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Above: A bride in a homemade gown of silk crepe back satin. Fall 2023. Courtesy of Isabel Nolen.
In December, 1888, Ellen Terry appeared as Lady McBeth at London’s Lyceum Theatre. She wore a gown adorned with the casings of beetle wings. Only nature could supply the wanted eerie shimmer in that era before plastic sequins.[1] Michael Jackson and countless others have since shimmered more than Ellen Terry ever did, but somehow in these latter instances, after that initial dazzling flash, our enthusiasm fades. These modern shows of plastic are, after all, tame and tawdry. Terry’s gown, embroidered with hundreds of iridescent shells, possessed the wild mystique of the jungle, the primordial allure of dangerous, creeping things.
With festoons of cloth of gold, Henry VIII and Francis I established a diplomatic encampment that would go down in history simply as The Field of the Cloth of Gold.[2] In today’s textile industry the epithet would be an exaggeration; gleaming gold fabrics might look costly, but in reality, they are woven with the cheapest polyester fibers. Not so, in that age before industry; the fabric of kings didn’t just look like gold—it was gold.[3]
At a wedding dress design meeting, a young bride looked up from a swatch of mulberry silk and asked me incredulously, “Do you mean to say this was really made by little worms?”
“Yes!” I assured her. “Only little worms could make something that beautiful.”
Each of the above examples illustrates the ability of the world’s natural materials to inspire wonder in the heart of man; and this wonder, it is important to note, is wholly distinct from environmental concerns. The dignitaries in The Field of the Cloth of Gold did not rejoice in that gleaming fabric because it was free of microplastics. Nor did the London gentry patronizing the Lyceum particularly care whether Lady McBeth’s dress was biodegradable. Even today, when environmental concerns are a common topic of debate, the bride delighting in her silk wedding satin hardly does so because she’s thinking of reducing landfills. And, though many a pragmatic bride may strive for some measure of comfort on her wedding day, very few choose silk over polyester merely for the natural fabric’s moisture-wicking properties. One might suggest, then, that the question is purely one of aesthetics: silk looks better than polyester. But while this is obvious to experts in textile design, it cannot be denied that textiles engineers have developed such successful methods for synthesizing natural materials that often the differences are subtle. There is, it seems, an additional factor that gives natural materials their underlying appeal.
Despite their waning prominence in everyday life, natural fabrics still possess handles our minds can readily grasp. Whether we think of linen, cotton, wool, or silk, we call to mind familiar and largely pleasant images that smack of life, growth, and the touch of the human hand. If one does not know that linen comes from flax or hemp, one at least knows it comes from a plant. The same is true for cotton. Wool, the fabric of winter, seems a perfectly logical use of a sheep’s thick curly coat. And even silk, made by that fascinating process of a caterpillar’s cocoon secretion, is, in the end, not so remote from our imagination, perhaps due to every man’s experience with the delicate threads of spider webs.
With synthetics, the case is not so clear. Consumers who bother to look at their clothing tags today will see an array of polymer names as dubious as the ingredients listed in small print on junk-food wrappers. Everyone has heard of polyester, nylon, acrylic and spandex, but how many know what they are? To be told these materials come from a complex process by which fossil fuel byproducts, through highly industrialized chemical reactions, become small bead-like pellets which may then be melted down into a slew of plastic products does not particularly illuminate matters. We think only of belching petroleum wells, white fluorescent factories, and robotic arms punching out now a bottle, now a shopping bag, now a dress to sell on Amazon.[4] We gain no appreciation for the materials themselves, but only come away a little cowed by the colossal scale, complexity, and, if we’re being frank, searing ugliness of it all.
An objector might hurry to say this is a problem of education then. Man simply must be taught the wonders of the technological world; he must be made to appreciate the chemical genius that has brought the world Polyethylene Terephthalate; [5] he must look closely at the industrial marvels housed in every Chinese factory. There have indeed been initiatives in this line, two notable examples being the television documentary series How It’s Made, airing first in 2001 on Canada’s Discovery Channel, [6] and, predating that, segments of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood called “Factory Visits.”[7] In such shows, mesmerizing video montages show the great industrial system gliding away at its work, lurching machines incongruously accompanied by soft jazz piano or soothing “Scientific Background Music.”
But now as the generations who feasted on this glut of technological promotion come of age, one might well ask, do they wonder? Have their exposures before television screens airing the industrial processes of post-modernity awakened them, invigorated them, made them marvel at the gift of being alive? In reality, there is, in the confrontation of such systems, an enervating effect. Those fed such a diet most often come away apathetic, vaguely wondering why, in the face of so many well-oiled machines, man ought to try his hand at anything.[8]
It is not then a lack of technological understanding that prevents us from loving synthetics; it is simply that such artificial materials, clever as they may be, fail to touch our hearts or lift our minds to a higher plane. We cannot detect God’s fingerprints in them. Being, as the labels tell us, “man-made,” synthetics furnish a world where man would become his own god, a world like a horizontal tunnel that allows no upward ascent.
But it is precisely this upward ascent for which man was intended. Through the stewardship of creation which has its fulfilment in the sacramental life, man rises to meet his creator and even to become like Him. “What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him?” the psalmist asks and then goes on to answer:
Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour: And hast set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen: moreover the beasts also of the fields. The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea (Psalm 8:5-9).
Man reaches this height, this status that is only “a little less than the angels” by glorifying God through the sacramental life. The Sacraments rely on the simplest elements of creation: fire, water, salt, oil, wheat, grapes, beeswax, and so on. These materials were created first and foremost for the Sacraments. God did not institute Baptism and then decide to use water for it; He created water for Baptism.[9] He created wheat and grapes for the Eucharist, oil for sacramental anointing, gold for sacred vessels, bees and their wax for candles, spices for incense, flowers for the altar, linen for altar cloths, wool for the pallium, silk for priestly vestments, and so on.[10] We often think of the Incarnation and all of its marvelous results (the establishment of the seven Sacraments being the chief among them) as Our Lord’s response to the fall, even as a general might hastily amend his strategy after a bitter defeat. But because God exists outside of time, and because He knew before all time that man would fall—that there would be an Immaculate Virgin, an Incarnation, Sacraments, and liturgies—He created the universe with precisely this in mind. Natural materials, in so far as they bring Christ to birth in us through sacramental liturgies, imitate the Blessed Virgin who gave birth to Christ in Bethlehem. They hasten to contribute their accompaniment to her joyful Magnificat.
Is it any wonder, then, that we who are meant to live by the Sacraments would yearn that our lives and everything in them also be a part of our Blessed Mother’s canticle? The bride, delighting in her silk made from worms, senses His presence reaching through the exquisite perfection of His creation. The priest who yearns for cloth of gold to adorn the liturgy and not that stuff made today which only apes gold, does so with the innate sense that he ought to offer Christ the best of the earth’s riches just as the Magi did. Those kings of old did not come bearing polyester. The housewife spreading out a linen table cloth may think of the Eucharistic feast, the linens of the altar, Veronica’s veil, or the Holy Shroud.[11] And even the man in his simple wool suit may well think of sheep and Christ the Good Shepherd. This consciousness of the materials with which we surround ourselves, those that are in contact with our very flesh, profoundly shapes us. We are either formed by the natural and its wealth of links to the life of God, or we are compromised by synthetics devoid of His fingerprints, devoid of beauty, and echoing with the world’s dull groans of despair. We live either in a sacramental universe or in a synthetic one.[12]
Of course, there are those who would say this “theology of materials” goes too far. Natural materials might be preferable, they argue, but they are not actually as important as all that. But anyone who values the Church’s traditional liturgy will understand that what man receives from the hand of God and learns through the five senses is immeasurable. The astonishing significance of materials in the path to Heaven or hell is, in fact, a kind of scandal established by God Himself. In the Sacraments we see this most starkly: the Eucharist comes to us only by the aid of wheat and grapes, temperamental fruits of the earth not even native to many climates. For Baptism, that great resurrection of the immortal human soul, we are dependent on something as humble as water. Here, by the greatness of God’s providence, a bridge joins the natural world with the supernatural. This is the miracle of every Sacrament.
Recalling the usual non-spiritual arguments made in favor of natural fibers (i.e. biodegradability, greater comfort, greater aesthetic value), I reiterate that we should not deny the validity of any of them. However, to rely exclusively on those arguments is to miss the strongest argument of all: contact with natural materials is a fundamental aid to human salvation. This is undeniably the case when it comes to the Sacraments, and it is the case to a lesser degree in every other aspect of life. Striving to fill the sanctuary with beautiful materials is the noblest of goals, but the quest cannot end there. The Lord did not make us for fragmented lives in which we worship one way and live another way. If human life is to consist of constant praise of God and not isolated flashes of worship confined to the celebrations of the Sacraments, then it stands to reason that we must promote and defend those countless quasi-sacramental moments when a great spiritual truth, a spark of beauty, or the sweetness of God’s goodness come to us via the humblest of natural materials.[13] These moments push us to Heaven like gusts of heady wind in our sails. They relieve us of the weary strain at the oars and let us rest for a moment, even fly. The absence of such moments acts as an opposing current, something that drains us, something that would make us drift to a hell of our own making.
Every moment of our lives at home or at school or at work should bear the marks of God’s creative hand. This is why our clothing and our fabrics are so important. They go with us everywhere; they speak to us constantly; they tell us who we are. Our quest for linen, cotton, silk, or wool even today is not the faddish whim of silly “trad wives” but a rightly ordered instinct that reaches for things that silently speak of God. Even if, regrettably, natural materials pass today through industrial systems as harmful to the earth and culture as those which produce synthetic materials, the natural materials themselves cannot be robbed of the advantage of their origins and properties. They will always have greater ontological value than synthetics, and this the human soul can perceive.
Now, given its basis in the spiritual and sacramental realms, this argument in favor of natural materials is, admittedly, a difficult one to defend in a rationalistic system that denies the spiritual altogether. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of believers to fight against anything that threatens human life, particularly the life of the soul. The rapidly increasing pervasiveness of synthetics coupled with the clothing industry’s Fast Fashion movement[14] has all but destroyed the cotton, linen, wool, and silk markets in the span of a few decades. The onslaught has been virtually unremarked by Catholics. Yet, we have seen that when it comes to medicine and bio-ethics, certain Catholics trained in these fields have made great progress in promoting medical ethics and defending human life from conception to natural death. So, in a similar fashion we need artists and philosophers to promote an artistic ethic that defends, first and foremost, the life of every human soul. In other words, the areas of materials and the arts in general must be viewed as domains subject to ethical standards. We must always ask the question: Is what we’re making going to harm human souls, even indirectly or over a longer period? Is it going to thwart the restoration of a culture in which human souls live, grow, and are saved?
If Catholics do not rise to the challenge, no one else will, simply because no one else can. Those without the Faith will never understand their deepest longing for natural creation and are therefore totally unprepared to defend it. Environmentalists are easily side-stepped by false promises and sham recycling initiatives. Aesthetes will be forever brushed aside as snobbish and fastidious: “The average person can’t really tell the difference between silk and polyester anyway,” critics say. And even arguments for comfort such as the great breathability of linen are made less relevant by the recent improvements of moisture wicking technologies in synthetics. In short, there are many reasons for which the man without faith may finally suppress his longings for the natural. The question we Catholics must ask ourselves is, what excuse do we have to suppress them? Or what will we tell such a man when he does come to know God? How will we justify ourselves for letting those materials which bear His fingerprints disappear from our lives? It falls squarely on believers, those already basking in the blazing light of the Faith, with access to the Church’s knowledge stored up over the centuries, to apply every gift they have to protecting the world God created and inscribed with His Holy Name.
Things We Can Do Right Now:
- Priests should discontinue the use of synthetic fabrics in every part of their ministry. Vestments should be silk. Altar cloths, albs, and surplices: linen. Cassocks, from the oldest minister down to the smallest altar boy: 100% wool or wool blended with some other natural material (e.g. a wool-silk blend or a wool-cotton blend). Altar carpets: wool or silk. Lace: cotton or linen. Festive draperies and banners: silk (cotton and linen for outdoor use). It is far better to have no fabric than synthetic fabric. You may go years without a banner, an antependium, or some other desired adornment, and this is alright. Allow the faithful to live the virtue of holy poverty. Rather than rushing to a manufacturer of cheap religious goods to purchase a synthetic banner with an AI-generated image, explain to the faithful why you’re taking the time to procure something better. Ask the faithful to donate funds or artistic talent to aid in the making of something worthy and beautiful. It will take time, and that is good. The spirit of hurry, that compulsion to plug every lack with the fastest, cheapest, and the easiest, is antithetical to Catholic life.
- The faithful should consider how they clothe themselves and their children for the Sacraments. A cotton or linen baptismal gown, however plain, is superior to a polyester one. Likewise for First Communion, Confirmation, and wedding dresses. Though ornamentation is understandably appealing, we must seek honest ornamentation that has not sacrificed material integrity and dignity for cheap frills. We are so used to tawdry sacramental gowns that we hardly remember the beauty of real ornamentation: e.g. cotton needle lace, painstaking pintucks, seed pearls lovingly applied by the human hand. The average home seamstress is capable of making a wedding gown. With the money she saves on labor, she may easily afford many yards of silk.
- In everyday life, we should, wherever possible, phase out all synthetics. Bedsheets and table cloths should be cotton or linen. Window drapes may be any natural material. Better to have no carpet than a synthetic one. Finally, with regard to clothing, better to have a few natural items than many synthetic ones. This is the cardinal rule.
[1] “‘Beetle Wing Dress’ for Lady Macbeth,” National Trust, https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1118839.1
[2] Dr. Sean Cunningham, “The Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520,” The National Archives, 9 June 2020, https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/the-field-of-the-cloth-of-gold-1520/
[3] “Cloth of Gold,” V&A, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O130131/cloth-of-gold-unknown/
[4] “Polyethylene terephthalate,” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/polyester
[5] “PET – Manufacturing process of polyethylene Terephtalate (PET),” Valco, https://www.valcogroup-valves.com/faq-2/manufacturing-process-polyethylene-terephtalate/
[6] “How It’s Made (a Titles & Air Dates Guide),” epguides.com, 16 July 2024, https://epguides.com/HowItsMade/
[7] “Mr. Rogers on how crayons are made,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWAhnVYUPZo
[8] Seeing this, educators have scrambled to “give them the theory behind it!” As a result, every child with a pulse is hurried through a slew of STEM courses in a desperate one-size-fits-all attempt to make a world of engineers. Some do well; some do poorly; but not a one is inspired with wonder, and upon graduation, not a one could tell you what the shirt on his back is actually made of. All of the attempts to “wow them” (the world’s version of wonder and awe) with technology have largely resulted in making them lazy. They have seen that the good things of life come from a black box full of intricate workings they’d rather not approach except perhaps via a lulling episode of How It’s Made.
[9] Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy. (New York, New York: Herder and Herder, 1965).
[10] Larry Chapp, “How Christocentric and Spirit-filled are the synodal machinations?,” The Catholic World Report, https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/11/10/how-christocentric-and-spirit-filled-are-the-synodal-machinations/
[11] With his characteristic effusion, Romano Guardini has this insight on linen: “Good linen, strong-fibered and close-woven, is a costly material. It has the luster of fresh snow…. Linen has much to teach us about the nature of purity. Genuine linen is an exquisite material. Purity is not the product of rude force or found in company with harsh manners. Its strength comes of its fineness. Its orderliness is gentle. But linen is also extremely strong; it is no gossamer web to flutter in every breeze. In real purity there is nothing of that sickly quality that flies from life and wraps itself up in unreal dreams and ideals out of its reach. It has the red cheeks of the man who is glad to be alive and the firm grip of the hard fighter. Sacred Signs (Os Justi Press, 2025), 39–40.
[12] Regarding this topic, Peter Kwasniewski writes: “The fabric made from natural things makes it more clear that man is a steward of the garden of creation, a cultivator of its fruits; he literally wears part of the world on his own skin, like a tree covered with bark, or an animal with its own fur. The kinship of man with the world and his kingship over it are strongly accentuated this way. When man invents a chemical that functions like a natural substance and then produces it in a factory, he is moving away from a humble and comforting dependency on given creatures and moving toward a more god-like role of creation. This is not a sin, but it puts man in a different relationship with the world—more distant, more imperious, and more pliable to his will.” Private Correspondence. 2023.
[13] Dietrich von Hildebrand, Aesthetics Volume I, trans. Brian McNeil. (Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Project, 2018), 211.
[14] Alex Crumbie, “What is fast fashion and why is it a problem?,” ethical consumer, 9 April 2024, https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/what-fast-fashion-why-it-problem