A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO SEERSUCKER WOVEN FABRIC PRODUCTION: ELIMINATING ELASTANE AND DOUBLE BEAMS FOR NATURAL MATERIAL-BASED DESIGN

Nowadays, the increasing social consciousness on the protection of nature and, at the same time, the seeking for comfort and easiness caused by the pandemic, increase the interest in easy-to-use, comfortable textile products produced with natural raw materials. Seersucker woven fabrics are highly preferred in recent years due to their features such as providing wearing comfort and being user-friendly by not requiring ironing. However, in order to provide the three-dimensionality/wrinkle effect in woven seersucker fabrics in the currently used methods, it is necessary to use elastane in the weft/warp or to use double beams during production. At this point, it is not possible to produce completely natural fabric in the method using elastane, and in the other method, a special several warp and machine requirements are emerging. In this study, the literature on seersucker fabrics was reviewed and experimental seersucker weaving applications were carried out. Studies have been carried out in order to produce fabrics using completely natural raw materials (cotton), to improve production efficiency and to increase design possibilities. In this context, instead of the traditional methods used in seersucker fabric creation, seersucker fabric production was carried out with a single beam on the weaving machine by using different weaves in the dobby for fabric design. In this way, it has been provided that the seersucker weaving process can be performed with a single beam on any desired machine by using existing direct warps without the need for a special warp preparation.