Research On Sewing Threads And Fancy Yarns Used In American Fashion At The End Of The 19^th Century

Two hundred years of history of western fashion deduced from a huge number of American Fashion Collection since the late 18 th century. The collection is wide-ranging and it is a full representative of the western dress art and culture. We can understand the manufacturing process in the late 19 th century, and understand the structure and characteristics by the test and analysis on the sewing threads and the fancy yarns. According to their aging we can propose corresponding protection scheme.Taking a group of sewing threads and fancy yarns from American Fashion Collection at the end of the 19 th century as the research object, we can come to conclusions by the analysis on fiber morphology, change on fiber structure, performance of sewing threads and the structure of fancy yarns. There are five kinds of fibers containing cotton, silk, wool, polyester and polyamide and core-spun yarn by the study on the morphology of intersecting surface of fibers and preservation conditions. According to the test and analysis for the change of fibers structure with XRD and FTIR methods, the cotton were mercerized, and the degree of mercerizing is different. It can be divided into four levels based on the degree of mercerizing. The diffraction peak position and the crystalline are different, too. Silk aged most seriously. There are evident signs of fracture on the fiber cross section. The worst fractured samples’ absorption peak of amide Ⅱ and Ⅲarea are significantly higher, and its relative content of βfold of secondary structure is the highest. Intersecting and lengthways of the polyester fiber show no sign of ageing. Results of infrared spectrum analysis is same to modern polyester. A lot of small black dots distribute evenly over the lengthways surface and cross section of the polyester fiber, it may be because of adding matting agent. The structure of sewing threads are different. Lineal weight vary from 20 to 190 tex, Ply number is 2 or 3 and a few are 4 or 6 shares. Twist vary from 25 / 10 cm to 108/10 cm, the biggest twist multiplier is 674 with the little being 259. Direction of twist is almost Z with a small amount of S. There are 4 samples for high strength with more ply number, larger lineal weight and low twist. Intensity is lower than modern national standard about the sewing threads. Elongation and wear-resisting performance are different among samples with different raw material. Multivariate correlation analysis showed that the aging condition relates stretching performance and wear-resisting performance of sewing threads, and correlates the intensity and elongation significantly. Metallic yarns contain a flat gold wire and two spiral gold yarn, flat gold wire is adhesion by double film. There is no metal elements by EDS analysis and it is different from modern flat gold wire. Two spiral gold yarn are different core wire rounded by gold-plated copper, one is silk with low twist and the other is double strands of cotton. Fancy yarns include chenille, wavy line, crochet yarn, dyeing yarn and so on. It involves cotton, silk, wool, viscose fiber. There is evident ageing sign on the surface of chenille. Wool fiber longitudinal also has scale broken signs of ageing.This paper draw conclusions by study on the sewing thread and fancy yarn used in American fashion at the end of 19 th century from several aspects of fiber, structure, performance. It can provide evidence for the research of production process from the late 19 th century to the early 20 th century and rich textile cultural relic research database as well as to characterization methods for cultural relics of yarns and the protection of them.