Textiles, Apparel Design, and Merchandising: Government Resources

Most textile and wool products must have a label listing the fiber content, the country of origin, and the identity of the manufacturer or another business responsible for marketing or handling the item. Read this guide to avoid a “tag snag.”

The Textile Fiber Rule requires that certain textiles sold in the United States carry labels disclosing the generic names and percentages by weight of the constituent fibers in the product, the manufacturer or marketer name, and the country where the product was processed or manufactured.

This guide (revised in 2017) was compiled to accompany a 2012 exhibit mounted in the Business Reference Alcove of the Science and Business Reading Room of the Library of Congress to highlight resources related to the fashion and apparel industries, including books, journals, and databases available at the Library of Congress.

This site is designed to provide your company with the most recent international industry market research, and event information. Our network of trade specialists and industry experts throughout the U.S. and in foreign markets abroad stands ready to help you increase your export sales by supplying you with essential market research and trade opportunities. This site will also keep you abreast of industry events such as educational seminars, tradeshows, and exhibitions.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary for Textiles, Consumer Goods, and Materials oversees programs and strategies to improve the domestic and international competitiveness of U.S. textiles, apparel, consumer goods, metals and mining forest products, and chemicals and plastics manufacturing sectors and industries.

The Louisiana State Museum has one of the largest and finest costume and textile collections in the United States. Overall the museum’s collection ranges from late 18th century to the present with the majority of objects having a Louisiana provenance. Of the approximately 15,000 objects in the collection, one third is the costumes and accessories collection, one third is the textile collection, and one third is the Carnival collection.

A variety of textile textures were produced in America during the eighteenth and nineteeth centuries. Included are representative examples of the handiwork of American women of colonial and later times, articles made by professional weavers, as well as fabrics produced by textile mills in America's early years of industrialization.