the.com/rayon
the fabric born from wood pulp pretending it was a silkworm all along
means A smooth, lightweight synthetic-ish fabric made from chemically processed cellulose (often wood pulp), used as an affordable stand-in for silk.
from From French rayon, meaning 'ray' or 'beam of light' — itself from rai, descended from Latin radius. The name was chosen in the 1920s to evoke the fabric's shimmering, light-catching sheen, a marketing rebrand of what had earlier been sold under the less alluring name 'artificial silk.'
- origin
- Made from dissolved tree or bamboo cellulose
- first name
- Originally sold as artificial silk
- weakness
- Loses much strength when wet
- chemistry
- Neither fully natural nor fully synthetic
- flammable past
- Early versions ignited dangerously easily
dupont cellophane — dupont's transparent cellulose film invented in 1923, revolutionized packaging and food preservation
viscose silk substitute — courtaulds' 1905 industrial process in coventry that made affordable synthetic fabric for mass clothing