Unraveling the History of Textiles
By Sarah Wilson
About a year ago, after a slow morning at home, I would commute into Denver to my job at Fancy Tiger Crafts. I began my work day with a walk through the storefront, neatening up rainbow-tized bolts of fabrics and curated displays of wool, linen, silk, and cotton yarn skeins. The first lap always included turning on the A/C and the ceiling fan made from an up-cycled windmill. Before opening the storefront, we would cut fabric and gather fiber art supplies for locals’ curbside pick up web orders– an aspect of the business that boomed with the pandemic.
Each day I spent hours handling and labeling new bolts of fabric and yarn and displaying them on the shop floor in between greeting and assisting customers. Fortunately, I was able to partake and learn about the decisions that go into sourcing and purchasing new merchandise as a staff member of a team that valued group decision-making and was actively transitioning to an employee-owned cooperative. By observing the behind-the-scenes of the purchasing team (and being surrounded by luscious fabrics everyday) my year at Fancy Tiger Crafts opened up a world of learning and creativity for my sewing practice. For me, sewing is an outlet for community and sharing skills, it is a meditative hobby to create bags, pouches, and quilt blocks, and it is also a fun challenge to learn new sewing techniques like sewing a welt pocket or a sleeve button placket. Sometimes it’s even a side hustle. In my short tenure at Fancy Tiger Crafts, I learned a lot about different textiles, the raw materials they are made of, and how the different qualities of a fiber are well suited to different types of projects.
Flock of sheep in the fields at Philo Ridge Farm
When I joined Bio-Logical Capital, I read Vanishing Fleece (a book that follows a bale of wool from sheep to market) to help me make the connection between my hobby dedicated to fiber and the agricultural work that we do. I’ve also gotten to work closely with Philo Ridge Farm in Vermont, a farm that has fiber products like natural yarn, blankets, apparel and home goods made from their animals. Since then, with support and encouragement from the team, I have been able to dive deeper into the origins and interconnectedness of these two industries.
The Origin of Textiles
Over one hundred thousand years ago, during the last ice age, clothing was arguably introduced as a form of survival and protection from the elements. For millennia, and up only until recently, our garments have been solely produced from animal or plant material- many of which are grown or harvested from farm and agricultural processes. Since their origin, textiles have been transformed by cultures and individuals into a representation of status, wealth, personal expression, gender, and ingenuity. To tell a story of the history of textiles, there is a lot of ground to cover.
Weaving Loom in the Tennessee Agricultural Museum, image from Flickr
Luckily for me, especially as an archaeologist by training, researchers have dedicated their careers to the study of clothing in archaeology. In that research, there is strong evidence that the need for more advanced clothing was tied to a cooling climate over 40,000 years ago. It could be possible that the Neanderthals went extinct because they did not have the tool technology to create warm enough clothing to keep them warm and mobile during cold snaps. As the climate warmed over time, our clothing clad ancestors developed new skills and technologies to create textiles from plant and animal fibers to adorn their bodies for reasons beyond survival. These woven textiles presented a new advantage during a period of heat and humidity over their animal skin predecessors: breathability. The woven nature of cloth allowed sweat to evaporate from their bodies, and wicked moisture from the environment.
One of the big questions in archaeology is why so many hunter-gatherers around the world became more sedentary and practiced agriculture - a pivot from cultivating the land for more advantageous foraging. It is often assumed that hunting, gathering, and foraging was less sophisticated than agriculture, however hunter-gatherers have beneficially modified landscapes to procure food and natural resources with a less intensive impact than farming. Nonetheless, one intriguing overlap with the agricultural revolution happens to be the textile revolution. And now we have a “chicken or the egg” problem. Some researchers indicate that the cultural need for clothing can actually be motivation for the agricultural revolution.
““Of course the idea that clothing was responsible [for agriculture] seems radical and hard to swallow - but that is only to be expected with new ideas. So it should come as no surprise if, as a reason for agriculture, clothes are quite hard to digest compared to food” ”
Maguey agave, image from Wikimedia Commons
While the onset of agriculture is widely associated with the production and cultivation of food crops, it is hard to ignore the influence agriculture and textiles had on each other when we see early societies were nurturing crops like cotton and flax, and shepherding sheep. Although natural fibers were twisted into cordage over 40,000 years ago, some of the first preserved woven fabrics found are 11,000 year-old cloth fragments from Peru made from an agave plant called maguey. These fabrics appear in the archaeological record 1,000 years before the first food crops like the three sisters (squash, maize, and beans, companion plants originating in Mesoamerica) appeared in that same area. Linen fabrics from flax are found at archaeological sites in Turkey dating back 9,000 years as cultures around the world innovated new textiles and clothing. Flash forward to today and fiber is found in our clothing, the insulation and upholstery of our cars, decorating our walls and floor, as biodegradable plastics, in baseballs, and even in the walls of our buildings.
Cloth Production
Over the last ~12,000 years, the production of cloth has been influenced by cultures in different ways throughout the world. Cloth production is multifaceted having guided trading routes and supported economies, and in some cases being distinctly undertaken by a particular gender in a society. Techniques for weaving, knitting, and designing garments can be traced back to different cultures and helps us learn about cultural interactions throughout time. Garment designs and patterns take on distinctive cultural embellishments, but before they are sewn, fibers like flax and wool need to be processed into thread and yarn.
Today our clothes are made up of several different types of fiber; cotton, flax, and hemp make up some of the plant fibers, silk, wool, and cashmere are protein fibers, and polyester and nylon are a few synthetic fibers made from oil. To simplify the supply chain of natural fibers:
First, fibers are either harvested (from plant crops) or shorn (from animals).
To transform fibers into yarns or thread, they are then retted and scutched (plant), or graded, scoured, and carded (animal) before being spun.
Once a fiber is spun into yarn or thread, it can be woven or knitted into a fabric which can further be sewn or knitted into a product like your t-shirt, or hat.
After use, a garment can be repurposed, composted if it’s organic, converted into energy, or unfortunately, end up in a landfill (a topic for a future blog).
The Industrial Revolution and Impacts of the Clothing Industry
Until the Industrial Revolution, most clothing and textiles were made as they had been for the last 10,000 years - by hand, from natural fibers, and generally within local communities. The invention of new machinery allowed another surge of innovation. Fast forward to today where 60% of the clothing made has polyester and 98% of the clothes sold in the U.S. were made in another country. While synthetic fibers have benefits including durability and waterproof qualities, it warrants a look into our closets to determine if we should be wearing synthetic fibers day-to-day. Additionally, the vast majority of the synthetic and natural fiber textile industry today has a heavy reliance on fossil fuels and water, emits chemicals through various phases of processing, manufacturing, and dyeing, and has some of the poorest labor conditions of any major industry.
“Today 60% of the clothing made has polyester and 98% of the clothes sold in the U.S. were made in another country. ”
With an industry that shows no signs of slowing, many producers, governments, manufacturers, brands, and consumers are taking steps to return to our roots by focusing on people and the planet. And yet, it is evident that in the last century the U.S. has lost many key links for supporting a viable fiber supply chain. Ranchers with smaller flocks of sheep do not meet the production quantity needs for big brands, plant fibers like hemp have limited options nationally for processing and are often shipped to other countries, and mills and manufacturers have to compete for brands with offshore companies offering lower prices and faster turnarounds.
Finding Connection Between Fiber and Land, Where We’ve Been, and Where We’re Going
At Bio-Logical Capital, we are relearning about and reinvesting in the connection between textiles and the land, and we recognize that what we wear has an impact on the environment, people, and global economies. In the projects we work with, hides and fiber are often byproducts of a food supply chain, but it is quite the opposite for many ranchers. For example, environmentally and ethically sustainable fibers and textiles are just gaining new national traction through opportunities such as the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities grant where six groups including non-profits, brands, and research partners will support Climate Beneficial wool and cotton.
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Woven blankets from Philo Ridge Farm wool
As we begin to engage in this industry, we are excited to ask questions, make connections, and share stories. How can the affordability of a garment balance with a regenerative and local fiber supply chain? Where are the variations between food and fiber production and harvest for carbon sequestration in our soil? How can we uplift those that are doing good work? We will be asking these questions and continuing our learning in the months and years to come. I hope you follow along as we dive in, and please reach out to us if you have stories and questions to share.