage innovation and help reposition businesses within a changing economic and sustainable landscape that explores these new opportunities. The paper reflects on how KTPs are a mechanism with mutual benefits, where pooling individual knowledge and resources can develop strong, sustainable, and authentic relationships that can provide tangible impacts of new knowledge generation and application within a scholarly and research context that can be clearly aligned to notions of bringing value to the sector, users, and the curriculum.

Textiles have been a highly valued and central part of the politics of human societies across culture divides and over millennia. The economy of textiles provides insight into the fabric of social relations, local and global politics, and diverse ideologies. Textiles are a material element of society that fosters the study of continuities and disjunctions in the economic and social realities of past and present societies. From stick-loom weaving to transnational factories, the production of cloth and its transformation into clothing and other woven goods offers a way to study the linkages between economics and politics. The volume is oriented around a number of themes: textile production, textiles as trade goods, textiles as symbols, textiles in tourism, and textiles in the transnational processes. Textile Economies appeals to a broad range of scholars interested in the intersection of material culture, political economy, and globalization, such as archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, economists, museum curators, and historians.

From the textile manufacturers’ point of view, coarse and medullated fibers are undesirable in the production of fine woolen materials, but highly desirable in the production of textiles and yarns with special effects, especially in carpet production. For sustainability, the entire sheep fleece should be used, including the coarse and medullated fibers. The raw wool must be scoured to obtain clean wool fibers without damage or excessive fiber entanglement, with a certain moisture content, low dirt content and residual grease for further processing, and proper color. In order to remove the impurities in raw wool with maximum efficiency, save energy and minimize the environmental impact, this study investigated the changes in some fiber properties during the scouring process due to the effect of the enzyme complex on coarse wool fibers. The effects were studied through the amount of clean wool fibers and impurities within the fleece, the fiber diameter and color. Conventional and enzyme scoured coarse wool were bleached with an unconventional bleaching agent, percarbonate, and compared to bleaching with hydrogen peroxide to achieve higher whiteness and brilliant color with minimal fiber property changes. The changes after the bleaching process were determined based on the sorption of moisture and dyes and the color parameters. The bio-innovative pretreatment with enzyme complex scouring and percarbonate bleaching resulted in excellent fiber properties even for coarse wool. SEM analysis was performed to confirm these results. Taking into account the sustainability of the process and environmental protection, enzyme complex scouring and percarbonate bleaching are recommended as pretreatment processes for raw coarse wool.

Raman spectrometry as a screening tool for solvent-extracted azo dyes from polyester-based textile fibres

Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth. Edited by Lynne Zacek Bassett. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2009. 336 pages $60.00 (hardcover). LynneBassett, with ten other contributors, offers a fascinating study of Massachusetts quilts in the context of history, genealogy, local industry, and textile production in the handsomely presented Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth. Including only a small percentage of the nearly 6,000 Massachusetts quilts they (and the many members of the Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project) have studied since 1994, a wide range of techniques, fabrics and designs are represented in a thorough and carefully documented historical context. The research findings are divided into three major thematic sections: History, Community, and Memory. Approached much like an exhibition catalogue, introductory essays provide an overview of each of the three divisions and are followed by illustrated examples discussed in detail. Geographical distinctions create the divisions under History and include some of the first extant quilted objects known in Massachusetts: pieced cloth-covered hand screens and petticoats, as well as whole cloth quilts and a quilted palampore dating 1825 to 1850. Quilting gatherings, agricultural fairs, and immigrant and ethnic communities are a few of the themes that organize the section under Community; and Friendship and Signature Quilts provide two of the themes designated Memory. Bassett and her major contributors (each a textile curator, quilt historian, or independent historian) emphasize the historical context for each quilted object (documenting genealogy, researching family stories, referencing dying and textile history, citing relevant economic and industrial circumstances) with their visual description of the textiles, the patchwork or applique pattern and the quilting design of the works. The attentive descriptions of the quilts encourage careful looking on the part of the reader and the contextual history keep these works firmly planted in the history of Massachusetts. The volume's coffee table book format provides room for photographs of the entire quilted object that beautifully illustrate the textural surface of many of the works. Portrait photographs, contemporary images of relevant historic sites, details of some quilts, and line drawings articulating the quilted designs also provide welcome information. However, any non-scholarly connotations associated with the term 'coffee table book' do not apply to Massachusetts Quilts. Family oral histories are challenged and documented as factual or dispelled, references to current quilt history research appears throughout, provenance is carefully documented, collateral objects (e.g. merchants' sample swatch books and family memorabilia) shed greater light on the context of the quilt's creation, and diary entries documenting contemporary quilting activities reveal how quilts and quilting fit into the daily life of eighteenth and nineteenth century women. …

Using data on the production and usage of cotton, the paper develops estimates for the production and consumption of cotton cloth in India during 1795–1940, and based on these numbers, revisits three issues central to interpretations of economic change in colonial India. These are trends in levels of living, the correlation between production of textiles and consumption of textiles, and consumption of clothing in India in relation to the rest of the world. Average consumption of cotton cloth in India rose even as production declined, while real income grew more slowly, if at all, than the consumption of clothing.

Test of different types of models for prediction of future trends in production of textile and clothes

Physiological traits and anatomic structures of the seed for two short cotton season genotypes (Gossypium hirsutum L.) under water stress

This work analyses global trade and production of textiles and clothing and the organisational trends occurring in enterprises in order to enable them to face increased competition due to trade liberalisation and the communications revolution. It introduces the concept of ‘quick response’ and characterises the problems it aims to overcome. The first part covers an analysis of advanced telecommunication systems such as EDI and the methodologies of TQM, as well as the use of ‘flexible manufacturing systems’, some of which are still in an R&D phase. In the second part, product‐oriented organisational structures and flow type production systems are looked at, as well as the concepts of CIM and CIB. The need to shorten lead time and of training multifunctional personnel is stressed. This work is a result of the author's experience as a research worker in the field of engineering and management applied to textiles and clothing. He is also involved as a consultant in strategic planning and the implementation of schemes for modernising companies and sectoral industrial restructuring studies for the Commission of the European Union.

SummaryThroughout the 1980s the Asian‐Pacific region (and especially fast Asian countries) has achieved rapid economic growth accompanied by drastic changes in industrial production and trade. In the textile and clothing industry (‘textile’ industry hereafter), exporting countries display the ‘flying geese’ pattern. The first‐tier exportec Japan, had retreated by the mid‐ 1970s. The second‐tier exporters, the East Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs, consisting of South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong), are now being replaced by the third‐tier, ASEAN and Chinese exporters. The drastic changes in production and trade have resulted from the spread of modern textile production techniques in response to changing comparative advantage. This has been caused by increased labour costs and exchange rate alignment in the first‐and second‐tier exporters, but it has also been affected by the trade policies of industrial importer countries.The textile industry trade has been tightly managed under the Multi‐Fibre Arrangement (MFA), and individual trade flows have been restricted by quota allocation under the MFA. At the current GATT Uruguay Round negotiations the major contracting parties agreed, in the Dunkel text of December 7997, on the gradual phasing out of the MFA restrictions over ten years. How will textile industry trade develop in the absence of the MFA restrictions? This paper focuses on the trade and production of textiles and clothing, but the case of this industry exemplifies important trade policy issues arising from the rapidly changing industrial structure in the Asian‐Pacific region.In discussing textile trade policy issues, economists often focus on the MFA. However, the MFA has not produced a watertight regime. Textile production and trade have changed through product and process innovation, new management styles, and the ever‐changing tastes of consumers. The MFA restrictions have effected these innovative changes, but the policy issues need to be discussed in this context of industrial change.1