Textination Newsline

Edinburgh was weaving what became known as Paisley shawls in the 1700s more than 40 years before the Renfrewshire town they were named after, a new exhibition will show.

Hosted by Heriot-Watt University and The Great Tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels, the exhibition will reveal that Edinburgh weavers were the first in Britain to create replicas of the Kashmir shawls brought back from India, the first recorded being in 1767.

It wasn’t until 1808 that Paisley’s weaving industry started making the shawls, and later gave the garment its iconic name.

The exhibition, called A Passion for Paisley, will feature a selection from the range of more than 100 shawls and shawl fragments that forms part of the University’s textile collection, housed in the Scottish Borders Campus in Galashiels.

Helen Taylor, Archivist at Heriot-Watt University, said: “Paisley design has stayed a very iconic motif and has remained a fixture even as fashions have changed.  Our collection in the Borders is a very good one and was really developed for teaching and research. You can't recreate the weaving, because the looms don’t exist anymore. But if you’re looking for design inspiration, Paisley shawls are a great example of East-West influence.”

Paisley shawls are richly patterned and often feature a distinctive Persian-style teardrop motif. This is inspired by the Babylonian Tree of Life, a magical tree from Mesopotamian mythology that grew in the centre of paradise.

Other motifs include floral and tendril designs, a striped zebra design and an oblong motif known as a ‘temple door’ design. Red was a recurring colour in Paisley shawls, alongside blues, greens, yellows and other colours, all created from natural plant dyes. Paisley shawls were hugely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife, was known to own about 400 of the woollen shawls.

“When the British empire was expanding, people started bringing back Kashmir shawls as gifts,” Ms Taylor explained. “They were very expensive and were actually woven in cashmere. Weavers in Edinburgh started making reproduction shawls, and the first record of a reproduction Kashmir shawl being woven was in Edinburgh in 1767.”

Edinburgh in the 1700s already had a damask industry – when designs are woven into fabric rather than printed onto it – and it was these weavers who started making the reproduction Kashmir shawls. But when fashions evolved and the shawls got bigger, the Edinburgh weavers started outsourcing to Paisley, where weaving skills and technology were advancing and amongst the best in the world.

“In Edinburgh, shawl weaving was more of a cottage industry, with small looms being used around the city’s Old Town and shawls being woven in sections and sewn together,” Ms Taylor said. “In Paisley, they started using Jacquard looms, which used punch cards and allowed more complex design to be woven more easily.”

Most of Heriot-Watt’s Paisley shawls were collected by a ceramics curator called Janet Paterson who collected Paisley shawls in the 1940s and 50s. The collection was given to the University by her son, Alan, along with his tartan collection.

A Passion for Paisley runs from 26 March to 12 July 2024 at The Great Tapestry of Scotland, 14-20 High St, Galashiels TD1 1SD. There is an entrance fee of £5.

Heriot-Watt School of Textiles and Design dates back to 1883, when classes in weaving, dyeing and chemistry were introduced to train workers for the local textiles industry.

The School is a centre of excellence in design, with Honorary Graduates including British fashion icon Dame Vivienne Westwood. It is based on Heriot-Watt’s Scottish Borders Campus, which is built around a historic mill in Galashiels, at the heart of Scotland's luxury textile industry.

The Great Tapestry of Scotland visitor centre was purpose-built to house The Great Tapestry of Scotland, one of the world’s largest community arts projects. The Tapestry was hand-stitched by a team of 1,000 stitchers from across Scotland and charts 420 million years of Scotland's history, heritage, innovations and culture through 160 panels.

From high-performance textiles to compression and sportswear: The modular software program »TexMath« of the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM enables both the simulation of mechanical material properties and the optimization of textile products.

Accelerated development and optimized design of technical textiles while reducing experiments? The demand for techniques that can realize this is especially high in areas such as the sports, medical, and clothing industries. The »Technical Textiles« team of the  »Flow and Material Simulation« department at Fraunhofer ITWM has taken up this challenge and is developing simulation methods that allow efficient prediction of textile behavior under stretching, shear, bending, torsion, or compression. It is also possible to simulate wrinkling under stretching as well as shrinkage of yarns or critical shear angles throughout the manufacturing process.

The »TexMath« simulation software they developed ensures that process chains in production can be adapted to new materials in advance. Complicated patterns and layers can be mapped with the help of the software and a direct connection to the textile machine can be made. Desired woven, knitted and warp-knitted products are accurately simulated with the software and their material properties computed. In addition to evaluating a particular textile design using simulation, the tools also provide optimization of performance characteristics for different design variations. The goal of the software, according to team leader Dr. Julia Orlik, is to »realize the design according to product properties and target criteria.«

TexMath consists of several components: »MeshUp«, »FibreFEM« and »FIFST«. Each of the components included in TexMath has its specific field of application. In addition, the tools have interfaces to each other as well as connections to the software »GeoDict®« of the Fraunhofer spin-off Math2Market, which can be used, for example, to perform fluid mechanical simulations on the textiles.

One area of application for the TexMath software is the optimization of compression textiles for the medical sector or for sports. For optimal effectiveness, the fit of the material is particularly important. For example, the knitting process can be simulated with TexMath to create a bandage with predefined compression properties and thus design the optimal knitted fabric. This virtual bandage is then loaded in another simulation and put on a virtual arm or leg. Thanks to TexMath, the calculated pressure profile makes it possible to evaluate the compression properties of the bandage in advance and also to directly control the knitting machine according to the optimal design.

»TexMath can also be used to design spacer textiles, such as those used for the upper material of sports shoes and for the production of high-performance textiles, and to optimize them in advance in terms of structure and fluid mechanics,« say Dr. Julia Orlik and department head Dr. Konrad Steiner, naming further areas of application for the software.

The newly developed input interface is particularly user-friendly. The textile class (i.e. knitted, warp-knitted, woven and spacer fabrics) can be easily set. The new graphic interface allows simple and fast configuration.

MeshUp for Structure Generation of Woven Patterns and Stitches
Knitted and woven fabrics are produced with the aid of knitting or weaving machines. Each textile is based on a looping diagramm, which is read into the machine or is firmly pre-defined in the machine. MeshUp is the software module of TexMath, in which looping diagramm for various woven and knitted fabrics with different types of binding, the yarn path and all contact points between different yarns are created, graphically displayed and translated into the corresponding input formats for further simulations in TexMath with FISFT and FiberFEM. In addition, MeshUp also provides the geometry as volume data (voxel format) for calculation tools such as GeoDict and FeelMath.

FiberFEM to Calculate Effective Mechanical Properties of a Periodic Textile Structure
With FiberFEM, woven and braided textiles, spacer fabrics, scrims and trusses can be calculated and optimized regarding their effective mechanical material properties. A special feature of FiberFEM is that, in addition to tensile and shear properties, effective bending and torsional properties of textiles can also be determined based on their textile structure and yarn properties.

As input variables FiberFEM requires the microstructure description from MeshUp, the fiber cross-section geometry, as well as mechanical fiber properties such as tensile stiffness and friction. As output the effective mechanical textile quantities are calculated. Besides the calculation of the effective mechanical material properties for already existing woven or knitted textiles for technical and medical applications, the approach also offers the potential for the targeted design and optimization of new textiles with a given mechanical property profile.

For example, the relaxation behavior of a textile can be determined from the weave or knit pattern and the yarn relaxation times for viscoelastic yarns. Coefficients of friction between the yarns are also taken into account and are directly included in the simulation of the effective properties or identified from the experimental validation with the fabric.

FIFST to Calculate the Deformation and Load of Textiles
The tool FIFST is specialized for dynamic simulations of stretchable knitted fabrics and teir production. For example, the knitting process can be simulated, the pull-off from the knitting machine, the shrinkage to a relaxed textile and also the further deformation during tightening can be calculated. This means that the design of the knitted fabric can also be adapted to predefined tension profiles and individualized machine control is possible for the production of personalized textiles or product-specific designs.

The numerical implementation uses the finite element method with non-linear truss elements, which has been extended for contact problems by an additional internal variable - the sliding of threads at contact nodes. The friction law is implemented with the Euler-Eutelwein model, which was extended by an additional adhesion term. Adhesion thus allows different pre-strains in the respective meshes. The elastic energy is calculated directly from the yarn force-elongation curves.  

One of the most important unique selling points of FIFST is the special technology of assigning several elements to specific threads and their arrangement in the thread as well as the simultaneous contact sliding at millions of nodes. Thus FIFST enables multi-scale simulation of large knitted or woven shell components, taking into account the local textile structure.

Another functionality of the software is to virtually drag textiles over a surface triangulation given in STL format. In the video, woven mask (knitted is also possible) is extended in the plane at 6 points and pulled against the face surface. Its knots are projected onto the face and continue to slide on the surface until the mask is fully in place. If you know frictional properties of yarns on the face, you can investigate further folding formation and also influence it specifically. As a further potential for optimization, FIFST allows to minimize pore sizes of dressed textiles on particularly curved surface areas. This can be achieved by increasing the pre-tension in yarns or by modifying the lapping diagram or the binding cartridge.

For a Test demoversion, please contact

Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM
Fraunhofer-Platz 1
67663 Kaiserslautern

Phone: +49 631 31600-4342

texmath@itwm.fraunhofer.de    

• Clothing exports are declining 

New Delhi (GTAI) - Structural weaknesses and fiscal reforms are affecting the Indian textile industry. Modernization and diversification are necessary. For this where support measures will come into force.

In the 2016/17 fiscal year (April 1st to March 31st), India's government initiated a number of fundamental reforms such as the introduction of the nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST) and a partial currency devaluation. These measures are intended to advance the economy as a whole in the medium to long term, but have led to uncertainty and difficulties in individual sectors, including the textile industry. Added to this are high cotton prices. The government is now trying to help the industry with individual measures. It remains to be seen whether these will be sufficient and lead to a sustained improvement. Finally, there are structural weaknesses which are also slowing down the growth of the Industry.

"The by the introduction of GST caused dent and monetary depreciation has now been overcome. However, the structural problems remain, so that no fundamental changes in the textile industry are to be expected", according to the assessment of a German supplier with many years of experience in India in talks with Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI).

Government launches aid measures
However, some government measures should provide relief. At the beginning of August 2018, import duties on 328 textile products, especially fabrics and nonwovens, were increased from around 5 to 10 percent to up to 20 percent. Also, at the beginning of the month, the Executive Board introduced four bills to amend the general VAT Act introduced on July 1st 2017. This should make refunds, for example of taxes on intermediate products, easier and faster. The introduction of GST and the delays in reimbursement have put particular pressure on the liquidity of small and medium-sized companies, which make up the bulk of textile companies. For example, the denim industry temporarily had to take 25 to 30 percent of its capacity out of production after the tax introduction.

 Also, the Ministry of Textiles wants to strengthen the to it entrusted weakening industry. At the beginning of August 2018, for example, it added changes to the Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS), which has been in existence since 1999. This now expanded technology promotion program allows cooperative banks to provide financing to textile companies for technological improvements. They also become accessible for liability partnerships. Of the approximately USD 1.1 billion, that the central government budget is holding for the textile industry in the fiscal year 2018/19, one third, 14 percent more than in the previous year, are intended for the TUFS. Manufacturers of synthetic fibers and the clothing industry in particular are likely to benefit from this, according to industry sources.

The existence of an own Ministry of Textiles shows how important this industry is for India, not only as a source of foreign exchange, but also as an employer. The entire sector, from spinning mills, weaving mills to clothing and other finished goods, contributed around 14 percent to value creation in the manufacturing industry and 13 percent to foreign exchange revenues in 2017, and employs directly 40 million and indirectly 60 million workers.

As one of the world's leading producers of cotton, jute and silk, India has comparative advantages in the textile sector and can look back on a long tradition in processing. Accordingly, cotton is the main raw material in yarn and fabric production. After all, 5.7 billion tons of yarn were spun in 2016/17, achieving an annual average increase of 3.1 percent between 2011 and 2017. The weaving mills processed 63.5 billion square meters of fabric in 2016/17, after 61.7 billion in 2011. The proportion of cotton fabrics rose from 51 to 61 percent in 2011 to 2017. The remaining part is accounted for approximately equally by synthetic and blended fabrics.

 
Production and export growth come to a halt Based on the previously strong growth the government is optimistic. According to forecasts by the Ministry of Textile, India's textile and clothing industry is expected to more than double its sales between 2015 and 2021. Exports are expected to increase from USD 35 billion to USD 82 billion, after doubling in the period from 2006 to 2014 from USD 17.6 billion to USD 37.6 billion. After that, however, they stagnated and, at USD 35 billion in 2017/18 and missed the by the government set target by USD 10 billion. The production of textiles and clothing declined from 2015 to 2017. It is unlikely to improve in 2018.

¹⁾ Financial years from 1 April to 31 March; ²⁾ Provisional data for 2016/17 and 2017/18
Source: Statistical Office India
     

Clothing industry needs to modernize 
India's textile industry has cost advantages over industrialized countries and advanced emerging countries such as China. Smaller developing countries, however, have become well-known competitors in the meantime and have partly surpassed India in terms of clothing. So Bangladesh and Vietnam exported more clothing than India. In addition there is growing competition from other low-wage countries such as Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Some of these countries have free trade agreements with the EU, while India has difficulties in negotiating them. The smaller competitors have also geared their clothing industry to exports and modernized it accordingly. After all, they do not have significant local markets. The Indian textile manufacturers are different: If there is not enough quality for export, the domestic market, which has a population of 1.3 billion inhabitants and is growing strongly, is still there, industry representatives explain to GTAI.

India's apparel industry therefore still has a considerable potential for modernization and requires new production technologies, particularly to improve operating efficiency. Other structural weaknesses include strong wage increases with insufficient productivity growth and a shortage of well-trained skilled workers. Other disadvantages are the fragmentation of the clothing industry - many companies lack size - and the lack of adaptation to global fashion trends. While the fashion world is more prone to fiber mixed fabrics, the Indian clothing is not yet following this trend. There is a lack of product diversification.

The spinning and weaving sector looks more modern. Industry experts attest to it a leading international position in terms of size, technology, productivity, quality and price. This is also evident when importing machines. India was the most important export market for German spinning machines to China in 2017 and the fifth largest market for weaving machines, according to the Textile Machinery Association of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA). In textile finishing machinery, India does not rank among the top six export markets, but its competitor Bangladesh does.

Double-digit growth in foreign direct Investment 
Foreign investments in the Indian textile industry are welcome and 100 percent foundations by foreign companies are welcome. On promotional trips to countries such as Japan, Germany, Italy and France, India is actively attracting investors and has not been unsuccessful. The inflow of foreign direct investment into the textile sector, including dyed and printed textiles, amounted to USD 2.7 billion between April 2000 and September 2017. Cumulative investments increased by an annual average of 17.3 percent between 2010 and 2017. However, the bulk of the investment is being stemmed by national Indians. Total investments in India's textile sector from June 2017 to May 2018 amounted to USD 4.2 Billion.

• 2015 Sales reached eight-year high
• Particularly manufacturers of technical textiles successful

Prague (gtai) - The Czech textile and clothing industry is still on the upswing. Particularly in niche segments and with technical textiles the manufacturers achieve rising revenues since years. The investment climate in the sector therefore has been improved, the equipment suppliers are benefitting. German manufacturers of machinery for the textile and clothing industry were able to expand their exports to the Czech Republic in 2015 by one fifth.

With Czech Crowns 52.4 billion (Kc; EUR 1.9 bn) the Czech textile industry achieved so much revenue in 2015 as not anymore in the last eight years. According to the statistics office the clothing manufacturers output rose by 11%, that of textile manufacturing by 3%. Very good filled are the order books. For companies in the clothing industry the volume of new orders rose by over 13% in 2015, in the textile factories
by 4%.

According to the announcement of the professional association ATOK, the sector would have developed even better, if the growth markets in Asia and Africa would have not weakened. But fortunately the loss became offset by the traditional markets Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Austria and France. According to ATOK the textile segment of the Czech Republic exported goods worth equivalent of almost EUR 2.5 billion in 2015, corresponding to a trade surplus of almost EUR 30 million. In clothing, the country recorded a negative balance. Here goods were imported for Euro 2 billion and exported of EUR 1.3 Billion.

Source: Association of Textile, Garment and Leather Industry (ATOK, http://www.atok.cz)

Particularly in niche segments the clothing manufacturers can maintain themselves in their position. For example Triola from the northern Bohemia Horni Jiretin specializes in lingerie and successfully with oversizes. Also manufacturers like Timo, Pleas, Upavan or Linia can exist with underwear products on the market. According to reports from the business paper Hospodarske noviny Timo sells 200.000 pc. per year. The company offers among others prosthetic lingerie against breat tumors.In the next two years the family operation will invest more than EUR 700,000 in new technologies at the production site Litomerice (North Bohemia).

Hats and hoods are demanded in 30 countries

Another family company, Kama from Prague, specializes in headwear. With hats, scarves, headbands, gloves or hoods it makes now more than EUR 1 million per year and delivers to 30 countries. In Moravia-Silesia Sky Paragliders from Frydlant nad Ostravici invests around EUR 4 million in a weaving mill including a research center to develop new materials. The company produces emergency parachutes and rescue systems and belongs with annual revenues of EUR 2.7 million (2014) to the top ten manufacturers worldwide. It processes 200 kilometers of fabrics annually.

Thanks to favorable wages and the proximity to areas with good purchasing power smaller suppliers of made to measure products developed well. The company Janek from Roznov in Zlin produces,for example, 30,000 individually tailored shirts per year. Also suits and costumes belong to the assortment. Janes buy the yarn from a German yarn manufacturer which produces in the Czech Republic.

1) Change 2014 / 113 in%; 2) Fiscal year October 2012, 2013 till September 2013, 2014; 3) December 2012, 2013 till November 2013, 2014; 4) April 2013, 2014 till March 2014, 2015
Sources: Annual company reports, Trade register, Hospodarske noviny, Magazine Ekonom, CzechInvest, Association ATOK

The most actively trading companies in the textile sector are producing mostly for industrial consumers. Largest industry representative is the automotive supplier Borgers from Bocholt, which produces textile moldings, paneling, insulation and curtains for vehicles at four locations near Plzen. The second largest textile company Juta achieves half of its revenue from construction materials such as drainage mats, erosion control fabric or roof insulation. Moreover Juta makes a good business with packaging nets for potatoes or Christmas trees. One other growth area is artificial turf. The company invests nearly EUR 20 million every year, mainly in new production equipment.

Textile Machinery ordered for 250 m Euro

Other companies are expanding too. The manufacturer of workwear Waibel has expanded its site in2015. In Zdar nad Sazavou near Jihlava own collections and custom made programs are being manufactured. Clothing manufacturer Pleas invests annually over EUR 1 million in its equipment. The company belongs to the top 10 of the sector and produces annually 15 million pieces nightwear for the brands Schiesser and Pleas. The German machinery manufacturer Mayer & Cie. builds a factory for knitting machines in Vsetin. The production is expected to comence in summer 2016. The machines are designed for large manufactures particularly in Asia.

Source: Czech Statistical Office