An exciting topic is how it all began.

Let’s take a look at the beginnings. In my book, which is much more intensively and extensively researched, we follow the traces of the famous Silk Road to forgotten times and regions. One day we will talk about it in another blog.

Here, however, in this excerpt, I gather some facts about the origins of the textile events and the origins of the craftsmanship from which this whole textile chain, globalised by progress and modernity, emerged.

The development of silk weaving in China dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. The production of large quantities for export, accompanied by the development of silk manufactures, did not take place until the end of the ‘Age of Disputed Empires’ in the 3rd century BC. The oldest finds of Chinese silk in Europe were made in the Celtic princely tomb of Heuneburg (Sigmaringen district), dating from the 6th century BC. (Source wikipedia)

More information on the subject can be found in the book FAST-FASHION-MINDFUCK:
  • Textile production in the Middle Ages
  • the Modern Age,
  • Antiquity.
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In some cave, somewhere and a long time ago.

Let’s go back in our history. To the time when man made an evolutionary transition and learned to make controlled fire. In the course of the evolution that followed, humans lost their huge body hair that protected them from inclement weather before the time of fire making. So there are two factors involved here. One is control over fire and the other is the ability to create weapons and tools for hunting animals. Firstly, of course, animals were hunted as a source of food, but other raw materials such as skin and hair could also be obtained from the animals that were killed. Animal bones could be used to make tools for clothing.
DRAWING
People used stones and bones to make tools, basically very similar to today’s hand sewing needle, with which they could make holes in the extracted skin, for example, to join the individual parts together.

One of the oldest cloaks was found in the Italian cave of Arene Candide. It consisted of about 400 strips of squirrel skin and is about 23,000 years old.

It could be said that in all parts of the world where people managed to survive, techniques were developed to better adapt the materials to the body and its use. So much for an outline of the origins of needles and cutting tools and fashion today.
But… the broad subject is so incredibly different from one region to another and from one era to another.

From Asia to Africa… The Aztecs, the Mayas… Europe.

There are indications that woven fabrics already existed in *1 antiquity (800 BC to about 600 AD).
Source: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Vol. 19, p. 239. weblink/https://www.evolution-mensch.de/Anthropologie/Arene_Candide

Fuente: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Vol. 19, p. 239. weblink/https://www.evolution-mensch.de/Anthropologie/Arene_Candide