Vocabulary

Business Plan

A business plan describes an idea for a product or service.  It allows you to create a map for success by planning out the different elements of your business including marketing, finances, pricing, and profit.

Circular System/Closed Loop

Materials are used indefinitely without being degraded.  This “cradle to cradle” method allows a material to become a component of a product, converted from the used product back into a raw material, and then re-used to make the same product again.

Colorfastness

A term used in the dyeing of textile materials that characterizes a material's color’s resistance to fading or running.

Cost per Unit

How much money a company spends on producing one unit of the product they sell. 

Economic Impacts

Financial effects that something has on a situation or person.

Environmental Impacts

The effect that the activities of people and businesses have on the environment.

Fiber

A long and thin strand or thread of material that can be knit or woven into a fabric.

Finishing

Chemical and mechanical processes used on textiles after they have been made.

Genetically Modified (GMOs)

Living organisms whose genetic material has been artificially manipulated in a laboratory through genetic engineering. This creates combinations of plant, animal, bacteria, and virus genes that do not occur in nature or through traditional crossbreeding methods.

Go-to-Market

Delivering a product or service to the end customer, considering such factors as design, pricing, marketing, and distribution.

Hydrocarbons

A compound of hydrogen and carbon, such as any of those which are the chief components of petroleum and natural gas.

Life Cycle Analysis

The combined economic, environmental, and social impacts of a product through its entire life cycle, from cradle to grave.

Linear System/Open Loop

Materials are not used indefinitely and eventually become waste.  This includes resources used in products that become unwanted, obsolete, non-functional, or unrecyclable.  These materials may go beyond a single use through upcycling, recycling or downcycling but will eventually end up in a landfill or incinerator.

Living Wage

The minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing.

Mercerized

Mercerization is a textile finishing treatment for cellulose fabric and yarn, mainly cotton and flax, which improves dye uptake and tear strength, reduces fabric shrinkage, and imparts a silk-like luster.

Organic

Derived from living matter.

Production Cycle

The process of combining raw materials or components and labor in order to manufacture, assemble or otherwise produce a finished product.

Silhouette

When referring to fashion, the silhouette is the outline of the clothing.

Social Impacts

The effects on people and communities that happens as a result of an action or inaction, an activity, project, program or policy.

Startup Costs

The materials, equipment, space, and people required to start a business.

Sustainability

Development of natural, social, and economic resources that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 

Synthetic

Synthetic products are made from chemicals or artificial substances rather than from natural ones.

Target Market

A group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products and services.

Yarn

A long continuous length of interlocked fibers, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, or ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine.