Unfortunately extremely high water usage to grow cotton, and a lot of it is grown in places that need that water for other things (RIP Aral Sea).
Based on the article we should use flax aka linen, which I suppose makes sense. Linen was once a finery due to the excessive effort needed to produce it, but now we have machinery.
Linen actually doesn’t take to large scale mechanization very well. It causes the fibers to break into shorter pieces more often, which makes the final fabric rougher and less sturdy. Machine-woven linen also tends to be more loosely woven, which is again less sturdy.
Machines certainly helped some amount, but cotton got a way bigger boost from industrialization. That’s why cotton is so much cheaper than linen today, especially high quality linen.
Unfortunately extremely high water usage to grow cotton, and a lot of it is grown in places that need that water for other things (RIP Aral Sea).
Based on the article we should use flax aka linen, which I suppose makes sense. Linen was once a finery due to the excessive effort needed to produce it, but now we have machinery.
Linen actually doesn’t take to large scale mechanization very well. It causes the fibers to break into shorter pieces more often, which makes the final fabric rougher and less sturdy. Machine-woven linen also tends to be more loosely woven, which is again less sturdy.
Machines certainly helped some amount, but cotton got a way bigger boost from industrialization. That’s why cotton is so much cheaper than linen today, especially high quality linen.