Pattern family

Manufactured Fibers

Manufactured fibers are made by people rather than grown on a plant or an animal. They divide in two. Regenerated fibers like rayon and acetate are spun from natural cellulose (wood pulp or cotton linters) chemically reformed into thread, the first of them reaching the market around 1900 as artificial silk. True synthetics like nylon, polyester, acrylic, and spandex are built from petrochemicals, beginning with nylon in 1938. Together they remade the twentieth-century wardrobe, and polyester is now the most-used fiber on earth.