OUR CLOTHING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 25, 30 January 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

OUR CLOTHING.

1 ANIMAL, MINERAL OR VEGETABLE I Have you ever stopped to think about the materials from which our clothes are made, and to wonder what they were originally? Do you know, for instance, that that linen frock or shirt in your wardrobe, or that linen handkerchief in your pocket, came from a flax plant? Do you know, too, that your cotton frock or shirt was made from the pretty fluffy fibre of the cotton plant, which grows extensively within thirty degrees of the equator, and gives the world one of its greatest industries. It's very difficult to imagine their original state when we look at our clothes, and nothing is more wonderful than to follow the different processes which transform parts of plants into lengths of material and reels of thread— wonderful processes of cleaning, dyeing, and weaving, with machinery that seems almost human. Thd manufacture of linen is believed to be the oldest textile industry in the world. The ancient Egyptians were expert in it, and, in Genesis, we read that Pharaoh gave Joseph "vestures of fine linoa."

• ■■■■■■■ MM MH ■aaasaßß Our rubber raincoats and goloshes are also products of a plant, for rubber is manufactured from sap drained from the rubber tree. Now let us turn from the vegetable kingdom to see what part the animal world playe in dressing U£. Of course, we all know that sheep's wool makes woollen materials, but unless you've seen it, it's almost impossible to understand how the dirty, greasy fleece shorn from sheep can turn into patterned tweeds, serges, or delicately coloured fancy fabrics. Here, again, we have a miracle of scouring, dyeing, and weaving. The animal kingdom also supplies us with our leather clothing—shoes, gloves, and so forth—for leather is the tanned

liido of various animals, while it is well known that silk is a product of that humble little creature, the silkworm. Nowadays, however, artificial silk is 'worn much more extensively than pure silk, and this is produced chiefly from wood-pulp—back to the vegetable kingdom again. 3 Velvet is one of the most interesting materials, but one of the most expensive to manufacture, because the producing of the pile k a very detailed, slow process. It has to be shaved again and again by instruments on the principle of a lawnmower. And what about that delightful trimming to our clothing, lace? Lace-making is one of the oldest and most skilled arts, but, whereas in olden days all lace was made by hand, nowadays it is largely made by macliinorv. Lace is purely a feminine adornment these days, too, but it used to be the pride of men, as well as women. Charles I. even wore lace on his sporting clothes, and some of the ruffles were so fine that they took nearly a year to make. Of course, many of our materials are ! not pure silk, wool, cotton or linen. All sorts of mixtures are manufactured, so that we have velveteens, cotton tweeds,; linenes ar.d so on. Also, different chemicals arc used in the manufacture of dress materials, so tlint many of our clothes are products of all three kingdoms, animal, mineral, and vegetable.