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Fashion Practice
The Journal of Design, Creative Process & the Fashion Industry
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Polyester: A Cultural History
Anneke Smelik
To cite this article: Anneke Smelik (2023): Polyester: A Cultural History, Fashion Practice, DOI:
10.1080/17569370.2023.2196158
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17569370.2023.2196158
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Polyester: A
Cultural History
Anneke Smelik
Abstract
Polyester is the most ubiquitous fabric for textiles. In 2021 textile pro-
duction in the world amounted to 113 million metric tonnes, of which
54%was polyester. Yet, we seem to know very little about this most
important fiber for textiles and apparel. This article fills that gap by
tracing a cultural history and critique of polyester. There are several
phases in the production and reception of polyester, which was invented
in the early 1940s. From the initial suspicion in the 1950s for a then still
expensive new fabric, it moved to an immense boom in the 1960s, only
to be followed by a steep bust at the end of the 1970s. Polyester was
then made interesting again in the 1980s by the avantgarde designs of
the Japanese couturiers. From the 1990s onwards polyester became the
staple ingredient for fast fashion. Polyester is by far the most produced
Anneke Smelik is Professor of
Visual Culture at the Radboud
University Nijmegen
(Netherlands). She publishes
widely on identity, body, memory
and technology in fashion, cin-
ema, videoclips, and popular cul-
ture. Her most recent books
include Delft Blue to Denim Blue:
Contemporary Dutch Fashion
and Materializing Memory in Art
and Popular Culture. She is co-
editor of the journal Critical
Studies in Fashion & Beauty.
anneke.smelik@ru.nl
Fashion Practice
, 2023, Volume 0, Issue 0, pp. 1–21
DOI: 10.1080/17569370.2023.2196158
#2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits
non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been pub-
lished allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
and used fiber for apparel: from couture to fast fashion and from
sportswear to high-tech wear. However, consumers worry about polyest-
er’s negative impact on the environment, by not being degradable and
shedding microfibers into earth and water. Polyester has moved from an
optimistic age of “plastic fantastic”to the awareness of the “plastic
soup.”
KEYWORDS: Polyester, polymers, plastic, pollution, biobased, man-
made fibers, artificial, sustainability
Textile Amnesia
Try to imagine a wardrobe without polyester. Even if one prefers clothes
made of natural fibers like cotton, linen or wool, a wardrobe will con-
tain many blends with synthetics, while swimwear and sportswear are
virtually impossible without polyester fibers. One’s home, too, most
likely contains synthetic fibers in upholstery, curtains or carpets
(Blaszczyk 2008; Troy 2019). Synthetics, but polyester in particular, is
all-pervasive in today’s textiles and clothes: polyester makes up 54% of
all produced fibers, by far outselling cotton. To give an idea of the stag-
gering figures: according to Textile Exchange
1
the total production of
fibers in 2021 was 113 million tonnes, of which polyester 61 million;
cotton 20 m; polyamide (nylon) 5 m, viscose 5 m, wool 1 m, linen
400,000, and hemp 60,000 tonnes (Textile Exchange Preferred Fiber &
Materials Market Report 2023, 72). The production volume of polyester
fibers increased from 57 million tonnes in 2020 to 61 million tonnes in
2021 (5).
Polyester is “the most widely used man-made synthetic material,
either as a single fibre or as a blend with natural or other fibres”
(Hallet and Johnston 2019, 188). Polyester is abundantly present then,
but we seem to know so little about it (this observation is confirmed
by ethnographic research by Stanes and Gibson [2017]). Virginia
Postrel writes: “We suffer textile amnesia because we enjoy textile
abundance”(2020, 248). The consumer generally knows little or noth-
ing about the raw materials or the processes of making fabrics nor
about the people making them. The lack of knowledge of textiles had
already been noted in the early 2000s: “loss of tradition and knowledge
of the textile universe”is due to people no longer making their own
clothes and only being interested “in brands on sale”(Bramel and
Fauque 2001, 123, author’s translation).
2
Yet, textiles have been funda-
mental to human culture, history, and industry (B
edat 2021; Postrel
2020; St. Clair 2019). Perhaps within Fashion Studies scholars and stu-
dents have more knowledge of the invention of yarn and textiles as the
story of human ingenuity, yet I doubt that many know much about the
invention and innovations of polyester. In this article I address this
knowledge gap.
2Anneke Smelik
Let me start from personal recollections. Not so long ago I bought
an up-market dress that I thought was pure silk but turned out to be
100% polyester. I was pleasantly surprised it felt so soft, draped so ele-
gantly, and didn’t make me sweat. Obviously, my image of polyester
was quite outdated. Indeed, my dislike of synthetics dated from memo-
ries of the 1970s and sleeping in synthetic sheets while holidaying in
London, waking up in a sweat with the sheets clinging to my skin and
static sparks all over me when getting out of bed. I also remember the
smell of bodily odors in a polyester twin-set I owned as a teenager,
worn on a pliss
e skirt that made me look prematurely dowdy. Yet, the
experience of synthetic clothes sat more favorably with my parents. My
father was delighted with lightweight polyester suits and refused to ever
wear his heavy woolen bespoke suits again. My mother looked hip and
cool in her Trevira short dress in pastel colors. Let alone how much she
enjoyed the convenience of wash-and-wear—I do remember the house-
wives in our street gathering together on Mondays to do the washing by
boiling water on the stove, drying the clothes through a large wringer,
and ironing for days after (cf. Schneider 1994, 4). This is still the early
1960s back then in post-war Europe. As Susannah Handley writes, we
should not forget the “labour-intensive, time-consuming, and exhausting
hand-washing and ironing”that was the tedious job of women (1999,
68), to which washing machines and synthetic fabrics put an end.
As mentioned above, polyester today may be “[o]ne of the world’s
most widely used fibers”(Fashionary Team 2021, 47), yet, it is surpris-
ingly understudied. As Philip Sykas argues, “fashion studies has devoted
little attention to the physical substrate of garments”(2013, 235). This
has recently been redressed by several books on fashion and material-
culture studies (for example Lehmann 2018; Jenss and Hofmann 2020;
Woodward 2020), but remarkably none of these scholars focus on the
study of fibers or fabrics. Academic books have been written about silk,
wool, cotton, and even about synthetic fibers like nylon (Handley 1999)
and Lycra (O’Connor 2011), but there is very little research material
available about polyester outside the field of chemistry or technology.
3
Moreover, most sources dry up around the turn of the millennium.
Apparently, polyester had by then become global and banal, not worth
studying anymore in the field of fashion and textile studies.
In this article I make a beginning of what I hope will be a renewed
focus on polyester, by tracking and tracing a cultural history and cri-
tique of this ubiquitous synthetic fiber. Sophie Woodward briefly men-
tions the methodology of “following the materials,”claiming this
approach is “predominantly theoretical”as it is rooted in new material-
ism (2020, 110). As I consider my own work as part of new materialism
(Smelik 2018), I investigate here the material agency of polyester beyond
its discursive meanings. My methodology mainly consists of literature
research, bringing together diverse strands of research on polyester. To
get a grip on what polyester is in its chemical and technological terms,
Polyester: A Cultural History 3
and on its role in textile history since its invention, I conducted online
interviews with three experts in the field: Dr Michiel Scheffer at
Wageningen University; Dr Jan Jager at NHL Stenden University; and
Prof. Arun Aneja at East Carolina University. They gave me technical
information that is difficult to glean from a literature review. Moreover,
I visited the Textile Museum in Tilburg (Netherlands) several times to
investigate their collection of yarns and fabrics that allowed me to see
and feel what shapes polyester takes in its different stages of
production.
The article starts with “the making of”story by explaining polyest-
er’s invention and subsequent innovations. I then sketch polyester’s cul-
ture history on the basis of literature research to arrive at polyester’s
role today in fast fashion. Kassia St. Clair argues that fast fashion would
not even exist without synthetic fabrics (St. Clair 2019, 219; see also
Fashionary Team 2021, 47). As fast fashion points to the enormous
overconsumption and overproduction of textiles, I will end the article
by pointing out some of the dilemmas of a sustainable future regarding
polyester.
Polyester: Inventions and Innovations
Like plastic, to which it is related, polyester is “in essence the stuff of
alchemy,”as Roland Barthes wrote in a short piece in the 1950s (2011,
110). Following the story of this material means entering the field of
chemistry. Polyester is a synthetic fiber, that is to say it is man-made.
Synthetic fibers are chemical compounds derived from fossil fuels like
oil, gas, and coal: polyester, polyamide (known as nylon), aramids (aro-
matic polyamides), acrylic and modacrylic; olefin (polyethylene and
polypropylene); and elastane and synthetic rubber (polyurethane), PVC
(polyvinyl chloride) (Hallet and Johnston 2019, 183; Fashionary Team
2021, 17).
So what is polyester? “Poly”means many or multiple, and ester
means a chemical compound derived from oil. Polyester is the synthesis
of terephthalate with polyethylene (Bramel and Fauque 2001, 35; inter-
view with Jager, April 2021). But that does not explain much yet. The
story starts with the discovery of polymers by Hermann Staudinger in
1925, in the macromolecular structure of natural cellulose fibers; a dis-
covery for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1953 (32; Meyer-Larsen
1972, 158). Susan Freinkel explains that polymers (Greek for “many
parts”)“are substances made up of long chains of thousands of atomic
units called monomers (Greek for ‘one part’) linked into giant mole-
cules”(2011, 5). Their essential feature, she adds, is their “plasticity.”
All polymers are carbon chemistry: they are C chains (olefins), C chains
with O (esters) and C chains with N (amides) (Meyer-Larssen 1972;
interviews with Jager and Scheffer, April 2021). Carbon chemistry can
be made from air, from natural raw materials, or from oil (i.e. plants
that have been pressed into the soil for millennia). It may be interesting
4Anneke Smelik
to realize that polymers actually exist in nature; they “make up natural
fibres in the form of biologically produced compounds, cellulose and
protein”(Trocm
e2022, 70).
While synthetic polymers were already invented and produced as the
first plastic products in the beginning of the twentieth century, for
example celluloid and bakelite, it took some time to develop synthetic
fibers. The famous name here is Wallace Carothers who further proc-
essed polymerization of long-chained molecules in the 1920s
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 7 and 32; Meikle 1995, 82; Postrel
2020, 220). His seminal article on polymerization from 1931 formed
the start of an entire new field of polymer science. At the American
chemical plant DuPont, Carothers and his team produced a highly vis-
cous material by making synthetic polymers in the laboratory around
1935, “suggesting a high molecular weight”(Postrel 2020, 220) with
“molecular chains of practically limitless length”(Handley 1999, 18).
But this sticky resin was not yet spinnable (Brunnschweiler and Hearle
1993, 7). Although Carothers produced the first polyesters, he was
more interested in polyamide—which came to be known as nylon. It
was in 1935 that DuPont in the USA could spin the first entirely syn-
thetic fiber of polyamide, which was soft, pliable, and strong, resem-
bling silk (Postrel 2020, 222). By 1938 polyamide yarn was ready for
testing and a year later the first synthetic stockings were produced for
the market. “Nylon”became the generic name for polyamide fibers after
a contest in which over four hundred names were suggested (Handley
1999, 37; Meikle 1995, 137 ff). The outbreak of the Second World War
made the chemical industry shift their production to war purposes, for
example, by making parachutes of nylon.
After WWII further innovation on polyester did not happen in the US
but shifted to the UK. The chemical compound that is used for polyester
is what is known as PET: polyethylene terephthalate of which the princi-
pal ingredient is ethylene, a petroleum-derived polymer. Polyethylene ter-
ephthalate had already been discovered by Carothers in 1931, but it was
the British chemists Whinfield and Dickson from Calico in Lancashire
who drew the first filament in 1941 (Handley 1999,54–55; Postrel 2020,
222; Whinfield 1953). They had the “clear objective of finding a new
fibre-forming polymer”(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 34).
PET today is mostly associated with plastic bottles, but out of the
millions of tonnes of PET that are annually produced, roughly one third
is used for bottles and packaging while almost two thirds is used for
polyester textiles. When polyester is produced in the factory, it takes the
form of white granules, flakes or chips, from which the producer can
make either plastic for packaging or filaments for textiles. For the pro-
duction of filaments the polyester material is first made viscous. This
viscous liquid is then put through a spinneret for wet, dry or gel spin-
ning to first solidify and then draw or stretch the fibers (Hallet and
Johnston 2019, 187).
Polyester: A Cultural History 5
Even when a polyester fiber had been made in the 1940s, the indus-
try had to learn the operations of “melt spinning, pretwisting, draw
twisting for strength, uptwisting for elasticity, shrinkage removal, sizing
to protect filament during further processing, spooling, knitting, pre-
boarding of stockings to prevent wrinkles, dyeing, and so on. Many pro-
cedures were new to the textile industry”(Meikle 1995, 137). In other
words, the chemists may have conjured up a miracle yarn, but it took
both the textile industry and the consumer decades to get used to syn-
thetic fabrics.
To conclude polyester’s“the making of”story: this synthetic fiber is
produced entirely chemically in a plant or laboratory, almost always
from by-products of petroleum or gas (Trocm
e2022, 70). As St. Clair
puts it: “Polyester, one of the cheapest synthetics, is essentially a plastic
derived from crude oil”(2019, 219). Plastic it may be, but the chemists
helped produce a soft fabric that drapes easily, holds garment shapes
well, is highly durable, fast drying, iron-free, wash-and-wear, mildew
and soil resistant, retains pleats set by heat, and takes dye well (cf.
Fashionary Team 2021, 47). And it is cheap—a miracle fiber indeed.
The Early Years: A Miracle Fiber
In the 1950s when polyester was still very expensive, the satirical science
fiction film The Man in the White Suit (1951) told the story of a man in
a suit made of an indestructible material that made clothes last forever
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 182; Handley 1999, 57). Durability
was indeed one of the key strengths that made polyester so important.
However, the dystopian story of the film also pointed to the reservations
people had about the petrochemical industry in general and synthetic
fabrics in particular. The petrochemical industry was after all related to
the war industry and its related fear of the atom bomb that was so dom-
inant for the decades of the Cold War: “Polyester was the fibre that was
born in the war and bred in peace”(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993,
182). Marketing had to convince the consumer of polyester’s advantages
(Blaszczyk 2006). In the post-war period of privation and rationing,
there was an enormous “appetite for more clothes”(Handley 1999, 54).
The years of commercial launching of polyester paralleled those of the
birth of the “boomer generation,”that post-war boom in the birth rate.
There was a “pent-up consumer demand”that needed to be satisfied,
marking the start of enormous productivity and economic growth.
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 204).
While nylon stockings were made for women, polyester in the 1950s
was mostly used in blends for men’s suits. The wash-and-wear suit and
drip-dry shirts liberated housewives from the drudgery of ironing
(Handley 1999, 58). No wonder “they attracted instant converts”as
Jane Schneider writes (1994, 4). Polyester was marketed for its modern
connotations; here was a “magic”fiber of convenience and easy care.
Polyester had several more qualities that convinced the consumer for the
6Anneke Smelik
new lifestyle trends of comfort that were fast developing: it was light-
weight, resistant to stains, wrinkle-free, recovered rapidly from stress,
and when used for uniforms the fabric stayed neat during hard work
(Handley 1999, 59). According to Susannah Handley, after initial hesita-
tion, “consumer reaction was overwhelmingly favourable”(59). Jeffrey
Meikle adds that by the mid-1960s polyester was widely accepted by
the middle classes as “miracle suits that never need pressing”with per-
manent-press pants (1995, 191).
But it was not only marketing that convinced the consumer.
Contrary to myth, already in the 1950s French couturiers used synthetic
fibers for their collections; Handley’s book (1999) shows many pictures
of synthetic gowns made by Chanel, Dior, Balmain, and Givenchy.
Balenciaga made synthetic (nylon) rain coats in 1947 (Bramel and
Fauque 2001, 92) and in Italy couturiers Valentino, Schubert, Sorell
Fontana and Gattinoni also experimented with the new fiber of polyes-
ter (Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 220).
Whereas prices were high in the 1950s, they soon dropped with the
tremendous expansion of polyester in the 1960s. As competition
increased, prices went down, which made in turn the volume increase
and prices drop again (Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 205). Handley
writes: “There was every indication that the synthetics revolution was
unstoppable”(1999, 61). As Jeffrey Meikle recounts, the plastic age had
indeed begun. The chemical industry acquired a utopian aura, launching
the idea that “the future is in our hands”(1995, 69). In spite of the ini-
tial uncertain responses and anxieties, consumers were so eager for new
products that they accepted the “utopian gospel of wonder-working
chemistry”(136). The chemical industry was already big before the
Second World War, but now the companies became giants, such as
DuPont in the USA. IG Farben was the largest in Germany, but there
were also Glanzstoff, BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, and Agfa; ICI (Imperial
Chemical Industries) and Courtaulds in England; Snia Viscosa in Italy;
Rh^
one-Poulenc in France; ENKA in the Netherlands, etc. Interestingly,
those companies put a lot of money and time into fundamental research
which accounted for the many inventions and innovations in synthetic
fabrics for decades to come (Meyer-Larsen 1972; Brunnschweiler and
Hearle 1993; Bramel and Fauque 2001). For example, the invention of
Lycra fiber in 1955 was the “…result of slow and painstaking work on
polymer technology”for many years (O’Connor 2011, 83).
As apparel became affordable for the middle classes, and clothes
became big business, further democratization of fashion took place
(Lipovetsky 1994). A wardrobe revolution happened where gradually
man-made fabrics were valued over natural ones. Moreover, a modernist
aesthetic entered the designs of fashion, partly made possible by those
synthetic fibers: bright colors, permanent pleating, different shapes and
smooth, simple, slender silhouettes (O’Connor 2011, 79). In the 1960s,
polyester, like plastic, became the icon of modernity.
Polyester: A Cultural History 7
The Boom: “Plastic Fantastic”
As synthetic fabrics were cheap, abundant, and convenient, they became
a huge success, which came at the expense of natural fibers, particularly
cotton. Kassia St. Clair relates how in 1960 64 percent of fibers in the
USA was made of cotton and 29 percent of synthetics. But a decade
later the tables were reversed: 58 percent of fibers were made of syn-
thetics, versus 39 percent cotton (2019, 210). In the 1970s polyester pri-
ces had plummeted as competitive capacities had increased explosively;
it was now for the first time lower priced than cotton (Brunnschweiler
and Hearle 1993, 206). Together with other man-made fibers like nylon,
Lycra, acrylic, and many others, polyester became popular. The yarn
was given higher quality and strength through open-end spinning and
high speed weaving equipment (206). Innovations like textured double-
knits, comfort stretch wovens, and polyester/cotton blend denims further
improved the use and functions of polyester (207). Aggressive marketing
did the rest to make polyester acceptable for large sections of the popu-
lation (idem).
The 1960s was the decade of “plastic fantastic,”in which artificial
fibers and materials were heralded as the new technologies for a modern
age. There was an explosion of many new fabrics. To keep up with the
image of modernity and also dissociate the synthetics from the chemical
industry, many companies came up with fanciful high-tech names:
DuPont named polyester Dacron, its acrylic Orlon and its polyamide
Nylon. Many more names went around of which contemporary consum-
ers probably have never heard: Terlenka, Trevira, Terylene, Diolen,
Tergal, Terital, Crimplene—all brand names for polyester by the many
companies in Europe (Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 323).
But the most important changes were cultural: these were the famous
sixties in which the start of the second feminist wave indicated a change
of the women’s market. O’Connor relates how women rejected the gir-
dle, in spite of its more comfortable material now that the new fiber
Lycra was added to make it malleable and elastic (2011, 104).
Moreover, it was a time of growing welfare and affluence in which
women had more money to spend as they entered the labor market. The
post-war boom in manufactured goods was aimed at satisfying a con-
sumer eager for change and good living, after the years of austerity in
the forties and fifties: “Polyester matched perfectly these contemporary
attitudes in life style terms, with its designer fibre attributes of easy
care, resistance to crease and wear, quick dry and aesthetic properties
equal to natural fibres”(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 86).
Clothes should not only be comfortable but a modernist aesthetics
dictated they should also be “sexy and rebellious”for the young woman
of the 1960s (Schneider 1994, 4). This new aesthetics added value to
the plastics and synthetics that started flooding the market (Meikle
1995, 194; Handley 1999, 114). Part of the inspiration came from sci-
encefiction movies and the space race that culminated in the first moon
8Anneke Smelik
landing in 1969. DuPont delivered many materials for the space suits of
the American astronauts, such as Nylon, Dacron, Lycra, Neoprene,
Mylar, and Teflon (Handley 1999, 88). The successful moon landing
indicated a bright new world and man-made fabrics were part of that
exciting future. The fascination for technology was translated into fash-
ion by several young French couturiers: Cardin, Rabanne, Ungaro, and
Courr
eges. They introduced their space age collections around 1964,
with a radically new image for women: short hair, sleek and sleeveless
dresses, flat shoes, white boots, in a new range of synthetic materials
(93). Here was the perfect match between haute couture and synthetics
trickling over into mass fashion, Handley argues.
The vanguard of the babyboomers in the 1960s was then still young,
which accounts for the birth of youth culture, indicated by the new
word “teenager”(O’Connor 2011, 101). The glorification of youth
started, announcing a fresh style. According to Susannah Handley,
swinging London became the center of the first youth culture, mostly
consisting of urban working-class teenagers with a new, anarchical ethos
(1999, 102). They embraced synthetics and the artificial: “chemical
materials literally shaped pop style and fashion”(99). The designer
Mary Quant developed an alternative look for young women with bobs,
miniskirts, and colorful leotards. PVC was her signature fabric (106).
Quant also had an impact on household textiles; her innovative concepts
and printed synthetic fabrics in the early seventies took the design indus-
try far away from plain white cotton sheets (Brunnschweiler and Hearle
1993, 216).
The oppositional culture of the sixties did not stop at a new look for
women, because all gender dressing codes changed. The so-called
“peacock revolution”instigated a radical change of menswear, mostly
advocated by pop groups like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
(Handley 1999, 105), and a decade later by David Bowie and Elton
John. The 1960s and 1970s were the heyday for synthetic fashions;
polyester had made it into “high street high fashion”(113). Consumers
enjoyed a man-made and artificial “material cornucopia”(Meikle 1995,
243). But it was not to last; the halcyon days of polyester were soon
over.
The Bust: From Treasure to Trash
The end of the 1970s marked the demise of polyester (Brunnschweiler
and Hearle 1993, 306). From various sources I have distilled at least
four significant reasons why polyester suffered a steep descent from mir-
acle fiber to utter derision within just one generation. First, the prolifer-
ation of polyester also marked its downfall. The industry was led by
quantity rather than quality and cheap polyester was saturating the mar-
ket. Overcapacity was further pushed by an unexpected surcharge that
the USA imposed on the imports of filament polyester yarns
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 306). The European industry of
Polyester: A Cultural History 9
synthetic fibers was already overproducing, but now received a shock to
which it responded by many mergers: for example Courtaulds was
bought by ICI; Glanzstoff and ENKA by Akzo-Nobel; and Montecatini,
Edison, en Snia Viscosa in Italy merged into Montedison (Bramel and
Fouque 2001, 57). Many more mergers were to continue for the next
decade or so, although many plants had to close down anyway (idem).
The downward spiral could not be stopped and customer confidence
was destroyed. Polyester suffered from the image of a cheap fabric of
poor quality, even more so in Europe than in USA (Hallet and Johnston
2019, 188). According to Arun Aneja the concept of cheapness was a
major blunder made by the polyester producers (interview April 2021).
Especially the double knit that was used for men’s suits felt and looked
like a cheap synthetic shiny fabric—so well embodied by the white suit
worn by John Travolta in the movie Saturday Night Fever (1977). As
Bramel and Fauque put it: polyester was considered demoded and taste-
less (2001, 49). Handley adds that “By the end of the seventies, polyes-
ter was stubbornly linked in the public psyche to pop-kitsch”(1999,
117). This kind of kitsch was celebrated in the camp over-the-top com-
edy Polyester (1981), the movie written and directed by John Waters,
starring drag queen Divine as housewife Francine whose husband Elmer
is a guy in a polyester suit owning an adult movie theater. Polyester and
pornography—the fabric could hardly sink lower.
A second reason for the bubble to burst was that the chemical indus-
try no longer put money into fundamental research, but mostly into
marketing (Bramel and Fauque 2001, 68). Yet, as the industry was
more and more monopolized they lost their antennae for what the cloth-
ing industry or consumers wanted (57). This signified the end of innov-
ation. O’Connor confirms that the sacrifice of research and the focus on
cost reduction and reorganization was one of the major causes for the
industry’s downfall (2011, 149).
A third reason why polyester lost its status was due to changes in
culture. As Jane Schneider remarks, the rejection of polyester was a
rather sudden reversal in public taste; the perception had shifted “from
treasure to trash”(1994, 4). She situates that shift in the rise of hippie
culture. Hippies rebelled against bourgeois fashion, longing for a sim-
pler, more natural and less “plastic”world. The appeal to naturalness
made the hippie consumer return to natural fibers (Handley 1999, 119;
O’Connor 2011, 122). Schneider argues further that a postmodern sens-
ibility found fault with the uniformity and standardization of mass soci-
ety, and certainly with the sartorial sameness of the “polyester crowd”
(1994, 5). In a fairly romantic view, hippies associated naturalness with
authenticity. Natural fibers got associated with luxury, which sealed the
taboo against synthetics and resulted in the reestablishment of class
boundaries between natural and synthetic fibers (Handley 1999, 127).
However, O’Connor points to the ambiguity of continuing consumption
of man-made fibers, because in the new fitness culture and the desire for
10 Anneke Smelik
strong and healthy bodies in the early 1980s, women turned to syn-
thetics with Lycra for the leggings and other sportswear as a sign of
empowerment and freedom (2011, 123). She writes that the craze for
aerobics entangled the babyboomer cohort with Lycra (117).
A fourth reason for the revolt against polyester lies within a wider
cultural context where modern life was challenged, argues Schneider.
The repeated oil crises of the 1970s because of the wars in the Middle
East, as well as the emerging awareness of pollution resulted in a gen-
eral disenchantment with science and technology (1994, 5). Rachel
Carson had published her book Silent Spring about the dangers of pollu-
tion in 1962. A decade later the Club of Rome published its first report,
Limits to Growth in 1972, which made consumers aware of world-wide
poverty, environmental pollution, and depletion of sources. People
became conscious of the dependence on fossil fuel in a globalized world.
Man-made fibers were after all produced by the petrochemical industry
that was responsible for massive oil spoils and serious pollution
(Handley 1999, 121). For the first, but certainly not the last time, con-
sumers started to get worried about the ecological impact of artificial
fibers.
In hindsight, the blow that was dealt to polyester in the 1970s was
so harsh that in terms of image it never recovered, at least for older gen-
erations. Polyester was and often still is considered a poor quality,
cheap-looking, sweaty fabric that is uncomfortable to the skin, and on
top of that an environment-unfriendly material. Yet, polyester came
back with a vengeance: for decades it has been, and still is, the most
produced and sold fabric for apparel, home furnishing, upholstery in
cars, and many other applications (Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993,
232–5).
Revival: Pleats and Microfibers
The permanent press feature of polyester took on a completely different
aesthetics with Japanese designers such as Kawakubo, Miyake,
Yamamoto and Watanabe who in the 1980s “reintroduced synthetics to
the West in their new guise of high-status artistic fabrics”(Handley
1999, 129). They created deconstructed clothes in vivid colors and
unfamiliar shapes that were made possible because of technological
advancements. They experimented with complex pattern-cutting of hi-
tech fabrics, superlight, water-resistant microfibers, as well as chemical
and cold and heat treatment, into permanent pleats, origami folds and
honeycomb weaves (Smelik 2014, 45). By using the characteristics of
polyester they give birth to a new type of clothing that Bradley Quinn
typified as “techno fashion”(2002, 160). While Susannah Handley
makes a lot of the impact of the strange silhouettes and geometric min-
imalism of the Japanese conceptualist designers, I am not convinced that
deconstructing sartorial conventions helped the average consumer to
accept polyester again.
Polyester: A Cultural History 11
According to Brunnschweiler and Hearle there were other develop-
ments that put polyester back in the market, but the 1980s were the
decade where growth came to a –temporary –halt (1993, 207). The
industry was modernizing and streamlining to reduce costs, as we
already saw in the mergers that were happening at the time. Still, there
were further innovations and improvements in the fibers and fabrics.
Gradually, new technologies enabled higher qualities of polyester. It
could now also be spun together with other fibers like cotton, yielding
blended textiles (Bramel and Fauque 2001, 55). An important innov-
ation was thermal transmission that made polyester more resistant to
perspiration—the infamous problem of body odor was finally solved
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 208). This made the development of
thermal underwear as well as active wear possible. Especially the market
of swimwear and sportswear was further enhanced by combining span-
dex (elastane) with polyester, which added comfort and stretch. This
market has since grown exponentially, supported by the next major
innovation: microfibers (Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 346).
Japan was not only known for its avantgarde aesthetics, but was also
responsible for the single most important fiber-engineering breakthrough
of polyester: the invention of microfibers at the very end of the 1980s.
It was given the nickname “shingosen,”which is not a brand name, and
translates as “textiles from new synthetic fibres”(Brunnschweiler and
Hearle 1993, 326). Microfibers are ultrafine; sixty times finer than
human hair. In technical terms microfibers went from 6 d
ecitex to 3,
then to 1.5; and finally to 0.5 for polyester (Bramel and Fauque 2001,
53). That means that one kilogram of yarn of 1dtex is ten kilometers
long (54). Microfibers introduced a profound renewal for the textile
industry, not only because they changed the fabrics but also because
they made the production process much faster (55). In terms of
improvement of fabrics, microfibers allow for greater breathability
which is so valuable for sportswear and performance wear.
Contrary to its public negative image in the 1970s, polyester became
a luxurious textile in certain sectors in the 1980s. Japanese manufac-
turers produced a wide array of specialty, niche products, and skin-like
fabrics with a natural touch—the famous “peach skin”fabrics
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 208). In Italy Montefibre developed
silk-like polyester fabrics, called Terital Silklike. Montefibre was the first
to produce a 0.4 dtex microfibre, trademarked Terital Zero.4; it was the
finest polyester filament yarn manufactured in Europe at the time (222).
Both Japanese and European textile industry added value to microfibers
by developing high-quality active sportswear, leisurewear, fashion dress-
wear, and the achievement of the then “much-in-vogue peach skin look”
(223). The peach touch was later further developed for suede-like coats
and artificial leather.
Takahashi (2016) argues that shingosen’s silky polyester fibers played
a leading part in restoring synthetic fiber industries. The distinguishing
12 Anneke Smelik
high-grade feel texture for the newly innovated synthetic textiles has
been upgraded ever since and added high value to polyester. The quality
of polyester thus significantly improved in the 1990s: silk-like, with
good draping properties, and an elegant touch. Where the 1980s had
been a trying period for polyester fiber, shingosen enabled the industry
“to break out of the slump in polyester”(Brunnschweiler and Hearle
1993, 334). The steady product development and highly specialized
techniques like microfibers allowed for a marketing of high quality
products that drew in young women and re-issued upmarket suits for
men (327). While a sophisticated feeling for polyester helped the fashion
market, it was especially the cool and “dry touch”and breathable mate-
rials such as Coolmax that caused a lasting boom in activewear and a
casual sporty look.
Globalization and Fast Fashion
The book Chemiefasern (“chemical fibers”) by Meyer-Larsen was com-
missioned by the International Association of Rayon and Synthetic
Fibers in 1972.
4
It gives an interesting forecast for the near future—
which is “the year after 1984”as a reference to Orwell’s dystopic novel.
It gets a lot of predictions correct, such as a rising middle class, more
leisure time, increasing affluence, and growing paid labor for women,
and consequently a sustained growth of the sales of synthetic fibers. It
also predicts the further democratization of fashion and styling, where
comfort will have penetrated “even the lower classes”(150); the word
“even”betraying its middle class prejudice. But the book also misses
two incredibly important developments that were immanent: the com-
plete collapse of the European and North-American textile industry that
started in the 1970s and continued well into the 1990s; and the shift of
fiber, textile and garment production to Asian countries. In other words,
the industry failed to predict the globalization that was about to hap-
pen. Two decades later, the book Polyester: 50 years of Achievement
commissioned by the Manchester Textile Institute in 1993, does
acknowledge globalization with several short chapters dedicated to the
growing market in Asia, not only Japan, but also the (in their words)
“new dragons”: Taiwan, Korea, China, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Today, the biggest producers of polyester are Indorama in Thailand (3
million tonnes a year) and Reliance in India (5 million tonnes)—the lat-
ter makes 10% of the annual production of polyester (Textile Exchange
Report, 2023).
Chemiefasern predicted fast fashion in highly positive terms as an
increase in “throwaway products”; still in quotation marks to signify
how strange such a thing would be (Meyer-Larsen 1972, 144).
Consumers, the book contends, will in the future buy clothes according
to the motto “buy, wear, throw out.”It is astounding to read so many
years later that the industry did not understand that such a throwaway
mentality would lead to huge if not insurmountable problems of
Polyester: A Cultural History 13
pollution and waste. The book Polyester: 50 Years of Achievement
which came out a good twenty years later in 1993, does not even men-
tion fast fashion as a development for the future. This large book was
written by people of the industry for people in the industry and has a
rather celebratory if not self-congratulatory tone. They remain adamant
and highly optimistic about the “breakneck speed”of technological and
economic developments of “this most successful chemical fibre”
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 70).
Chemiefasern (1972) and Polyester: 50 Years of Achievement
(1993) were both right in the sense that polyester has become a staple
ingredient of our wardrobe and is today undoubtedly the most preva-
lent fiber for the textile and garment industry. They were wrong in not
foreseeing the arrival of fast fashion and the consequent downgrading
of materials, exploitation of human labor in low-wage countries, and a
vast increase of textile waste. The term “fast fashion”refers to low-
cost clothing collections, produced in a fast-response system that
encourages disposability (Fletcher 2008; Maynard et al. 2013). Starting
in the 1990s, it is a system characterized by ever faster cycles of global
production and consumption with a high turnover of changing styles,
made possible by rapid prototyping, small batches combined with large
variety, and more efficient transportation and delivery (Joy et al. 2012,
275). We have indeed arrived at the throwaway culture that the indus-
try predicted in the early 1970s (Meyer-Larsen 1972). As Kassia
St. Clair writes: “For the first time in human history, the vast majority
of fabric being made has become disposable, something to be con-
sumed and thrown away within weeks or months of being made”
(2019, 221).
In the context of this study of polyester, it is important to realize
that fast fashion would not exist were it not for synthetic fabrics
(Fashionary Team 2021, 47). In other words, synthetic fibers in general,
and polyester in particular, have enabled the growth of fast fashion,
together with its dire consequences of waste, pollution, and exploitation
of human labor and natural resources (Black 2012).
The 1990s do not only mark the start of the fast fashion system, but
also a standstill in the research of material, cultural and fashion studies
on polyester. It has apparently become so mundane and global that
scholars in those fields have stopped writing about it. If polyester figures
at all in fashion studies, it is now within the context of sustainability
(see for example Stanes and Gibson [2017]). As the fast fashion system
is socially and environmentally a disaster, the attention of fashion
research of fibers and fabrics has –quite rightly –shifted to the urgent
issue of climate change.
However, let’s not make the mistake of thinking that concern for the
environment is new. In fact, the book Polyester: 50 Years of
Achievement announced in 1993 that “an ecological decade”
(Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993, 82) had arrived and boasted of
14 Anneke Smelik
“recycling post-consumer soft drink beverage bottles into recycled poly-
ester staple fibre”(105). Companies were already trying to “close the
loop”and used recycled polyester fiber for automobile interiors, home
furnishings such as carpet, outerwear, sleeping bags, pillows, mattress
pads, and for industrial applications such as roads, railroads and roofs
(idem). Elsewhere in the book they even claim that “polyester recycling
is an environmental success story,”giving a technical explanation of
how polyester is “the most frequently recycled plastic in the US”(288).
DuPont and Hoechst Celanese recycled commercially as early as the
1960s. In the 1980s an “overwhelming majority of recycled polyester
was being used in fibres”(288). And by 1991 the food packaging indus-
try effectuated closed-loop recycling in plastics.
If all of this is true, the question is why three decades later we are
still looking for ways to fully recycle polyester and other textiles in a
closed loop. The crucial concern for a sustainable future remains.
The Vital Issue of Sustainability
Polyester today is truly omnipresent: in 2021 the world produced 61
million tonnes of this fabric alone, of which 14.8% was recycled polyes-
ter (Textile Exchange Preferred Fiber & Materials Market Report 2023,
72). As argued above, polyester is a staple ingredient of fast fashion. We
know that the system of fast fashion is cracking at the seams: depletion
of natural resources, chemicals used in the bleaching and dyeing, and
the pollution of earth and water are well documented by now (Fletcher
2016; Fletcher and Tham 2014). Moreover, the waste due to over-pro-
duction and over-consumption is creating ever more problems for recy-
cling used clothes, which end up in landfills, or worse, get dumped. In
other words, fast fashion is a huge problem: “The current system is
destroying the planet, ignoring the losers, and creating precarious jobs
with precarious futures”(B
edat 2021, 116). The fashion industry has
taken the lead for a “race to the bottom”as B
edat argues throughout
her book.
Here we encounter one of the paradoxes of polyester: its very dur-
ability was an asset in the past but is now one of its major drawbacks.
Its strength and durability make polyester a “material that lingers”after
being disposed. As Stanes and Gibson show: “Problems generated by
clothing waste have a lifespan that far outweighs their short fashionable
life”(2017, 27). What Susan Freinkel writes about plastic also holds for
polyester: “The very qualities that make many plastics such fantastic
materials for the human world –lightness, strength, durability –make
them a disaster when they get loose in the natural world”(2011, 118).
One of those disasters is the shedding of microfibers, which adds to
microdebris in surface waters and eventually to the “plastic soup”in
rivers and oceans. This is not unique to polyester, because all synthetic
textiles discard microfibers. One of the reasons is cheap overproduction
of textiles cutting corners for the quality of the fabric, which means that
Polyester: A Cultural History 15
polymers and monomers are shed more easily when washed (Stanes and
Gibson 2017). Low quality of low-cost fashion is then partly behind the
drama of the plastic soup.
Another serious problem of polyester’s waste is that blends are very
difficult if not impossible to recycle. And as so many of the fabrics
today are blends this is quite an issue. Due to the disappearance of fiber
brands and with the help of intense marketing, PET is much more used
in blends than before. PET is combined in sportswear with polyamide
and elastane, in everyday clothing with cotton and viscose, while it also
combines well with wool. In those blends producers have achieved the
benefits of both fibers. The textile industry has proven to be capable of
spinning those combinations, but it is precisely the combination that
makes it a disaster to recycle: the fiber length is too short to be recycled
mechanically, while the chemical composition makes it impossible to
recycle chemically (interviews with Scheffer and Jager, April 2021).
The arguments for recycling polyester are contradictory. It is often
still too expensive to make clothes out of recycled polyester, because the
quality of the fibers is compromised in the process of recycling, which
means new fibers need to be added. That is why PET fabrics are made
from recycled goods like bottles (and not textile-to-textile recycling; see
Textile Exchange Preferred Fiber & Materials Market Report 2023, 72),
such as Polartec, Polarfleece, or Thinsulate (Trocm
e2022, 86). There
are many challenges to polyester recycling (Textile Exchange, report
2025 Recycled Polyester Challenge, July 2022). Yet, Hallet and
Johnston claim that polyester can be recycled to its virgin state (2019,
92). They give the example of the Japanese chemical company Teijin
that has developed Eco Circle and Blue Eco fabrics as an infinite recy-
cling loop. Patagonia is one of over a hundred companies that collect
products from customers and pays Teijin to recycle them (193). It is
thus possible to make a polyester product circular through a focus on
recycling.
There are more complications in the Life Cycle Assessment of polyes-
ter. Contrary to intuition, natural fibers like cotton, wool or linen are
not necessarily more sustainable than synthetic fibers (see for an exten-
sive calculation Blackburn [2005, 112]; see for a recent debate Earley
[2019]). Hallet and Johnston write “It is wrong to assume that man-
made fibres are not eco-friendly; the next generation of man-made fibres
could be a way towards completely sustainable production”(2019,
182). Although synthetics are part of the petrochemical industry, only
one percent of petroleum is used for global production of all man-made
synthetic fibers (idem). Polyester needs little land usage or water con-
sumption in its production: it requires only a few cubic tonnes of water,
whereas the same amount of cotton would need 20,000 cubic tonnes of
water (188; Sherburne 2009, 8 and 15; St. Clair 2019, 180). Consumers
are sometimes not aware that cellulose-based fabrics like rayon or bam-
boo require cutting down old-growth forests (St. Clair 2019, 219). In
16 Anneke Smelik
many ways polyester and other synthetic fibers have a low carbon
footprint.
Yet another problem is that polyester is “non-degradable and non-
renewable”(Blackburn 2005, xv). This is again quite a complex issue,
because polyester can be biobased but that does not mean it is degrad-
able for composting. According to Blackburn, material is defined as
“biodegradable”if it is non-toxic and can be broken down into simpler
substances by naturally occurring decomposers within a relatively short
period (xvi).
Biobased polyester is in itself not a new invention. To understand this
I recall that polymerization occurs in nature too: in cellulose as well as in
protein. This means that petroleum-derived polymers can in fact be
replaced by polyester based on cellulose or protein. There are quite early
examples: already in 1937 the Italian company Snia Viscosa produced a
fiber based on skimmed milk, called Lanital which was subsidized by the
fascist regime (Postrel 2020, 38). Such efforts stopped after Italy (and
Germany) lost the Second World War. Current research is underway into
casein-based polymer fibers derived from milk protein (Trocm
e2022,
80). It is then technically possible to make protein polymers for fibers and
replace petroleum-derived polymers, for example by using glucose to
make biobased synthetics. Another example is the start-up Bolt Threads
in the USA that has developed Mylo, a leather-like fabric based on myce-
lium (St. Clair 2019, 284; Postrel 2020, 38). Mylo was used by Stella
McCartney and Balenciaga for their recent collections. Bioengineered pro-
tein-polymer fibers could be the next stage for sustainable fashion, but it
is crucial to realize that the chemical structure of polyester does not allow
for composting. Hence, even when it is biobased it will not be biodegrad-
able (interview Jan Jager, April 2021). A further technical solution could
be to make polyester based on polylactic acid (PLA) (Blackburn 2005,
xvii). This lactic acid can for example be extracted from corn starch. PLA
has already been produced as a replacement for plastic packaging, but so
far attempts to develop this for textiles have not been successful, for
example Ingeo by Natureworks (interview Jan Jager, April 2021).
Conclusion
“Change textiles and you change the world,”writes Virginia Postrel
(2020, 218). The change we need today is the transformation towards a
sustainable future. My claim for this article is that if we want to achieve
a sustainable future for fashion, we need to take the material culture of
polyester seriously. This means that we need to know more about poly-
ester than we do now. In this article I have made a start in tracing the
story of polyester in its many ups and downs.
Polyester is the most used fabric for textiles, making up 54% of all
produced fibers, with a total of 61 million tonnes in 2021. The cultural
history of this relatively recent fiber (compared to age-old yarns like linen,
silk, wool and cotton) is full of sharp turns and twists. Invented in the
Polyester: A Cultural History 17
early 1940s as a miracle fabric, it was met with some initial suspicion in
the 1950s. But as the at first expensive new fabric became cheaper and as
it was marketed for its easy wash-and-wear, polyester lived through an
immense boom in the 1960s marking an era of women’s emancipation,
middle class democratization, and enthusiastic modernization. The peak
was only to be followed by a steep decline at the end of the 1970s, as
polyester became associated with cheapness and un-fashionability.
Polyester was then made interesting again in the 1980s by the avantgarde
designs of the Japanese deconstructionist couturiers. The invention of
microfibers, as well as texturizing and blending, improved the quality of
polyester and gave it a silklike touch and elegant draping features. From
the 1990s onwards polyester became the staple ingredient for fast fashion.
Its gradual and steady growth has not stopped until today. Polyester is by
far the most produced and used fiber for apparel: from couture to fast
fashion and from sportswear to high-tech wear.
Today, the main worry revolves around polyester’s negative impact
on the environment, by not being degradable and shedding microfibers
into earth and water. Polyester has moved from an optimistic age of
“plastic fantastic”to the awareness of the “plastic soup.”Yet, low pri-
ces make polyester fabrics –and clothes in general –available for a
throwaway culture that abounds in waste. Reusing, recirculating, and
recycling are necessary strategies to counter the problem of textile waste,
but reducing production and consumption may be even more important
if we want “fast fashion to get out of fashion”as the European Union
puts it.
5
If we wish to achieve a cultural change from throwaway con-
sumerism to responsible ecology, polyester ought to become part of a
practice of reducing, reusing and recycling clothes.
But it is not only the consumer who should act; the textile industry,
too, should take responsibility. Arun Aneja wrote quite some years ago
that “For the textile industry to reinvent itself, it must chart a course
that will lead to disruptive innovations”(2004, 12). A disruptive innov-
ation today would be to develop sustainably produced polyester that
can also be sustainably recycled and composted. The question is whether
the fiber and textile industry still has the vision and power of innovative
research to pick up the challenge of moving polyester away from fossil
fuels in a bid for a sustainable future.
Acknowledgements
First of all, I thank Nina Lanke for her helpful assistance with the
research for this article. I also thank MA student Marina Sasseron de
Oliveira Cabral who had the initial idea to do a study of polyester in
the field of fashion. The COVID-19 pandemic forcibly changed her
plans and made our itineraries divide. I am grateful to experts in the field
whom I could interview extensively online in April 2021: Dr Michiel
Scheffer at Wageningen University; Dr Jan Jager at NHL Stenden
University, who as a chemist worked for over 25 years at ENKA and
18 Anneke Smelik
AKZO; and Prof. Arun Aneja at East Carolina University, who worked
as a researcher for over 25 years for the polyester department of DuPont.
I express thanks to IUAV University of Venice and to professor
Alessandra Vaccari for a stay in Spring 2022 that allowed me the time to
finish my research on polyester. I finally thank the anonymous peer
reviewers for their sustained feedback on earlier drafts of this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Textile Exchange describes themselves as: “global non-profit driving
positive action on climate change across the fashion and textile
industry.”Their website features many data-driven reports: https://
textileexchange.org/
2. Quotes from books in French and German are translated by the
author.
3. Exceptions are books commissioned by the Comit
e Internatonal de la
Rayonne et de Fibres Synth
etiques (Meyer-Larsen 1972); the
Manchester Textile Institute (Brunnschweiler and Hearle 1993); and
the Institut franc¸ais de la mode (Bramel and Fauque 2001).
4. The German word “chemiefasern”translates literally as “chemical
fibers,”but “synthetic fibers”would be a more adequate translation.
The small pocketbook with many images was written in German and
simultaneously published in the European languages German, French,
English, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.
5. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/30/eu-wants-to-
force-fashion-firms-to-make-clothes-more-durable-and-recyclable.
Accessed November 6, 2022.
ORCID
Anneke Smelik http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1333-3544
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