There once was a woman who decided her underclothes should be made of milk, her blouse of green wood and her skirt of the Spanish broom whose bright yellow flowers scented the summer evenings. She also desired a jacket that hung to perfection, and finally chose one made of corn.
Now this may sound like spinning an improbable yarn. But teasing out fanciful threads from unexpected fibers has become a thriving industry near the northern Italian city of Brescia. “We cannot compete with China in terms of cost and bulk for basic products,” said Romano Bonadei, co-founder and past president of Filartex, a yarn-spinning company that focuses on high-end yarns. “But we can hold our own when it comes to producing customized yarns for clients whose needs we take care of,” from concept definition to communicating with weavers “we know will do our product justice. We sell a service, not a yarn.”
Today cotton cultivation ranks second only to corn as the world’s most polluting agricultural product.
Filartex has created a solution to the problem in a line of naturally dyed yarns made from hand-picked organic cotton, as has another company in the Brescia area – Maclodio Filati. Testing in both these companies’ well-equipped laboratories has shown that fibers unstressed by chemical substances have 10 to 15 percent greater absorbancy to dyes than conventional cotton. So dyeing requires lower concentrations of the color, and finished textiles are easier on the skin.
Maclodio is breaking new ground. The company has started spinning yarns made from cultivated wood fiber registered as Lenpur, an American trademark for which Maclodio has exclusive distribution worldwide, except in Japan.
The timber, Canadian silver fir, is harvested according to ecological criteria, and the yarn produced by the company’s method is not only extremely smooth, but also wears well in hot or cool climates. It has the coziness of silk, the feel of cashmere and the freshness of linen. The fact that Lenpur absorbs water so readily and then releases the dampness into the air makes it useful as light, silken toweling.
Milkofil, another yarn by Maclodio, uses spinnable fibers obtained from casein, the white, odorless protein from which cheese is made.
Fibers were, in fact, first obtained from milk in 1935, when fascist Italy was bent on pursuing a policy of autarky, a commodity self-reliance aimed at avoiding international trade. Under names like Lanital, Aralac and Merinova, these yarns replaced wool until the postwar period. By the 1950s, however, such substitutes had been happily forgotten as an embarrassing blip on the national fashion conscience.
A few years ago, Beringheli’s team rediscovered the process and began testing it. They found that milk fibers are soft, brilliant, anti-bacterial, absorbent and humectant – in other words, the milk protein contains a natural lubricant that keeps the skin moisturized and smooth, and the absorbing power of the yarns draws dampness away from the body, stabilizing body temperature. Maclodio registered Milkofil as a trademark in 2007, and a major European producer of baby and children’s wear will be using the yarn in its future collections.
Maize is the source of another fiber that can be woven for the production of some impressive fabrics. The American firm Cargill Dow of Minnesota has registered its process and supplies the fibers that Maclodio turns into the yarns used for a silken-draped jersey fabric.
Collaboration with research centers in Italy and Romania has led to the discovery of an environmentally friendly process of enzymatic maceration of the harvested plant that produces some promising fibers. Initial tests suggest that the yarns will be similar to linen and hemp, but 75 percent lighter, with the added boon of absorbing dye better than linen does.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has declared 2009 to be International Natural Fiber Year.
Source:IHT
