Historically, clothing is and has been made from many materials. These materials range from grasses to furs to much more elaborate and exotic materials. Some cultures, such as the various people of the Arctic Circle, until recently, made their clothing entirely of prepared and decorated furs and skins. Other cultures have supplemented and replaced leather and skins with cloth. Cloth is either woven or knitted and can be made from a large variety of fibers, which in turn can be natural, cellulose, or synthetic.
Humans have shown extreme inventiveness in devising clothing solutions to environmental hazards and the distinction between clothing and other protective equipment is not always clear-cut; examples include space suit, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suit, swimsuit, bee-keeper's protective clothing, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and protective clothing in general.
Clothing materials
Clothing is generally made of cloth. There are many different types of cloth, with different names and uses. Main differences between types of cloth include how the cloth was made (woven, knitted, felted, and how those techniques were implemented), what fiber it was made from, and what weight the cloth is. Different types of cloth are used for different types of clothing.
Some common natural clothing materials are:
Some clothing is made from synthetic fibers, which are man made and generally not biodegradable. These are made primarily from petrochemicals. Common man-made materials include:
Less-common clothing materials include:
Reinforcing materials such as wood, bone, plastic and metal may be used in fasteners or to stiffen garments.