Clothing fabrics are materials used to make clothes. Fabric, as one of the three elements of clothing, can not only interpret the style and characteristics of clothing, but also directly affect the performance effect of clothing color and modeling.

In the world of clothing, the fabrics of clothing are varied and changing with each passing day. But generally speaking, high-quality and high-grade fabrics are characterized by comfortable wearing, sweat absorption and breathability, crisp drape, noble vision and soft touch.

For formal social occasions, cotton, wool, silk and linen should be chosen. Most of the clothes made of these four pure natural fabrics are of high grade. Sometimes, clothes made of pure leather are allowed.

Let's briefly introduce the modeling characteristics of fabrics with different materials and their application in fashion design.

1. Soft fabrics Soft fabrics are generally light and thin, with good drapability, smooth modeling lines and naturally stretched clothing contours. Soft fabrics mainly include knitted fabrics and silk fabrics with dispersed fabric structure, as well as soft and light linen fabrics. Soft knitted fabrics often adopt linear and concise modeling to reflect the beautiful curves of human body in clothing design; Silk, linen and other fabrics often appear in loose and wrinkled shapes, showing the sense of flow of fabric lines.

2. Cool fabric. Cool fabrics have clear lines and three-dimensional sense, which can form a full clothing outline. There are cotton cloth, polyester cotton cloth, corduroy, linen cloth and various medium-thick woolen cloth and chemical fiber fabrics. These fabrics can be used in designs that highlight the accuracy of clothing modeling, such as suits and suits.

3. Glossy fabrics Glossy fabrics have a smooth surface, can reflect light and have a sense of luster. This kind of fabric includes satin fabric. Most commonly used in evening dresses or stage costumes, it produces a gorgeous and dazzling strong visual effect. Smooth fabrics have a wide range of modeling freedom in the performance of dresses, which can have simple design or exaggerated modeling methods.

4. Heavy fabrics Heavy fabrics are thick and scraped, which can produce stable modeling effects, including various thick woolen fabrics and quilted fabrics. Its fabric has a sense of body expansion, so it is not suitable to use too much pleating and stacking. In design, A-type and H-type shapes are the most suitable.

5. Transparent fabrics Transparent fabrics are light and transparent, with elegant and mysterious artistic effects. Including cotton, silk and chemical fiber fabrics, such as georgette, satin silk and chemical fiber lace. In order to show the transparency of fabrics, H-shaped and frustum-shaped designs with natural and full lines are often adopted.

Below, briefly introduce the characteristics of common clothing fabrics.

1, cotton cloth

Is the floorboard of all kinds of cotton textiles. Mostly used to make fashion, casual wear, underwear and shirts. Its advantages are easy to keep warm, soft and close-fitting, moisture absorption and air permeability. Its disadvantage is that it is easy to shrink and wrinkle, and its appearance is not crisp and beautiful, so it must be ironed often when wearing it.

2. Flax

It is a kind of cloth made of hemp, flax, ramie, jute, sisal, banana and other hemp plant fibers. Generally used to make casual clothes and work clothes, now it is also used to make ordinary summer clothes. Its advantages are extremely high strength, good hygroscopicity, thermal conductivity and air permeability. Its disadvantages are uncomfortable to wear and rough and stiff appearance.

3. Silk

It is the general name of all kinds of silk fabrics woven from silk. Like cotton cloth, it has many varieties and different personalities. It can be used to make all kinds of clothes, especially women's clothes. Its advantages are light, healthy, soft, smooth, breathable, colorful, shiny, elegant and comfortable. Its disadvantages are easy to wrinkle, easy to absorb, not strong enough and fast fading.

4. woolen cloth

Also known as wool, it is the floorboard of all kinds of fabrics made of wool and cashmere. Usually suitable for making formal and high-grade clothes such as dresses, suits and coats. Its advantages are wrinkle resistance, wear resistance, soft feel, elegance, flexibility and warmth. Its main disadvantage is that it is difficult to wash and is not suitable for summer clothes.

5. Leather

This is a tanned animal fur fabric. Mostly used to make fashion and winter clothes. It can also be divided into two categories: one is leather, that is, leather that has been depilated. The second kind is fur, which is treated leather with fur. Its advantages are lightness, warmth and elegance. Its disadvantages are high price, high requirements for storage and care, and it is not suitable for popularization.

6. Chemical fiber

It is short for chemical fiber. This is a fiber textile made of polymer. Usually divided into two categories: man-made fibers and synthetic fibers. Their advantages are bright colors, soft texture, crisp drape, smoothness and comfort. Their disadvantages are poor wear resistance, heat resistance, hygroscopicity and air permeability, easy to deform when heated and easy to generate static electricity. Although it can be used to make all kinds of clothes, the overall grade is not high and it is difficult to be elegant.

Step 7 mix

It is a fabric made of natural fibers and chemical fibers in a certain proportion, which can be used to make all kinds of clothes. Its advantages are that it not only absorbs the respective advantages of cotton, hemp, silk, wool and chemical fiber, but also avoids their respective disadvantages as much as possible, and its value is relatively cheap, so it is very popular.

This chapter mainly introduces the performance, characteristics and identification methods of these major types of clothing fabrics.

Section 1 Identification of Clothing Fabric Components

The simple method to identify the composition of clothing fabric is combustion method. The method is to draw a thread of cloth yarn containing warp and weft from the seam edge of the garment, ignite it with fire, observe the state of the burning flame, smell the smell of the cloth yarn after burning, see the residue after burning, and judge whether it is consistent with the fabric composition marked on the durability label of the garment, so as to distinguish the authenticity of the fabric composition.

I. Cotton fiber and hemp fiber

Cotton fiber and hemp fiber burn as soon as they get close to the flame, which is yellow and emits blue smoke. The difference between the smell of burning and the ashes after burning is that cotton burns with paper flavor and marijuana burns with plant ash flavor; After burning, cotton has little powder ash, which is black or gray, while hemp produces a little gray powder ash.

Second, wool fiber and silk.

Hair smokes when it meets fire, bubbles when it burns, and burns slowly, giving off the burning smell of burnt hair. Most of the ashes after burning are shiny black spherical particles, which will be broken when a finger is pressed. Silk shrinks into a ball when it meets fire, and the burning speed is slow, accompanied by hissing, giving off the smell of burning hair. After burning, dark brown spherical ash is formed, which will be broken by hand twisting.

Three, nylon and polyester

Polyamide fiber, nylon in scientific name, quickly curls and melts into white gel when it is close to the flame, and drops and bubbles when it melts in the flame. When burning, it is difficult to continue burning without flame, emitting celery flavor, and the light brown melt is not easy to grind after cooling. Polyester fiber, the scientific name of polyester fiber, is easy to ignite and melt near the flame. When burning, it emits black smoke while melting, showing a yellow flame and emitting an aromatic smell. After burning, the ash is a dark brown lump that can be crushed with your fingers.

Four. Acrylic fiber and polypropylene fiber

Polyacrylonitrile fiber, the scientific name of acrylic fiber, softens and melts when it meets fire, and emits black smoke and white flame after fire. After leaving the flame, it burns quickly, giving off the bitter taste of burnt meat. The ash after burning is an irregular black block, which is fragile by hand twisting. Polypropylene fiber, the scientific name of polypropylene fiber, is flammable when it melts near the flame. It burns slowly away from the fire, emitting black smoke. The upper end of the flame is yellow and the lower end is blue, giving off a smell of oil. After burning, the ash is hard, light yellow-brown particles and fragile by hand twisting.

Verbs (abbreviation for verb) vinylon and chloroprene

Polyvinyl formal fiber, the scientific name of vinylon, is not easy to ignite and melts and shrinks near the flame. When it burns, there is a little flame at the top. When all the fibers melt into gel, the flame becomes bigger, thick black smoke comes out, and there is a bitter taste. After burning, small black beads will be left, which can be crushed with your fingers. The scientific name of PVC fiber is PVC fiber, which is difficult to burn. It goes out immediately after leaving the fire. The flame is yellow, and the lower end is green and white smoke, emitting pungent, pungent and sour taste. The burnt ash is dark brown and irregular, which is not easy to be broken by fingers.

Six, spandex and fluorine fiber

Polyurethane fiber, scientific name spandex, burns when it melts near a fire. When it burns, the flame is blue. When it left the fire, it continued to burn, emitting a special pungent smell. The burnt ash is soft and fluffy black ash. The scientific name of fluorine fiber is polytetrafluoroethylene fiber, and ISO organization calls it fluorite fiber. It only melts near the flame, but it is difficult to ignite and does not burn. The edge flame is blue-green carbonization, melting and decomposition, and the gas is toxic. The melt is hard round black beads. In the textile industry, fluorine fiber is often used to make high-performance sewing thread.

Seven. Viscose fiber and cuprammonia fiber

Viscose fiber is flammable, burning fast, the flame is yellow, giving off the smell of burning paper. After burning, the ash is less, smooth and twisted, and it is light gray or gray-white fine powder. Copper ammonia fiber, commonly known as tiger kapok, burns near flame, with fast burning speed, yellow flame and acid ester. There is little ash after burning, only a small amount of gray-black ash.

Section 2 Identification of Pure Wool Fabric

Pure wool fabric is natural and soft in color, and has good thermal insulation effect. It is the first choice for making high-grade suits and coats. But now there are more and more wool-like fabrics. With the improvement of textile processing, it has reached a level that is difficult for most customers to identify, but the color, warmth and hand feel are far less than pure wool fabrics. Here are several ways to identify pure wool fabrics for your reference when choosing clothes and fabrics.

First, touch. Pure wool fabrics usually feel smooth, long hair fabrics feel smooth along the wool, and the anti-wool has a tingling sensation. And blended or pure chemical fiber products, some are not soft, some are too soft and loose, and have a sticky feeling.

Second, look at the color. The color of pure wool fabric is naturally soft and bright, and there is no old feeling. In contrast, blended or pure chemical fiber fabrics have a dark luster or a sense of flashing color.

Third, look at flexibility. Hold the object tightly with your hands, and then let it go immediately to see the elasticity of the cloth. Pure wool fabric has high resilience and quick recovery, while blended or chemical fiber products have poor wrinkle resistance, and most of them have obvious wrinkles or slow recovery.

Fourth, identification by combustion method. Take a bunch of yarn and burn it. Pure wool fiber smells like burning hair, and chemical fiber fabric smells like burning plastic. The harder the particles are, the more chemical fiber components there are.

Five, single root identification. Under the microscope, the hair of all animals is scaly. If it is a long-haired fabric, as long as you rub a hair a few times, it will move up and down, as shown in the above picture (in order to master this skill, you can do an experiment with a hair first). If it is a common fabric, take a yarn, cut it into two pieces of 2 cm, and break it into fibers. Rub it in your palm four or five times to see if they will move.

Section 3 Wool spinning raw materials

At present, the animal hair fibers used in wool fabrics on the market are generally sheep hair, goat hair, camel hair and rabbit hair.

First, wool

Sweater, woolen cloth, felt, etc. The wool that people use the most in daily life is mainly the wool produced intensively on sheep. In the knitting industry, because the amount of sheep wool is the largest, "wool" has become the abbreviation of sheep wool.

The countries that produce more sheep wool in the world are Australia, Commonwealth of Independent States, New Zealand, Argentina and China. The count and grade of wool are the basis of evaluating the grade and quality of wool. The higher the number, the better the quality, and the higher the grade, the worse the quality.

Australian wool, which has always been admired by people, belongs to merino sheep and is produced in Australia, hence its name. Its wool fiber is thin and long, which is the best variety of wool sheep. Others, such as New Zealand, South America, European countries and southern alps, are kept by people and enjoy a high reputation in the world.

Ceylon wool is also a common variety. Sheridan wool, formerly known as Shetland wool, is named after its production in shetland islands. Because Ceylon's wool is mainly fluff, mixed with more coarse wool and coarse wool, this natural mixture of thickness and fineness forms the unique characteristics of Ceylon wool fabric, such as fullness, fluffy, soft but not delicate, good luster and elasticity, rough style and so on. However, due to low wool production and short supply, most of the so-called "sweaters" sold in the market are made of semi-fine wool from New Zealand. Some sweaters named "Cheryl Wool" cost less than 100 yuan each, or even tens of yuan. In fact, they are products that imitate Cheryl Wool style. Some "Sheryl wool" is made of all kinds of miscellaneous wool, which can only be made into coarse wool and the price is cheaper.

There is also lambswool, which is cheap and popular with consumers. In fact, it is lamb hair, which feels thick and is mostly used as wool.

Second, goat hair.

Goat hair refers to coarse hair and dead hair cut from goat hair. Generally, the fine hair of goat hair is very short and can't be spun. The coarse hair can only be used as a writing brush and brush, except mohair. Mohair, namely Angora goat hair, is produced in Angola, North America, South Asia and other places in Turkey. It is a high-quality wool fiber with smooth surface, less curl, long and thick, soft and silky luster, excellent resilience, wear resistance and high strength. It is an ideal raw material for weaving high-grade fabrics such as jacquard blanket, plush, wool coat and artificial fur. Mohair sweaters hand-knitted with thick needles are covered with silky fibers, which constitute a noble, lively and rough clothing style and are deeply loved by people. Zhongwei goat hair in northwest China also belongs to mohair. However, in the market, some people call fluffy acrylic bulky yarn "mohair" for sale, which leads to misunderstanding. This kind of acrylic bulky yarn can only be called "imitation mohair" at best.

Third, alpaca hair

Alpaca hair, also known as "camel hair", has a fiber length of 20-40 cm and is available in white, brown, gray and black. Because 90% is produced in Peru, it is also called "Peruvian wool". Its two varieties, one is curly fiber with silver luster, and the other is straight fiber with less curl, similar to mohair luster, which is often blended with other fibers as high-quality materials for making high-end clothing. At present, most camel hair on the market comes from Eastern Europe.

Fourth, rabbit hair

Rabbit hair is loved by people because of its light weight, delicacy, softness, strong warmth retention and low price. It consists of fine and soft fluff and coarse hair, mainly including ordinary rabbit hair and angora rabbit hair, the latter of which is of good quality. The difference between rabbit hair and wool is that the fiber is slender and the surface is particularly smooth and easy to identify. Rabbit hair is not easy to spin alone because of its low strength, so it is often blended with wool or other fibers to make knitwear, women's wear, coats and other clothing fabrics.

Concept and identification of pure wool

In the market, people can often see wool products marked with "pure wool" or "100% wool". Some people think that "pure wool" is equal to "100% wool", but it is not. Literally, pure wool should be 100% wool. But in fact, in the production process, in order to improve the textile properties of fibers and make fabrics more durable, some products often need to add some polyester or nylon non-wool fibers. The addition amount is clearly defined in the national standard. In this way, we will understand. Pure wool products are not 100% wool, but marked with pure wool products, and non-wool fibers are added within the specified range, so the price should be lower than 100% wool products.

In a word, if you want to buy satisfactory woolen goods in the increasingly prosperous market, you can not only try to identify them by looking, touching, asking and comparing, but also analyze the price. Of course, the safest thing is to constantly increase your understanding of product knowledge.

Identify cashmere, alpaca hair and mohair.

I. Cashmere

Cashmere is the fine hair at the bottom of goats, which grows on alpine grasslands such as Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai and Liaoning. China is a big country producing cashmere in the world, accounting for more than 1/2 of the world's total output, among which cashmere from Inner Mongolia is the top grade. Cashmere fiber is characterized by being slender and soft. Its fabric feels soft, smooth and shiny, which is much lighter than wool fabric with the same thickness, and is mostly suede style. Generally speaking, light-colored cashmere coats are mostly from white cashmere, and the quality is good; Dark colors are mostly taken from purple velvet or blue velvet, and the quality is slightly inferior.

Second, alpaca hair

Alpaca hair comes from an animal called "Alpaca" (also known as "Arbaca"), which mainly grows in the Andes of Peru. The Andes is 4500 meters above sea level, and there is a great temperature difference between day and night. It is -20 ~- 18℃ at night and 15 ~ 18℃ during the day, with strong sunlight radiation, thin atmosphere and cold wind. Alpacas living in such a harsh environment can certainly resist extreme temperature changes. Alpaca hair can not only moisturize, but also effectively resist sunlight radiation. Alpaca wool fiber contains pith cavity visible under microscope, so its thermal insulation performance is better than wool, cashmere and mohair.

In addition, alpaca wool fiber has more than 17 kinds of natural colors: from white to black, and a series of different shades of brown and gray, which is the most abundant natural color fiber in special animal fibers. The "arbaka" we see in the market refers to alpaca hair; "Su Li" is a kind of alpaca hair, which refers to adult alpaca hair with long fiber and beautiful color; People often say "Beibei" is the hair of young alpaca, and its relative fiber is thinner and softer. Alpaca wool fabric feels smooth and has excellent warmth retention.

Three, mohair

Mohair refers to Angora goat hair, which is mainly produced in South Africa and is characterized by thick fiber, small curl and good luster. Mohair fabric feels smooth and the surface is shiny. Mohair and alpaca wool fabrics are as short and smooth as wool.

Section 4 Introduction to Silk

Silk fabrics are generally divided into two categories: silk and silk-like fabrics. Silk fabrics are all labeled, so how to identify the digital code on the label? These figures have five digits. The first digit represents the raw materials used in the goods; The second digit represents the fabric structure of the goods, followed by the serial number of the goods. Before this number, the place of origin of goods was also indicated by capitalized English letters. From the serial number of silk products, the raw materials and origin of the products can be identified.

Silk raw material code: "1" stands for real silk, including mulberry silk, mulberry tussah interwoven varieties, double palace silk and mulberry silk, which account for more than 50% of mulberry silk; "2" stands for synthetic fiber; "3" stands for the blend of natural fiber and short fiber; "4" stands for tussah silk; "5" stands for rayon; "6" stands for filament interweaving of two or more raw materials, or filament interweaving of short silk size; "7" means quilt cover.

Code of origin of silk products: B is Beijing, C is Sichuan, D is Liaoning, E is Hubei, G is Guangdong, H is Zhejiang, J is Jiangxi, K is Jiangsu, M is Fujian, N is Guangxi, Q is Shaanxi, S is Shanghai, T is Tianjin, V is Henan, W is Anhui and X is Hunan.