Textile Industry

What Do the Laws and Regulations Govern?

Before we discuss rules, let's cover some important information about the production processes involved in the textile industry. While you're reading about these segments, think about the people and operations that might be involved in each one.

Making textile goods involves four facets. They're not necessarily steps but different aspects of the industry that might have different laws and regulations governing them. First, the plant or animal from which the textile fiber comes must be grown or raised and fibers must be harvested. If the textile fiber is artificial (made from manipulated natural substances like wood pulp), or synthetic (man-made by chemical processes), it has to be manufactured.

Second, in both cases, the individual fibers must then be made into cloth. Some cloth is woven on large machines, while other types are still made by hand. Countries and cultures follow different practices. Weaving produces a large piece of fabric. But what happens to that fabric?

This is consideration three. It takes a lot of fabric to make clothing. If you look closely at a piece of clothing, you'll see that it's made of many parts that are sewn together. All of those parts have to be made before they can be assembled, and sometimes the process happens in several different countries. Someone in one country may cut the parts for a shirt, and then someone in another country may sew them together.

The fourth element includes all the other non-clothing textile goods, like blankets, curtains, rugs, and bedding. They represent a growing segment of the textile industry and are products that are made by different manufacturers. These materials, too, may have parts that are woven and assembled in multiple locations before heading to the consumer market.