Fiber Identification from Ethiopian Ladies Skirt

Nowadays wearing skirt is becoming a fashion and many styles of skirt are introduced. Ethiopian ladies wear skirts more than other country ladies. This shows that our country imports many finished fabrics which have different characteristics, services and costs. The style of the skirts can be made during sewing i.e. garment formation, finishing types given during wet processing, weaving mechanism and the type of the fiber/s used. To identify and analyze any type of skirt from which fiber/s is made, the study of textile fibers has become a very interesting and challenging science. This study is related to their identification methods and blend analysis techniques of the type/s of the fiber/s. The textile fiber products Identification Act requires that the manufacturers of cloth garments and household textiles attach labels to their products specifying the fiber content. These manufacturers are expected to know this information since it is they who tell the fabric producers the requirements for the fabrics they intended to purchase. Should product manufacturers to identify or verify the fiber content; they must be in a position either to make the appropriate technical analysis or refer samples to a testing laboratory . The retailer, in turn, is held responsible under the act to see that labels or hangtags are attached to the textile products before being sold. Reliance must be placed on the retailer's vendor to provide properly labeled merchandise. Sometimes imported merchandise arrives unlabeled or sometimes labels become detached and lost. It is then the merchant's responsibility to get appropriate labels and to attach them to the merchandise. Ready recognition and identification of fiber content in fabrics has become extremely difficult even for knowledgeable and experienced merchants because of the growing variety of types of fibers, the blending techniques in yarn and fabric construction and the finishes that affect the appearance and hand of the fabrics. Therefore, certain laboratory tests are used for identification and verification. The consumer has the greatest difficulty in identifying fiber content of fabrics. Should the identification and/or care labels be mutilated or lost from textile product, one may not know the composition of the fabric and therefore not know what to expect of it. Because one is usually not in a position to make a laboratory analysis, reliance must be placed up on certain nontechnical tests. A dye house or a dyeing enterprise should have a well qualified or shelled technical to identify the composition or fiber type supplied before processing. This is important to prepare the right recipe (formulation) and select suitable dye, machinery and processing. Garment industry, custom, quality and standardization authorities and ministry of revenue should have a well qualified technique to identify the fiber type supplied from any country to control the quality and to confirm the customer requirements. Fabrics imported to our country have to be identified and analyzed their quality and percentage quantity composition, since it is necessary to decide the quality and cost of the fabrics based on their type and component. Conclusion： Fibers can be identifying at fiber stag, yarn stage, before dying, before garment formation during marketing. To perform these identifications, the physical (strength, longitudinal and cross-sectional appearance, handle, absorbency, elasticity drapability etc.,) and chemical properties (resistant to alkalis, acids and other specific chemicals, dye affinity, burning nature etc.) of the fibers being studying is important. Now days so many similar chemical composition, textured, dyed and finishing agent are given fibers are producing. These fibers are converted to fabrics in single component or combing two or more fibers. This combining system is called blending and the produced fabric is called bled fabric. Fibers are blended to obtain combed property, to reduce cost of expensive fibers and to fid decorative color effect of garments in coloration during fiber, yarn formation and fabric formation. Single or blended fabrics can be identified and analyzed by feeling, burning, microscope test, solubility staining, density etc. Non-technical technical (feeling and burning) and technical (microscopic longitudinal appearance and solubility) tests are used to identify twenty different fabrics of ladies skirt, which are mostly wear by Ethiopian ladies and then we have calculated the qualitative and quantitative components of all the fibers. From the result most of Ethiopian ladies skirt fabrics are made of synthetic fibers like polyester, acrylic and nylon and a blend of these fibers with wool and cotton. This shows these kinds of fabrics are imported to satisfy the demand of the customers. The Ethiopian textile industries have to produce polyester, nylon and acrylic fibers and blend of these with natural fibers like cotton and wool in enough quantity for the future, since fabrics made of these fibers are cost effective, good serviceable and highly demanded by the Ethiopian ladies. If these fabrics will produced there will be additional advantage to our country since market will be in local exchange for both the customer and country's economy