This article is from an old Waldorf school newsletter from 1990. If anyone knows the source, please let me know 🙂
Anyone well acquainted with our school will have had their attention drawn at some time to the fact that when it’s a matter of cloth being put to use – in the kindergarten toys, in the handicraft lessons, in the curtains – that “natural fabrics”, i.e., pure wool, pure cotton, and sometimes pure silk, are invariably chosen. Why is that really? They feel nicer? Is that all? Is that indisputable? Do they look better, for being more expensive?
I want to explore the differences between natural and artificial fibers, using clothing as an example. First of all, what do clothes have to do with? They have to lie right next to our skin as a buffer between us and the weather. Now, our skin is warm and needs to be kept warm; it is sensitive, covered with touch receptors, and it gives off moisture. So anything that clothes us must not only warm us, but be soft and smooth, be capable of sopping up extra moisture and getting it out of the way, that is, allowing the skin to breathe. Secondly, let us be clear that the clothes we wear are animal, vegetable, and mineral, and probably, you are at this moment clothed in materials from all three of these realms.
For centuries, man has used plant and animal fibres to make cloth. Since the turn of the century, fibers synthesized from mineral substances have become available in fabrics, are widely used, and, as they are generally cheaper to produce, are to a large extent replacing animal and plant fibers.
The Plant Fibers: Linen is made from the fibers within the stem of the flax plant, which is nothing like NZ “flax”, but a sister to the very light and delicate plant with a small sky-blue flower held high that grows amongst the grass on our school property. Before cotton came along in the early 19th century from the southern states of America, all things which are still nowadays called “household linen” – sheets, towels, tablecloths, and so forth were made of linen; nowadays, scarcely anything of linen is to be found in the “linen” cupboard. Linen was also a word for “underthings” because it was made of linen. It could be spun very finely for handkerchiefs, or provide medium-weight material for suits, hardy sailcloth for children’s clothes, or, in heavyweight form, be canvas for tents and sails.
We think of linen as crisp and cool, rather than something to warm us; it loves water and takes it up greedily, which is why it continues to be used in teatowels. It is hardwearing, more so than cotton, and washes very well. One doesn’t feel clammy in linen.
Cotton comes from the seed pod of the cotton plant, which likes hot climates. It supplanted linen through its cheapness and availability (though this cheapness depended on the use of slave labour). Like linen, it is thirsty for water, and cool to wear on hot days, as it sops up perspiration and lets it evaporate in the air. Like linen, it is very suitable for wearing right next to the skin. Long after the advent of artificial fibers, this was recognised. Although synthetic fibers appeared in women’s undergarments fairly soon, children’s underclothing remained pure cotton for a long time. Now that is no longer the case, but by and large, men’s underclothing is still “natural”. Towels are still universally made of pure cotton, as no cheaper material can do as good a job of mopping up water.
The Animal Fibers: Whereas the cool, watery plants offer fibers more closely related to moisture and keeping cool, the animal kingdom gives us fibers for really warm cloth. Silk comes from an insect, from the cocoon of the silk worm moth, which is unraveled into one long, strong, light thread, and makes the cloth that is light, lustrous, smooth, and yielding. It has quite a peculiar warmth – think of how a light, fine silk scarf immediately brings about a lovely glow of warmth on one’s neck. It is also absorbent, kind to the clasp of a sweaty palm. From warm-blooded animals come wool, camel-hair, alpaca, mohair, and others, but let’s stay with sheep’s wool, which we know best. It’s a very soft hair with a crinkly fibre, and it makes quite definitely the warmest fabric, knitted or woven. It doesn’t lie close to the skin, so air is trapped next to our skin, warms up, and stays warm. It has the very special property of remaining warm when wet. It can regain one-third of its weight with water without feeling clammy. For a long time, it shrugs off water altogether because its fibers are covered with tiny overlapping scales. Wool is very suitable for wrapping babies. And when trappers were lost not so long ago in the hills, constantly rained on, they took off all the garments that were not made of wool, and plodded on in their woollen ones, and were able to keep warm. Wool’s other exceptional quality is its fire-resistance; it burns very slowly.
The Mineral Fibers: Although the mineral world is “natural”, mineral fibers don’t exist that can be used to make textiles; instead, the fibers have to be made out of the mineral by man, whereas in the plant and animal realm, they are there for the gathering. A silkworm disease, and a resulting long-term scarcity of silk in the mid-19th century prompted scientists to search for a manmade fiber that might replace it, and by the turn of the century viscose rayon was being produced out of the cellulose (cell walls) of certain conifer trees, minced up, bathed in chemicals and finally squirted through fine nozzles into an acid bath to set it into long flexible threads. Later, it became possible to make fibres from coal and oil products, and later still, other substances as well.
The chief virtue of artificial fibers such as nylon, polyester, and acrylic is their high strength. A very thin fiber is much harder to break than a natural fiber of equal thickness. The first notable use of an artificial fiber was nylon for stockings, which became very quickly accepted, appealing as it did to practicality (not so much darning) and to men’s ideas of how women’s legs should look. It seems that nylon stockings were stronger in those days.
Clothes made from synthetic fibers hold their shape, whereas a cotton garment, e.g., cord jeans, will soon stretch here and there and become “comfortable”, although not so smart. Synthetic knits snap back into place after washing, whereas natural knitted garments gradually expand – shoulders broaden, knees bag out, and socks concertina downwards. Synthetic clothes don’t need ironing back into shape so much, although one can’t escape ironing altogether, and when you do iron them, it’s harder. But what of their relationship to the warmth, the wateriness, and the sensitivity of the human skin? When it comes to providing warmth, wool and silk are far superior to acrylic, nylon, polyester, etc.
And cotton, linen, wool, and silk are far superior in absorbency. Synthetic fibers are inherently water-repellent, which is why they dry first on the line (hence the easy-care label). They can’t dry our skin and pass extra water vapour into the environment. The moisture builds up next to our skin, creating an environment for bacteria to flourish.
As for softness, in general, synthetic fabrics feel harder to the practiced hand, even when mixed with natural fibres. Not always, though. But as soon as a fabric is dampened (and our clothes do get slightly damper with use) it is apparent. A natural fabric will crush, fold, and squeeze up very biddingly and softly, but the wetter a synthetic gets, the more complex and slippery it feels. The other way of detecting the presence of synthetics, of course, is by ironing – the fibres start to near their melting point, and up wafts that acrid smell, indicating the fabric’s birth through great heat and chemical processing.
Of course, most material sold today is neither 100% natural nor pure synthetic but a mixture. To the extent that it contains a synthetic fiber, it becomes harder-wearing, less warm, and less absorbent. A towel with only 10% synthetic fiber is pretty useless, and a 50/50 mix of polyester and cotton has more characteristics of polyester than of cotton, I find. Synthetic clothing suits the washing machine but not the human body.
The history of synthetic fibers is rooted in the search for a new fiber to clothe man, but they are used for many, many other purposes than that. I feel that they are rightly used in ropes and rainwear, sails and safety harnesses, and in tyres, machinery and electrical appliances, where durability, strength and impermeability – their special qualities – are necessary.
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