Selvedge - Issue 131 Flow

A little over a century ago, abundant clean water from a tap would have been unimaginable. Today, it is so seamlessly embedded in daily life that it goes unnoticed, fostering an illusion that natural resources will replenish themselves indefinitely. Yet water remains the invisible ingredient at almost every stage of textile production – from irrigation and retting to scouring, dyeing, and washing.

This issue explores water's profound entanglement with textiles. While coastal communities like Newhaven's fishwives once embedded maritime resilience into their knitted gansies, today's makers in Baroda and Jaipur are implementing rainwater harvesting and greywater filtration, demonstrating that sustainable practice can be woven into tradition.

As summer heat rises and hands reach for cloth to cool the skin, spare a thought for the water held within its fibres – the unseen resource that has shaped its journey, and continues to shape our world.