potd - Rayon

This is a detail of a piece of rayon  or 'artificial silk' fabric from the middle of last century. It was probably an undergarment fabric  - a lot of the  interesting pieces were.  Customers  are often surprised by the range  of fibres other than silk and cotton which have been used for kimono fabrics especially with the growth of the broader textile industry in the 20th century.  Japan started producing rayon in 1918 and were the biggest producers in the world by the end of the 1930's.