Good afternoon!
My name is Olena Parkhomenko, I am a candidate of economic sciences, associate professor at the Department of Management and Administration of the Karazin Business School Educational and Scientific Institute at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, certified trainer of the Online Education for Sustainable Development program, and international mediation consultant.

In this video, I want to show how fabric combines fashion, economics, and identity, and why it remains the key to new markets and business opportunities.

When we think about the drivers of economic development, we imagine metals, oil, and modern technologies. But it is worth remembering that one of the oldest and most powerful resources was ordinary fabric. Textiles shaped trade, created empires, influenced politics, and even changed the cultural codes of entire nations.

1. Demand for fabrics as a driver of fashion and economic growth

Since ancient times, fabrics have been not only a household item, but also a strategic resource that shaped trade, the economy, and even politics.

And in 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans, known for his discovery of Troy, made one of the most significant archaeological discoveries: he excavated the palace at Knossos on the island of Crete. The impressive architecture and frescoes of this complex proved the existence of a highly developed Bronze Age civilization that predated all known cultures of mainland Greece. According to Greek mythology, it was at Knossos that the Athenian hero Theseus, passing through the labyrinth, used a thread to find his way back after defeating the Minotaur.

Among the numerous artifacts found at Knossos, Arthur Evans came across thousands of clay tablets that remained undeciphered during his lifetime. Only later did it become known that a significant portion of these tablets contained detailed reports on the large-scale production of wool and flax. They described the key processes of the textile industry: growing plants, the birth of lambs, accounting for the wool obtained, the work of collectors, the distribution of materials among workers, the manufacture of finished fabrics, their distribution to dependent personnel, and storage in palace storerooms. In a single season, the workshops of Knossos processed fleece collected from 70,000 to 80,000 sheep and produced up to 60 tons of wool. This indicates that Knossos was a true textile superpower.


It is known that the ancient Greeks worshipped Athena as the goddess of technology: crafts and productive knowledge, she was the giver and protector of olive trees, ships, and weaving. This is an important cultural signal: weaving was seen as a sign of civilization – the ability to transform raw materials into form, order, and beauty.

Since ancient times, the textile trade has facilitated interaction between distant regions. The Minoan civilization supplied woolen fabrics even to Egypt, and in ancient Rome, Chinese silk was particularly prized and equated with gold. It was the textile industry that became the source of funding for the Italian Renaissance and the Mughal Empire, giving rise to such masterpieces as Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal. The trade in fabrics contributed to the spread of the alphabet, the development of double-entry bookkeeping, and the emergence of the first financial institutions.

Every day, we weave textile metaphors into our speech without even suspecting that they originally referred to fabric and fibers. We often say “red thread,” “hanging by a thread,” “lace of wrinkles,” “sewn with white thread,” and so on.

The Greeks used the same word for their two most important technologies: histos means both a loom and a ship's mast. The name for sails also comes from this root — histia — “product of the loom.”

To weave is to invent, to create – to create usefulness and beauty from the simplest elements. The words “text” and ‘textile’ come from the same word texere – “to weave”.

The Chinese word for “achievement, result” originally meant “twisting fibers together”.

We talk about the fabric of fate and flax hair – and we don't think about why pulling fibers and twisting them into thread is so important in our language.

So – weaving was at the heart of everything.


The Silk Road.

We have already mentioned how much the Romans valued silk. In the Roman Empire, the demand for silk was so fierce that the Senate tried to ban men from wearing it in order to stop the outflow of gold from the country. The Romans paid crazy money for what the Chinese produced on an industrial scale.

It was this desire to possess textiles that forced the West to build routes to the East. Silk became an international currency. Silk was not only a material for clothing — it became a symbol of prestige, sophistication, and wealth. It was used to pay taxes, buy off enemies, and pay soldiers' salaries. Textiles became the foundation of the global economy.

But the most interesting thing happened later. Caravans loaded with silk needed infrastructure. This is how oasis cities such as Samarkand, Bukhara, and Kashgar appeared.

Along with bales of fabric, something more important traveled these roads: ideas.

For example - Religions: Buddhism came from India to China, while Islam and Christianity spread throughout Asia.

For example: Technologies: Thanks to the Silk Road, the world learned about paper, gunpowder, and the compass.

The paradox is that if it weren't for the huge demand for fancy fabric, these technologies might have reached Europe a century later. Silk funded the exchange of knowledge.

Textiles also became the first example of cultural diversity in design. We find Chinese silks with Persian patterns and Byzantine fabrics with Islamic calligraphy.

Fashion ceased to be local. Wearing silk meant belonging to the global elite, whether you were in Rome, Constantinople, or Chang'an. It was the first step towards the global fashion we know today.

So, to sum up. The Great Silk Road is a story of how the pursuit of beauty and comfort united the world. Silk was not just a commodity. It became a catalyst for the development of diplomacy, trade, and science. Textiles paved the physical roads that all of human civilization would later follow. And today, when we talk about globalization, it is worth remembering that it began with a small thread from a silkworm.

European manufactories. In the 16th–18th centuries, the production of wool, flax, and cotton became the basis for the economic development of European states. Manufactories were not yet factories, but they were already mass production: division of labor, quality standards, resource control, and sometimes state support. Textile manufactories provided mass employment, and fabrics accounted for a significant share of exports.

England and the Netherlands actually built their economic power on the production and sale of fabrics. It was thanks to textile manufactories that urbanization developed: cities grew around factories, and the trade in fabrics filled state budgets. As Virginia Postrel notes in her book The Fabric of Civilization, textiles literally “stitched” the economic world together—from raw materials to finished goods.


France during the reign of Louis XIV is an example of how textiles became politics. The state invested in workshops, luxury, quality, exports, and symbolic power: the “French style” as a brand of the country.

Tapestry manufacturing is not just about producing fabric. It is about producing prestige: interiors, images, diplomacy. The idea is simple: if you control the “language of style,” you control part of the market.

Years passed... and now we will travel back to the 18th-19th centuries to see how the desire to clothe humanity changed our way of life.

Often, when we think of the industrial revolution, we imagine steam engines and railways. But the truth is that the first industrial revolution was in textiles.

Imagine the problem: the population is growing, everyone needs clothes, and craftsmen are spinning thread by hand, just like a thousand years ago. It was too slow.

Everything changed with the invention of the spinning jenny and mechanical looms. Suddenly, one machine could do the work of 8, then 100, and eventually 1,000 workers.

But these machines were large. They couldn't be placed in the kitchen at home. This created a need for special buildings — factories. Textiles forced people to leave their homes and farms and go to work in workshops on a schedule. This is how the working class and the modern city were born. And textile factories became the “Silicon Valley” of the time — a center of innovation and crazy money.


At first, factories were built near rivers so that water could turn the wheels. But the demand for fabric was insatiable. This prompted James Watt to improve the steam engine.

For the first time in history, fabric production was no longer dependent on nature – wind or water. The city of Manchester in England became “Cottonopolis.” It was a global center where smoke from chimneys blocked out the sun and the clatter of looms never stopped, day or night. Textiles became the first mass-produced product in history.

The textile revolution even changed what artists painted and writers wrote about. Art ceased to be interested only in kings and myths—it turned to real life. A striking example is the painting by the impressionist Edgar Degas, “The Cotton Office in New Orleans.” In it, we see not a heroic battle, but business: men checking the quality of cotton, reading newspapers with exchange rates. Degas showed that it is here, among the bales of fabric, that the heart of the world now beats, and commerce is becoming the new religion.

In literature, textiles became the backdrop for sharp social criticism. Writers such as Charles Dickens (in the novel Hard Times) and Elizabeth Gaskell (in the book North and South) described life in fictional textile towns, where everything was covered in soot and people became mere “cogs” in the machine. It was thanks to these works that society began to realize that cheap and beautiful fabrics often came at the cost of broken lives, which eventually led to reforms in workers' rights.

But there is another fact that will surely surprise you. How do you control a machine so that it automatically creates complex patterns? In 1804, Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a way to control threads using punch cards—cardboard cards with holes.

This principle – “there is a hole / there is no hole” (1 and 0) – later inspired Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. In fact, modern programming was born on a loom. Your smartphone is a distant descendant of technologies for weaving patterns on fabric.

So, what role did textiles play in the 19th century?

1. They created the factory system and modern cities.
2. They drove the introduction of steam engines.
3. They laid the foundations for computer technology.

The history of civilization is not just a history of kings and wars. It is a history of how we learned to create things. And it was textiles that taught us to produce more, faster, and smarter.


Fast fashion.

Let's move on to the present day. Fast fashion is a model where the key value is not only in clothing, but in speed. Companies have learned to quickly pick up on trends and turn them into mass-market products. Today, we live in a world of “fast fashion.” Mass brands such as Zara, H&M, and Shein have built business models based on constant demand for new collections. This has made fashion accessible to millions of people and created enormous turnover in the economy. Economically, it looks like a “turnover machine”: frequent collections, rapid updates, large volumes, low prices, and high repeat purchases.

But at the same time, fast fashion has created environmental problems: overproduction, waste, pressure on resources, and ethical labor standards. This poses new challenges for the economy: how to maintain profitability while transitioning to sustainable consumption models. That is why, in parallel with fast fashion, there is a growing demand for sustainability and circular fashion.

Luxury fashion.

On the other hand, there is the high fashion market. Brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Dior have long understood that they are not selling fabric, or even clothing—they are selling status, style, and cultural code. This is a segment where consumers are not buying an item, but a symbol of belonging to a certain circle.

Luxury fashion creates enormous added value and functions as an economy of symbols. It proves that demand for fabrics can be not only material, but also cultural and emotional. This brings us to the second part: why cultural codes and symbols are becoming an economic resource. 


2. How cultural codes shape market niches

A quick test: what do you think is the original meaning of the word “investment”?

Historically, this word is associated with the idea of “dressing/endowing” – investing in an image, role, or status. In other words, investment is not only about money, but also about how we shape our position in the world. Now look at how this works in fashion: we “invest” in things that support our image – professional, cultural, social.

Culture = economy

We are used to thinking that the price of fabric depends on the cost of thread and labor. But in the modern world (and in history as well), this is not the case. The price is shaped by the story that the fabric tells.
The formula is simple: Cultural code + Textiles = Exclusive market niche. Let's look at how this works on three levels.

Code of Power:Roman purple.
Why purple? Imagine - to dye 1 kilogram of wool this color, 30,000 sea snails had to be destroyed. This made the fabric more expensive than gold. But it was not scarcity that created the economy here, but the law. The Romans turned color into legal status. Only the emperor had the right to wear a purple toga. This was the first example of luxury branding in history. The fabric became a marker of the elite, creating a closed but highly profitable market. You weren't buying clothes, you were buying power.

Identity Code: Ukrainian embroidery.
This is a perfect example of how folklore becomes a global trend. These are not just patterns. They are a “woven passport.” Each diamond or flower once carried information: which village you came from, whether you were married, what your status was.

Today, this cultural code is monetized through “ethno-chic.” Ukrainian companies such as ETNODIM and Varenyky Fashion have brought embroidery to international catwalks. They have proven that it is possible to combine authentic ornaments with modern cuts and create a product that is interesting all over the world. When global brands such as Gucci or Valentino use Ukrainian motifs, or when Elon Musk wears a vyshyvanka, this is an export of culture. The vyshyvanka is no longer a souvenir; it has become part of the global fashion industry. We are not selling linen to the world, but our uniqueness. In this way, tradition becomes an economic asset.

Code of Freedom: Jeans.
And the third example is jeans. At first, they were just sturdy clothes for gold miners. But in the 1950s, cinema and rock ‘n’ roll gave denim a new cultural code: rebellion and freedom. People started buying jeans not because they were durable, but because they wanted to feel young and independent. A cultural myth created the most massive clothing market on the planet.

Cultural codes work as a “marker of trust” and a “marker of uniqueness.” And uniqueness is what gives you a margin.


3. Business opportunities for Ukraine

Now for the practical stuff: where does Ukraine fit in and what business, projects, or careers could grow out of this? Ukrainian textile culture has enormous potential. Embroidery, weaving, authentic ornaments—all of this can form the basis for a unique product.

Young entrepreneurs are already proving that tradition + modern design = competitive advantage. Tradition provides uniqueness, while modern design provides functionality and clarity for a global audience.

What can be considered “tradition”? Ornaments, local weaving techniques, materials (linen, hemp, wool), regional history. What is “modern design”? Minimalism, comfortable cut, versatility, high-quality packaging, service, and marketing.

Ukraine can become a center of cultural export through textiles, just as Italy is associated with high fashion.

Today, you no longer need to open expensive stores to start your own business. It is enough to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the online space. Ukrainian brands are already represented on global marketplaces such as Etsy, Amazon Handmade, and eBay. Social networks—Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest—have become real showcases for business, where new trends are born and demand is formed. Even a small workshop can create its own website and work with an international audience. Digitalization has opened up equal opportunities for young people: today, the main thing is the idea, creativity, and quality, not start-up capital.

How can you find your niche?
Try asking yourself three questions to test any idea

1. Who is the product being created for? It could be the diaspora, European consumers who value sustainability, the Ukrainian market, or corporate clients.

2. What problem does your product solve? Perhaps it is self-expression, a gift, status, comfort, or functionality.

3. Which sales channel will be most effective? It could be marketplaces, social networks, partnerships, or offline events.

The second formula — Tradition + modern design + sustainable fashion = competitive advantage — adds something that is highly valued in the world today: sustainability. Sustainable fashion is not only about ecology; it is also about the economy of trust: transparency, quality, responsibility.

Ukraine has several natural advantages here: traditional natural materials (flax, hemp, wool), a strong school of handicrafts, creative industries, as well as powerful stories of sustainability and restoration.

The global trend toward sustainable fashion is opening up new niches:

• The use of natural fabrics (linen, hemp, wool) — materials that have traditionally been used in Ukraine.

• Upcycling and resale — giving things a second life as a business model.

• Biodegradable materials and eco-friendly packaging – what European consumers expect.


Ukrainian brands that integrate sustainability principles are gaining faster access to European and American markets because they meet the demands of the times.

Amid the war in Ukraine, there is growing demand for specialized textiles: functional fabrics, military clothing, and protective equipment. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for innovative entrepreneurs.

The world is moving towards virtual fashion: digital collections, NFT design, clothing for the metaverse. Young designers from Ukraine can integrate into these new markets, where fabric production is not required, only creativity and digital skills.


Summary of the third part

In conclusion, I would like to quote the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume. He asked: “Can we expect a government of a people who do not know how to spin or use a loom to function well?”

This phrase is brilliant. It tells us that textiles have given us more than just clothing.

The loom taught us to plan. Spinning taught us patience. And the need to sell fabric taught us to negotiate.

The history of textiles is the history of how humanity learned to be civilized. From a simple thread to a complex state structure, from the first knot to the global Internet. We are what we create.

Fabric has always been a driving force of civilization, and today it can also become a driving force for Ukrainian entrepreneurship.

For Ukraine, this is a chance to combine authenticity with innovation and enter global markets through design, sustainability, and strong cultural stories.

This concludes my brief story about the role of textiles in human history and their potential future impact on the development of our civilization. And if you found our video interesting, here you can find a list of sources that may be useful for further exploration of the topic.


Thank you very much for your attention! I wish you interesting ideas and success in implementing them!