Comeback of a fabric

CANADA: Remember rayon? The lightweight material was popular in 1980s clothing. Now it's making a comeback because cotton has become so expensive.

Developed in the 1880s as an alternative to silk, rayon is not completely artificial, as it is made from a natural material, wood pulp. But it is not considered completely natural, either, as it goes through extensive processing to become a fabric.

In 2010, the price of cotton nearly doubled, forcing clothing makers to look for cheaper alternatives. But the sudden, huge demand for rayon has pushed the price of wood pulp up as well.

Producers in Canada, particularly, have seen their share prices jump by 20 to 50 per cent. Fortress Paper, a large producer in North Vancouver, is spending Can$ 120 million (€760,000) to modernize a pulp mill so it can meet orders for "dissolving pulp", the base ingredient in rayon. 

Rayon's popularity is also growing thanks to Asian consumers, who favour the material over cotton because it is lighter and dries faster. This makes it appealing in hot climates.

Asian consumers prefer rayon to cotton because it is lighter and dries faster.

All of this also means that the price of rayon clothing will rise, too. "At first we started to eat the increase because we're always controlled by the retail price of the item," Ira Spiegel of Dollhouse Apparel, a clothing maker in New York, told The Wall Street Journal.  "Now we're trying to pass half of that to the retailer."