The Latest of Interest to Ladies and Gentlemen: Fabrics from Plants and Seaweed

This week the Royal Society of the United Kingdom is exhibiting beautiful varieties of British textiles made from plants and seaweed, which have drawn the attention of visitors to the textiles and fashions exhibition more than any other industrial products.

These textiles are made by a new and ingenious method, for they are washed in soapy water as soon as they are woven, and come out in splendid, brilliant colors. Seaweed also helps in the weaving of cotton yarns without their being twisted or twined, for the filaments of which the yarns are made are a blend of cotton filaments and twisted seaweed filaments. After the weaving, the seaweed filaments can be dissolved away in soapy water, leaving behind a cotton fabric stronger than the usual, made of untwisted cotton yarns.

Also on show now at the exhibition are sweaters knitted from new vegetable yarns extracted from peanuts by the scientists of the Imperial Chemical Industries company in England. These yarns are called 'Ardil'; they are artificial yarns possessing all the virtues of woolen yarns with none whatever of the defects of wool, and it is said that this invention is one of the greatest discoveries in the world of textiles in this century.

The Manchester Guardian says that these new artificial yarns were the result of fundamental studies by means of X-rays carried out by the famous English scientist Professor Astbury.