Clothing, generally referring to clothing, shoes, bags, toys, accessories, etc., often referring to clothing. Clothing appeared in the early stages of human social development. About 400000 years ago, humans began to wear fur clothing. During the Quaternary Ice Age, Neanderthals began sewing fur clothing. From 40000 to 10000 years ago, the clothing of the Croatian farmers began to use fiber, including necklaces, bracelets, and other decorations. Between 10000 years ago, human clothing mainly relied on natural fiber technology, which was quite mature. 100 years ago, humans invented artificial fiber. Currently, outdoor clothing is mostly made of differentiated artificial fibers.

1.1 Fiber

Fibers are natural or artificially synthesized fine filamentous substances, while textile fibers refer to fibers used for textile fabrics. Textile fibers have good physical properties such as length, fineness, elasticity, strength, and good chemical stability. For example, natural fibers such as cotton, wool, silk, and hemp are ideal textile fibers.

The basic classification of textile fibers: natural fibers and chemical fibers.

① Natural fibers include plant fibers, animal fibers, and mineral fibers.

Plant fibers such as cotton, hemp, and fruit fibers.

B Animal fibers such as wool, rabbit hair, and silk.

C mineral fibers such as asbestos.

② Chemical fibers include recycled fibers, synthetic fibers, and inorganic fibers.

Regenerated fibers such as viscose fibers and acetate fibers.

B Synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, acrylic, spandex, vinylon, polypropylene, and chloroprene

C Inorganic fibers such as glass fibers, metal fibers, etc.

The textile properties of common textile fibers:

(1) Wool: It has good moisture absorption, elasticity, and wearing performance, and is not resistant to insect infestation.

(2) Silk: It has good moisture absorption, breathability, luster, and wearability.

(3) Cotton: breathable, hygroscopic, good wearing performance, and resistant to insects.

(4) Viscose fiber: Good moisture absorption, breathability, bright color, wide source of raw materials, low cost, and properties similar to natural fibers.

(5) Polyester: Fabric, strong, refreshing, good shape retention, wear-resistant, stable in size, easy to wash and dry.

(6) Nylon: It has excellent wear resistance and poor breathability.

(7) Acrylic fiber: Good fluffiness and fur like texture.

(8) Vinylon: It has good moisture absorption and is usually used for ropes, fishing nets, etc.

(9) Polypropylene: Lightweight, wear-resistant, durable, and non pilling.

(10) Chloroprene: It is not easy to burn and is commonly used as knitted underwear, plush, industrial filter cloth, work clothes, etc.

Comparison of common fiber properties

Common units of yarn

Number (Tex tex) Ntex: The weight in grams of a 1000m length yarn at a predetermined moisture regain.

Denier number (denier number) Nden: The weight in grams of a 9000m length of yarn at a common moisture regain.

Metric Count Nm: The length in meters of a fiber or yarn weighing 1 gram when measuring the moisture regain.

The larger the number and denier, the thicker the fiber or yarn, and the larger the metric and imperial count values, the finer the fiber or yarn.

Before the emergence of synthetic fibers, natural fibers had always been the main clothing material for humans. However, due to the significant constraints of the natural environment, the production and performance of natural fibers could not meet the growing demand. Therefore, people began to develop various types of synthetic fibers. Currently, synthetic fibers have surpassed natural fibers in terms of performance and possess various personalized functions that natural fibers cannot inherently possess.