Plate No. 119 · fabric

Rayon

Rayon is the first manufactured fiber: not synthetic but regenerated, made by dissolving natural cellulose from wood pulp and forcing it through fine holes to harden back into thread. Developed in the late 1800s as a cheap substitute for silk and long sold as artificial silk, it drapes fluidly, takes dye brilliantly, and breathes like a natural fiber. The dominant viscose process arrived around 1905. Rayon sits between the natural and the synthetic worlds, plant in origin but industrial in making, and it opened the century of manufactured cloth.