The pioneering semi-synthetic textile viscose rayon or ‘art silk’ that advanced during the 1920s inspired several variants and, eventually, further artificial fabrics. One notable spinoff, marketed as ‘Celanese’, was acetate rayon, a form of bioplastic. The British Cellulose and Chemical Manufacturing Company established by the Swiss Drefus brothers in 1916 was originally tasked with producing cellulose acetate ‘dope’ (lacquer) for coating the fabric covering wings and fuselage of aircraft. After the war, production focused on developing acetate fibres and, being softer, stronger, easier to care for and cheaper to manufacture than traditional fabrics like stiff silk and taffeta, cellulose acetate became important in garment manufacturing. In 1923 the company was renamed British Celanese (combining ‘cellulose’ and ‘ease’) and remained independent until the brothers died and Courtaulds took over the business in 1957. Rayon and acetate both helped to fuel popular mass-market fashion between the 1920s and 1950s and were also used in modern home furnishings. Having similar properties, they were once considered the same textile, but acetate uses acetic acid in its production and nowadays the two fabrics have to be differentiated on garment labels.

During the Second World War as material resources grew increasingly scarce, cheap, convenient rayon, acetate and similar fibres played a crucial role in supplying the public with mass-produced, affordable Utility clothes. Another synthetic product that gained prominence during WW2 was nylon, developed by leading chemists working on constructing polymers from small organic molecules. The rising of hemlines during the late 1920s and 1930s meant that flesh-coloured silk or rayon stockings were already a mainstay of the modern woman’s wardrobe when nylon, developed by American manufacturers DuPont, was introduced to the public in 1938. Claiming superiority over other fibres, nylon was strong, comfortable, lightweight, elastic and disposable – a versatile material, well-suited to myriad uses. Initially the company focused on ladies’ hosiery and by 1940 DuPont nylon stockings reportedly accounted for 30 per cent of the American hosiery market. By 1942, however, they switched entirely from consumer to military production: pre-existing nylon stockings entered the wartime black market or were given to women starved of fashion essentials by American GIs.

Nylon and other ‘man-made’ fabrics effectively revolutionised post-war fashion, being blended with natural textiles, or used alone and employed in everything from lingerie to synthetic knitwear and men’s drip-dry suits, even fake-fur coats. Other companies joined DuPont and branded their polyester, acrylic and acetate products with names that many of us will remember from childhood, or still wear, from Bri-Nylon, Terylene and Crimplene to Orlon and Tricel. {