Innovation & Purpose
These are general processes used to improve the look or performance of fabrics, like making them waterproof or softer.
What are Finishing Techniques?
This process allows wool garments to be machine washed without shrinking.
What is Superwash Wool?
This finish makes rain roll right off your coat.
What is Water Repellent?
This term refers to the increasing worldwide connection and integration of economic, social, and technological spheres.
What is Globalisation?
This invention from the Industrial Revolution improved yarn production by spinning more than one yarn at a time
What is the Spinning Jenny?
This type of innovation in textiles focuses on meeting consumer demands, such as fabrics that control body temperature.
What is Innovative Product?
This permanent finishing technique uses titanium dioxide powder to reduce the shine of synthetic fibers.
What is Delustering?
This treatment helps stop germs and unwanted smells on textiles like bed sheets or socks.
What are Antimicrobials?
Your clothes are often made in this type of country, such as Fiji, China, or Sri Lanka.
What is a developing country?
This type of cutting machine can accurately and quickly cut multiple layers of fabric without using a manual blade.
What is a Laser Cutting Machine?
These are processes that improve the inherent characteristics of fibers, yarns, or fabrics, ranging from permanent to temporary.
What are Finishing Techniques?
Cotton fibers immersed in an alkali solution to swell and straighten, increasing their luster and strength, have undergone this permanent process.
What is Mercerising?
Known by brand names like Teflon, this invisible finish protects fabrics against both stains and oils.
What is Fluorochemistry?
To attract major manufacturers, developing countries offer incentives like tax breaks and low-cost land in these designated areas.
What are Export Processing Zones?
This specialized knitting machine is known as the fastest means of making cloth, providing stability in both vertical and horizontal directions.
What is a Tricot Warp Knit machine?
When a new textile manufacturing method leads to lower costs or higher production rates, it falls under this type of innovation.
What is Innovative Process?
Passing yarn or fabric over barbed rollers to create a soft, insulating surface describes this permanent finishing technique.
What is Napping?
This temporary finish uses hydrophobic chemicals, like silicones, to make fabric shed water while still letting it breathe.
What is Water Repellent?
This term is often used to describe textile, clothing, and footwear (TCF) factories in developing countries known for low wages, long hours, and poor safety.
What is a sweatshop?
Companies like Bodymetrics use this technology, equipped with 3D sensors, to quickly measure and map a customer's body for a perfect clothing fit.
What is a 3D body scanner (or Bodymetrics pod)?
Textiles primarily concerned with their utility and performance, rather than how they look, are known by this term.
What are Technical Textiles?
To ensure cotton fabric shrinks less than 1%, it undergoes this permanent process involving stretching, heating, and compression.
What is Sanforising?
Whether permanent or renewable, this versatile chemical treatment creates an invisible barrier against both water-based and oil-based stains on textiles.
What is Fluorochemistry?
While they lead to codes of conduct and certification, these campaigns sometimes inadvertently cause factory closures and job loss for poor people.
What are Fair Trade campaigns (or Ethical Clothing campaigns)?
This technology uses cutting-edge circular knitting machines to produce entire garments with no side seams, significantly reducing traditional cutting and sewing processes.
What is Seamless Technology?