Textiles of natural or artificial fiber can be used for clothing, carpets and many other products.

Textile manufacturing has a tradition of millennia in many parts of the world. Craft textiles are a desirable item for shopping.

Understand

“ A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; (...) you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. ”

—The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the fictional guidebook described in Douglas Adam's novel of the same name)

Historically, many natural fibers have been used for textile purposes.

• Cotton is textile from the cotton flower. The Industrial Revolution made cotton the most widespread fiber in the world. Inexpensive and easy to maintain.
• Wool is a textile fiber from hairs of mammals such as sheep, goat, llama and camel. It is used for clothing, furnishing (especially carpets). It is also one of the fibers used in 'felt' making.
• Silk is made by the thread of the silk moth's larva; in historical times the silk road was used to transport goods, including silk, between Asia and Europe.
• Linen is fiber from the flax herb. With long, thin fibers which absorb plenty of water and survive laundry, linen is useful for summer clothing, handkerchiefs and towels. Not be confused with modern usage of the term linen to mean a high grade fabric vs the fiber.

Other natural fibers used historically have included jute, and hemp, which was used in the manufacture of all manner of durable canvas for domestic, agricultural and industrial usage. Ropes have also been made from substances like sisal, derived from an agave.

Modern synthetic textiles are just as varied, but Rayon and Nylon were amongst the first to be widely available. Sometimes natural and synthetic fibers are combined, creating a wider variety of textile materials for clothing and non clothing uses alike.

Fabrics, where textile fibers are combined to form a sheet of material are, are typically of two types, woven or knitted. Woven fabric is made of a warp of parallel threads, and the weft interlaced with these at a right angle. Knitted material is from one thread forming loops pulled through each other (or several, for color patterns). Carpets can also be knotted. In felt, the individual fibers are mixed together by rubbing or other methods.

The textile industry has been the forerunner of the Industrial Revolution around the world. Prior to British colonialism South Asia was the world's leading textile producers with manufacturers engaging in several business practices that would characterize the later industrial era in the Global North. However, policies of the British East India Company and later the British Raj destroyed this branch of industry. Textiles were among the first consumer goods to be mass-produced in industrial Britain and the industrialization of the United States, and textile factories were among the places that saw the rise of organized labor and women's organizations. In the second half of the 20th century, many textile industries in the Western world were dismantled, moving overseas, especially to Asia, to an extent reversing the colonial era. As Asia's fast-growing "tiger economies" have seen increased development and wages, textile mills have moved on to countries where income is still relatively low, particularly Bangladesh.

Destinations

• 1 Bursa  
• Harris, Scotland, famous for woolen products, especially Harris Tweed.
• 2  
• 3 Australian National Wool Museum  
• Wool museum (Museo dell'Arte della Lana di Stia), Museo dell'Arte della Lana di Stia (follow river Arno upstream), ☏ +39 0575 582216, [email protected]. Museum on wool in textiles in the old textile factory. It provides a historic bacground and displays many of the old machines. Also have workshops that produce textiles. €3. 
• 4 Angers castle (Château d'Angers), 2 Boulevard du Général de Gaulle. This impressive 9th-century castle hosts an extremely large medieval Tapestry of the Apocalypse, really a spectacular set of tapestries which is arguably one of the very greatest artworks that has come down to us from the Middle Ages. (updated Sep 2015)
• 5 (updated Oct 2017)
• 6  
• 7 (updated May 2018)
• 8  
• 9  
• 10 Almgrens sidenväveri, Repslagargatan 15 (Stockholm/Södermalm). An original 19th century silk factory with a silk museum. 
• 11 Finnish Labour Museum Werstas  
• 12 National Textile Museum  
• 13  
• 14  

See also

• Art and antiques shopping
• Carpets
• Clothing
• Clothing sizes
• Industrial tourism
• Laundry
• Purchasing a kimono
• Silk Road