Contributions to Sustainable Textile Design with Natural Raffia Palm Fibers

Sustainability is to maintain the ability to be permanent while ensuring productivity and continuity of diversity. Sustainability is one of the biggest problems in the textile industry. Indeed, sustainable design is an indispensable element of today’s production world from the ecology point of view. The solution is to take into account the ecological criteria in the process from the raw material selection of the textile product to the finished product. In other words, textile designs to be realized and the raw materials of these designs should be sustainable. Therefore, the use of sustainable natural fibers in the textile industry is increasing day by day. One of these is raffia palm fibers. Raffia fibers stand out because of their important performance characteristics and natural, renewable, sustainable, biodegradable, and environmental identity, and raffia fibers can be found in many different kinds of applications. Frankly, raffia palm plant is considered as a multifunctional plant due to its different usage areas. Generally, it is a plant used in food, cosmetics, medicine, and agricultural fields. It also has been traditionally used in the textile industry for many years. Since it is sustainable and renewable, it is becoming an alternative raw material in textile and different industries. Indeed, many different designed products can be generated from raffia palm fibers. For instance, many different designed products such as clothing (garment, dresses, shirts, ceremonial skirts, costumes, velvet tribute cloths, headdresses, cloaks, etc.), upholstery fabrics, blankets, carpets, mats, ropes, belts, hats, decoration products, baskets and basketry products, bags, shoes, women’s accessories and jewelry, masks, knitted furniture, ornamental materials, art objects, rods, support beams and concrete reinforcement in the construction sector, ceiling panels and roofing sheets, geotextiles, and composites for different aims can be produced from raffia palm fibers. In this chapter, the structure, properties, production methods, and end use applications and designs of the raffia palm fibers are examined in detail.