Bamboo Clothing Is Amazingly Soft and Fashionable

While the original purpose for bamboo fibres used for clothing was allotted only to the making of corsets and bustles, improvements in the manufacturing processes involved have enabled bamboo to be used extensively for everything from baby blankets, booties, and nappies to men’s and women’s attire for everyday use or fashionable clothing that is soft, durable, and fashionable. The modern bamboo clothing seen on millions of people today is made from 100% bamboo fibres in the form of yarn or may be found in blends of cotton or organic cotton added to bamboo. Hemp as well as spandex is also combined with bamboo in the manufacture of clothing that has become increasingly popular.

Bamboo has a long tradition of wear in China and Japan

Historically textile workers in both Japan and China have woven together bamboo in thin strips, and then formed them into shoes and hats. Those familiar looking fishermen and farmer’s hats have generally been formed from bamboo fibres with the addition of whalebone or steel wire to protect the workers from the heat from the daily sun. What they needed was protective and long lasting material for their shoes as well as hats with wide brims and bamboo worked extremely well plus was quickly grown and easily cultivated.

Basic steps in the process of making wearable attire from bamboo

Modern yarn is now manufactured from the bamboo plant. It can be spun into a very viscose type yarn that is then formed into soft and luxurious materials that can then be dyed to add colour and will wear extremely well. The process is as follows:

1. Leaves of the bamboo plant are gathered, along with the inner pith which is soft and pliable, are crushed and go through a steaming process.

2. Crushed bamboo is then soaked (in a safe form of sodium hydroxide), producing cellulose.

3. This soft material is then put through a spinning process to form it into threads that can be woven into various types of material, from wood like for paper or baby soft for blankets and sheets. The softest most desirable material made from the cellulose material is put through a sieve like process called spinneret nozzles which creates the viscose fibre that eventually becomes an amazingly soft and resilient material, resulting in bamboo clothing.

A Swiss company has a more natural method of creating fibre from bamboo and that involves mechanically crushing bamboo then putting it through a process involving natural enzymes followed by washing, which breaks down the fibre into a soft material ready to be woven into clothing or linens. The result is high quality and very durable materials.

China is the main source for bamboo used for clothing

The Hebei Jigao Chemical Fibre Company is the source for most of the bamboo material which is turned into bamboo clothing. The patent held by them is for the primary process involved in turning bamboo into wearable clothing as well as linens, blankets, towels, and many other items that can be luxuriously soft and long wearing. Certified organic, the bamboo produced there must meet requirements that include proof that it originates from 100% pure bamboo stalks. women’s bamboo leggings