09/08/2010 by admin.

Today natural and chemical fibres are mixed to reduce production costs, develop different textures, subtler colours, and above all to avoid exhausting the planet’s resources.

Natural fibres obtained from animals such as sheep (wool), goats (mohair, cashmere ), llama (angora), silkworm (silk), or from plants such as cotton, flax, hemp, and jute and natural rubber. In order to compete with synthetic fibres, the professional associations for natural fibres set up labels denoting a standard for quality, like the Woolmark for wool (1964) or Pure Cotton for cotton (1968). Natural fibres are comfortable, absorbent and breathable, while artificial fibres are easy care, cheap and strong. By mixing the two, the advantages of both can be combined. Due to the number of new fibres that have been developed, since 1963 manufacturers have been obliged to state the composition of fibres in a garment on the label.

Since the green movement began, we have become accustomed to the questions about the protection of the planet. Nowadays the old “synthetics versus natural” debate has been replaced by the more worrying question of the pollution resulting from the manufacture of the product. It is important to note that the production of natural fibres sometimes causes more pollution than that of artificial fibres. For instance, dyeing cotton calls for the use of large amounts of water, which become polluted as a result. One way to combat the worries of pollution is recycling. Rhovil-Eco is a synthetic fibre made from recycled PVC mineral water bottles. Twenty 1.5 L bottles give enough yarn to knit a child’s jumper. In 1992 Paco Rabanne created an ecological tunic made from a collection of plastic water bottles.

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06/08/2010 by admin.

Chemical fibres can be split into two families: artificial fibres, based on vegetable cellulose (acetate and viscose), and synthetic fibres, based on products derived from petroleum (polyamide or nylon, polyester, acrylic).

Artificial fibres are made from modified vegetable or animal fibres. After six years research, Hilaire Bernigaud de Chardonnet (1839-1924) of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris experimented with the first manufacturing process for artificial silk, using mulberry leaves. Artificial silk was launched at the time of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1899, but was rapidly replaced by viscose and acetate made from cellulose. Light, fluid and crease-resistant, this new fibre was widely used in lingerie before it was supplanted by synthetics. Artificial fibres today incorporate antibacterial molecules and have regained their place at centre stage.

Synthetic fibres such as nylon ‘are as strong as steel, as fine as the threads of a spider’s web, and has a splendid sheen!’ According to an advertisement. In 1935 du Pont invented the first fibre to be entirely manufactured from carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. Nylon or polyamide was first used for toothbrushes, but really took off when it was used to produce stockings. In 1939, the year they went on the market 64 million pairs of nylons were sold in the United States. During the Second World War, nylon production was devoted to the making of parachutes and other items necessary for the war effort, but once the war was over the nylon stocking became a raging success with women all over the world. When they were asked what they had missed most during the war, 33% of American women said men, and 67% said nylons.

Lycra which was also created by DuPont in 1959.This filament with a 3 to 10% elastane base, is even stronger, more elastic and even more comfortable than nylon. Originally used in corsetry, Lycra has revolutionised sportswear, lingerie and particularly swimsuits. In the modern age of stretch fabrics, Lycra is widely used. During the 1980s the nylon-Lycra combination used in tights and stockings made a spectacular breakthrough and opened the way to an unequalled comfort and durability.

The first polyester-based micro fibres which appeared during the 1980s were breathable (they allow the skin to breathe through the material) and wind resistant (thanks to their very closely world and texture). Although they were first used in sportswear, they now form a part of everyday street clothing.

Posted in silk, Du Pont, acrylic, polyester, Lycra, polyamide, Nylon | No Comments »

02/08/2010 by admin.

The clothes have been designed, made and shown on the catwalk. Now they have to be sold. That is where the media come in, summoned by the press officer.

Press offices are the link between the production (the brand, the designer) and the journalist. They present information about the clothes in a press file. This summarises a show, and traces the history of a garment or advertises the launch of a new product. Press officers also organise events, send out invitation cards, plan interviews and lend out the clothes for photo sessions, the intention being to gain the maximum amount of press coverage. Public relations consultants are playing an increased role in the fashion industry, helping to market clothes through organising events, advertising and other forms of publicity.

To be suited for these roles you need to be good at and enjoy communicating with people both verbally and in writing.

Fashion editors are usually attached to newspapers in which they have a regular column. The success or failure of a garment may sometimes depend on whether or not the fashion editor decides to praise it. Following a given theme, fashion correspondents go through the shops collecting clothes and accessories which will appear on the fashion pages of magazines. They work together with stylists to achieve the right look. Many correspondents work freelance.

Posted in public relations, clothing, Fashion | No Comments »

27/07/2010 by admin.

Why do girls fancy having a little black dress or pale muslin curtains at the same time? To ascertain what is happening in fashion, we call on specialists. Always keeping an eye on the new directions of fashion, the trend consultant anticipates the shapes, colours and materials that we will like tomorrow. The consultancy is staffed by people with very different career profiles: artists, graphic designers, sociologists and stylists. They are sensitive to the cultural atmosphere of their time, leaf through magazines, watch the latest films, coma and fleamarkets, and scan every corner of the horizon in search of new trends. The result of their findings are collected in trend notebooks. This harvest of information enables them to predict the future, and the needs and desires of the next fashion victims. They participate at the design stage as well as the production stage, sensing, analysing, speculating, advising, imagining and communicating. Globalisation has meant that the profession can now adapt its advice to suit companies throughout the world, manufacturing all kinds of products, not just within the fashion industry.

Drawing inspiration from marginal civilisations are imperatives for the profession. The prospects are good for the creative professions, because our society is fashion oriented. With the globalisation of communications, notably the Internet, and uniformity of tastes, you are bound to be caught up in the changes. You have to call on the services of design and fashion in order to attract attention and proclaim your individuality.

The relationship between the Trend Consultant and the client has been replaced by a system of industrial manufacture that has created a gulf between the product and the client. Today our role consists of organising a successful link with the consumer. You’re also called in by companies operating outside the textile sector, like cosmetics, cars, computers, and even telecommunications. Our job is to advise companies seeking added value for their creativity.

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23/07/2010 by admin.

Embroidery can be worked by hand or machine. The hand-made embroidery associated with haute couture consists of using a needle or a crochet hook to reproduce a design with thread on a fabric. Paillettes or beads or other ornamental features, such as small pieces of wood or metal, may be added. The motives are drawn out beforehand on a toile. Then the design is transferred to the fabric, which may be anything from tulle, velvet or raffia to the bark of the banana tree! The tools and materials are carefully prepared, the thread is counted the paillettes wade out. Then the work can begin. There are many embroidery stitches to choose from: satin stitch, stem stitch, buttonhole stitch, herringbone stitch, back stitch, couching point de Luneville, point de Beauvais and so on. Different stitches required different implements, a crochet hook is used for chain stitch and its derivatives. Machine embroidery has been in existence since 1829, when Josua Heilman took out the first patent for an embroidery machine, whose special feature was that it operated 200 needles simultaneously. Today’s machines operate over 1000 needles.

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23/07/2010 by admin.

A Saturday afternoon patching up a whole in a bloodied sweater or taking up the skirts hem may not seem like a Saturday well spent. For a variety of reasons, the self-sufficiency once so valued in generations past now seems outdated and unnecessary. This is a shame, because mending, sewing, refashioning and the like are weapons in an arsenal of skills on how to revitalise and individualise dulling wardrobe. Even those among us with the most bulging clothes racks at some point wake-up and find that they have nothing to wear. Instead of rushing out to buy something new, giving old clothes (with your own or someone else’s) a second lease of life can be more satisfying and add to a more distinctive wardrobe.

For many people, time and money are the two things that prevent them from embarking on an adventure like this. The next time you feel your wardrobe simply doesn’t offer anything worthwhile you can use it as an opportunity to sort out the clothes that you haven’t worn in, say a year, and put them aside. Consider how these clothes can be refashioned, either into something entirely different, or something fresh just with a new hemline or a change of buttons. This pile of clothes may not disappear overnight, but will provide a worthwhile project for a rainy Saturday afternoons.

Whether or not we bother to have the clothes in our wardrobe mended or repaired is a mark of how much we value them. In the long term, cost savings will definitely be made by spending on the upkeep of more expensive but better quality classic clothes that last year after year, rather than buying cheap disposables that are constantly having to be replaced.

Each of us in the UK spends, on average about £625 a year on clothes. But how much do we spend when these clothes need repair? Only 2% of our clothing budget goes to cleaning, repair and hired clothes. There’s more than one reason for this. For one thing, a pair of trousers cost £15, what’s the point in spending money on repairing or cleaning them when you can practically get a new pair instead?

This economic argument is coupled with the fact that there’s been a marked decline in the number of tailors, cobblers and dressmakers to fall back on when clothes do need expert repair. Thirdly it is no longer the case that every household has a sewing kit or just a simple needle and thread to quickly replace buttons or patch up a sweater. While there has been a resurgence in knitting and sewing, what used to be considered a useful skill, and even taught in schools, still conjures up, especially for women, images of mid-20th century, pre-woman’s liberation drudgery.

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16/07/2010 by admin.

Here at the start of the 21st-century, the digital revolution has made it possible and commonplace for images to be generated, manipulated and reproduced electronically and instantaneously at the flick of a switch. We think nothing of using digital cameras, scanners, computers and printers for generating and transmitting pictures, information and text worldwide. Whilst the technology and sophistication of current imaging would have been unimaginable to Senefelder, he would have certainly shared in the aspiration of being able to produce and reproduce images automatically and surely would have approved of the subsequent developments in photography and photomechanical printing.

The development of photoplates was a 20th century phenomenon that resulted from decades of research into photographic and photochemical processes. Regarded as being synonymous with offset lithography and commercial printing, the use of photoplates was not eagerly adopted by fine artists until the 1960s when photography became an accepted part of the artists lexicon. Referring to the process of platemaking rather than to the images produced, photoplates provide versatility in image development allowing for both photographic and auto graphic applications to be used.

Photoplates are still being used widely by the printing industry and remain popular with artists for making prints. Within 10 years time however it is conceivable and likely that photoplate technology will have been superseded by direct imaging techniques that ultimately will make all plates lithography redundant for commercial printing. It may be assumed however that in hand lithography, printing plates will remain as valid a process for creating images as stone lithography has been in the last 200 years.

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15/07/2010 by admin.

There is a huge potential for hemp as a sustainable echo textile especially when compared to synthetics and non-organic cotton. People may sneer, but the T H C, the active narcotic ingredient in the plant, is present in small enough quantities for hemp growing to have been made legal again in 1994.

Farmers looking to diversify to cut the challenge, knowing that there was a market for hemp fibres for interiors and in the car industry. In the UK, hemp has been grown on around 2000 hectares every year since the early 90s. But it is main use is bedding for animals, pulp for use in cigarette paper and as a filler for the interiors of cars.

Hemp as a textile fabric has much more potential. It has great benefits as a clothing fabric such as softness, breathability which keeps you cool in the hot weather and also has very good durability, As a crop the benefits are well known. Hemp is considered a miracle plant: it has a very cleansing effect on the land; it adds nutrients so is an ideal break crop, to be grown in between other crops; it grows as a very thick canopy, suppressing weeds, so it is more naturally organic. In essence it is a very low input crop, reducing the need to use artificial pesticides and fertilisers.

Currently in the UK, there is no factory or mill with the technical know how to weave, knit or spin hemp. The hemp clothing found in the UK is produced in China and Eastern Europe.

If we can find a way to extract the fibres, there should be no problem creating a market. We want to see hemp on the high street. The textile industry is developing  technologies to produce thin enough fibres to be spun in traditional, but almost defunct, UK cotton mills, including one in Huddersfield.The wool industries spinning mills could see if the could spin hemp, but the project team are finding it hard to get the idea approved, as there is an issue of contaminating the spinning mill with hemp fibres.

If hemp could be manufactured in England on a commercial basis, the potential would be fantastic for the clothing industry.

Posted in Hemp, ecological, clothing | No Comments »

13/07/2010 by admin.

I always dreamed of what the future would hold while I watched movies like 2001 in awe. Well today I was reading about the latest generation of thermo regulating garments for the sports enthusiast. Basically the clothing can now keep you cool when you are too hot and the keep you warm if you start to feel too cold!
How does it do that? The truth is that I don’t really know, but it goes something like this. When you are to hot, this is because you have just been competing and have built up a sweat. The fabric reacts to this and allows the moisture to pass through it and to evaporate. When sweat evaporates it brings down your body temperature.
This is when it gets really clever. When then material is exposed to cool outside temperatures it reacts in a way that stops your body heat escaping which helps you stay warm. Fantastic, is all I can say and I bet all the football players and marathon runners agree!
Finally the great news as far as t-shirt printers are concerned is that you can still print on it. Thank goodness for that. Though I suppose no one would buy the product if their sponsors could not advertise on them.

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12/07/2010 by admin.

What a most unexpected request for t shirt printing. We were asked to provide a large quantity of t shirts for the Close Air Support tour of duty in Afghanistan. The t shirt printing was collected by one of the Harrier pilots who told us fascinating tales about life and experiences in Afghanistan. After every tour of duty they get t shirt printing done and every person in the team gets a t shirt. What really impressed them is that their regiment decals and badges were absolutely stunning with the DTG process type of t shirt printing that we do and they said that they would come back to us for all their tour of duty t shirt printing.

Posted in Afganistan | No Comments »