Application of biomimicry in textiles

Nature has created excellent technologies around us, and as such, it is the chief mentor to humans on creativity and technology development. Nature uses fibre as a building block - natural structures like wood, bamboo, bone, muscle, etc. all have fibrous structure. Fibre spinning and weaving technologies are available in nature since time immemorial. Nature has also demonstrated sophisticated technologies useful in the development of technical textiles like functional surfaces, camouflage, structural colour, thermal insulation, dry-adhesion, etc. Thus, biomimicry can be an inspiration to develop innovative textiles. This article reviews some of the important technologies of nature relating to textiles.