Global Textile Industry – Overview

During the industrial revolution new innovations came in clothing, manufacture and design. Clothing manufacture was changed by these new wheels, looms, and spinning processes.

If the textile industry was seen from historical perspective there were different stages from being a domestic small scale industry to the supremacy status which it holds currently. The textiles were produced on a domestic basis then the fist stage was cottage stage in it’s history. Cloth was made from materials like wool, flax, and cotton during the first stage period. In the northern parts of Europe, cotton marked as an imported fiber in the later half of the medieval period. Cotton was grown in the warmer climate of America and Asia during the time of later phases of the 16th century. Leather, wool and linen, these materials were used in making cloth in Europe, the primary material was flax used in the northern parts of Europe.

At this time a variety of processes and innovations were implemented to make cloth. These processes depended on the material used, but preparing material fibers for the purpose of spinning, knitting and weaving were the basic steps to make a cloth.

New machines like spinning wheels and handlooms were invented at the time of Industrial Revolution. Because of industrialization, a number of new innovations were led in the textile industry in Great Britain. At that time, Britain made a big part of the textile exports. At that point of time, wool was the major export item.

A lot of effort was made to increase the speed of the production by the inventions like flying shuttle in 1733, Roller Spinning machine in 1738, flyer and bobbin.

Textile mills were located at around the rivers because they were powered by water wheels, at the initial stages, later the dependence on rivers reduced, because steam engine was invented. Using shuttles in textile industry helped to became faster and more efficient.

Today, a competitive and low priced textile industry was led by modern techniques and electronics and innovations, any type of cloth or design were offered by textile industry. China came to dominate the global textile industry with low cost labor base.