Paper Suit Interactive
Button 1 – What? (Closeup of weave structure)
What is a paper suit made of? Long rolls of a type of kraft paper, made from the cellulose pulp of trees (a particular Swedish pine tree was favoured), were cut into narrow strips, and then twisted into a yarn, sometimes around a core of cotton or wool waste fibers – those too short to spin on their own. The paper yarns, which came in many thicknesses, suitable for everything from fine screening to heavy cargo nets, were then woven into cloth, which was cut and sewn into its final form.
Button 2 – Why? (Detail of front with buttons and buttonholes)
Why do you make clothing of paper? Although Germany had bought a great deal of wool fibre in the years leading up to war, the scale and ferocity of this war was not anticipated. The stockpile of wool was gone by 1916, and the British blockade of German ports, and embargo on neutral nations shipping wool and other textile fibers to Germany and her allies, meant that a wide variety of substitutes were explored. Paper yarns had been in use in Germany since at least 1907, primarily for table mats, wall and floor coverings, and sacks.
Button 3 – How? (Detail of elbow? Someplace requiring ease of movement)
How does a paper suit feel? These paper yarns were surprisingly flexible. They were also easily dyed. The cloth made from them was usually treated chemically to give it some moisture resistance – although being soaked in a rainstorm would not be good for it! During the war, garments made of woven paper were worn by civilians of all ages in Germany and Austria. And the German military found paper textiles useful for items ranging from feed buckets to wagon covers to saddle bags.
Button 4 – Who? (Detail TBD)
Emil Claviez, an entrepreneur and inventor working in the textile field in Germany, began manufacturing spun paper yarns, which he called xylolin, in 1895. At first restricted to mats, floor coverings, and sacking, textiles woven from these yarns began to be more widely used as the manufacturing process was refined. By 1907, yarn and woven fabrics in several different weights were being sold, and experimented with for clothing.
Button 5 – Where? (Detail TBD)
Where did paper yarns originate? Emil Claviez began his work in Chemnitz, one of many towns in the Saxony region of Germany engaged in textile manufacturing. Paper yarns were also made in Plauen, another town in Saxony, best known for its production of lace textiles. Claviez organized related companies in the U.K., U.S., and France. A British cousin of his firm, the Textilite Engineering Company, exhibited its range of paper textiles at the British Scientific Products Exhibition, King’s College, London in August 1918.
Button 6 – When? (Detail TBD
Emil Claviez patented his technology in 1895 in Germany, and followed up with patents in many European nations, as well as India, Brazil, Chile, and the United States by 1898. While his spun paper yarns surfaced briefly in the press in 1907, they were not a serious option in the textile world for anything other than floor coverings and sacks until World War I. The German military consumed all the wool and cotton the country could find. Civilians were exhorted to harvest nettles to help replace cotton, and Claviez even experimented with making yarn from the cattail plant. But one American analysis of the German textile industry, published in 1918, reported that “All kinds of substitutes are used as raw material, but paper is the most important.”
Links:
GERMAN TRADE AND THE WAR: COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS
IN WAR TIME AND THE FUTURE OUTLOOK. Chauncey Depew Snow and J.J. Kral. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Misc. Series No. 61. Washington, DC GPO, 1918. “Textiles and Textile Fibers,” pp. 49-54, 69-71, 80-82, 139. Quoted from p. 51
https://archive.org/details/germantradewarco00unitrich/page/n3
IMAGES:
Main:
- Newark Paper Suit from shoot with Stephen Robertson (already under project license)
Subsidiary:
- Emil Claviez, Apparatus for Making Yarn or Thread from Paper. U.S. Patent drawing, 1898. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/98/a5/6c/570d225521840a/US604350-drawings-page-1.png (out of copyright)
- Textilite Engineering Display, London, 1918. (NMAH/Textiles Dept. photo)
- German Army WWI Paper Yarn Objects (NMAH Work & Industry)
- German Paper Yarns & MAts, 1907 (NMAH Textiles, Consular Collection)
