FASHION TEXTILES NOW
By Janet Prescott
Vivays Publishing, 176 pages with 150 illustrations
Fashion fascinates us mostly on visual level. It is pictures that tease and lure us, trying to influence our shopping decisions. But when it comes to a real, wearable piece of clothing, one of most important questions we ask ourselves is: how would I feel in this? Here is where fabric comes into play.
Textiles can make or break a collection or even a fashion label. Loro Piana, Donna Karan and Chanel – reputation of these brands owes a great deal to the quality and unique features of the fabrics they use. It is so much more natural for a designer to get inspired by a material he can touch, cut and drape than by some vague concept or a picture in a trend book. Fashion cannot live without textile industry, but the latter is more like a separate world, an independent one, since textiles are used in many other industries such as sport, health and tech.
Fashion Textiles Now offers a journey into this wonderful world where art meets science. The first part of the book describes different kinds of natural and synthetic fibers, from trivial cashmere and alpaca to exotic spider silk and viscose made from seashells. The reader will also learn about famous textile manufacturers, designers and fabric brands. Ways of producing fabric, from traditional to innovative, are explained in the second part of the book.
Flagstaff Alpacas breeding farm, Dunedin, New Zealand
Images are courtesy of Vivays Publishing
Multidimensional approach, a broad array of facts and abundant illustrations make this book a great introductory reading, and you can benefit from it even if you don’t plan on pursuing a career in fashion. Brands promote their ‘innovative’, ‘natural’ or ‘sustainable’ fabrics, but how would you know if it is indeed good for you and not just a marketing trick? Knowledge of textiles would help you make smart shopping choices, take better care of your wearable treasures and appreciate the hard work behind the fashion scenes, because all the glitz and glamour starts from one mundane thing which is fabric.
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About the author:
Janet Prescott is an expert on textiles and the fashion industry with over 25 years of experience writing for UK and European publications. She is the fabric and yarns editor of ‘Twist’, the international luxury fashion and fabrics magazine. She has interviewed top fashion designers and industrialists and has been interviewed about fashion on the BBC and judges student work at the Royal College of Art and at the international yarns fair, Pitti Immagine Filati in Florence.
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