Clothing is an item or fabric, usually sewn together to cover part of the human body. Humans are the only animals which wear clothing, and all people do wear suitable clothing. The torso (body) can be covered by shirts, arms by sleeves, legs by pants or skirts, hands by gloves, feet by footwear, and head by headgear or masks. In cold climates, people also wear heavy, thick coats such as trench coats. As time passed, the clothing changed. According to history, clothes changes along with the culture, fashion and wealth. Extraction of fabrics and waving textiles was first started in the Middle East during the late Stone Age. Wearing fabric clothes began from 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Knitting was first introduced as a fabric creation technique, dating 6500 BC, which is even popular in today’s fabrics.
The first material used for clothing is the natural fibres obtained from both plants and animal sources. These include cotton, flax, wool, leather, silk, etc. The first plant fibres used for extracting fibres are from flax seeds. Flax fibres are 36,000 years old. China was the first country to start with silk production, which was between 5000 and 3000 BC, where silk was extracted from the cocoon of the domesticated silkworm and weaved. The Evolution of clothing and textiles from the animal’s skin and plant materials are vast and colourful. Along with different cultures, different varieties of clothes appeared. Different types of fibres have their history. Cotton was cultivated in Pakistan about 3,000 BC. Wool was being woven about 4,000 BC in Egypt. Nylon, an artificial fibre was invented in the year 1935, which was used as a replacement for silk. This was a brief introduction to the history of clothing materials.
