Brigitte Herrbach-Schmidt
ICOM Costume Committee board member

 

Identifying fibres needs a lot of technical and chemical knowledge or at least a very high resolution picture of the fibre.

An approximate result may be obtained by a burning test, which however should not be used on Museum material, see for the reaction of fibres: Ditzi Prints Fiber Burn Chart and photos of what that looks like at http://newvintagelady.blogspot.de/2010/12/burn-testing-101.html

Luckily labels often tell what the object is made of:

Wool
( Lambs wool / Camel Hair/ Mohair / Alpaca / Angora / Cashmere)

The charcteristic of wool is its flaky structure

Cotton

The cotton fibre looks more like a band with thick edges

 

Flax	Hemp	Jute	Ramie
Silk (Mulberry, Tussah, Bourette, Schappe, Dupion)
Viscose	Rayon	Nylon	Polyester
Coolmax		Goretex

etc.

 

Read more

Tracés Techniques : F – E. Publications du CIETA.  Lyon 1979

Schenek, Anton: Lexikon Garne und  Zwirne. Eigenschaften und Herstellung textiler Fäden. Frankfurt 2006

Vocabulary of Technical Terms  Fabrics : E – F – I – S. Publications du CIETA.  Lyon 2006