Short answers, pulled from the story.
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fibre-based materials, including fibres, yarns, filaments, threads, and different types of fabric. The word originally referred only to woven fabrics, but it now covers materials made by weaving, knitting, and nonwoven methods for uses ranging from clothing to spacesuits and geotextiles.
Fibre is the smallest component of a fabric, a thin hair-like structure with a high length-to-width ratio. Fibres are typically spun into yarn, and yarns are used to make fabrics through weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting, tatting, or braiding.
Dyed flax fibres discovered in a cave in the Republic of Georgia date to 34,000 BCE, and radiocarbon places the microscopic fibres at about 36,000 years ago. The first clothes, worn at least 70,000 years ago, were probably made of animal skins.
Consumer textiles serve domestic purposes where aesthetics and comfort matter most, such as clothing and furnishings. Technical textiles are made for industrial purposes and chosen for functional properties, including geotextiles, medical textiles like implants, agrotextiles, and protective clothing such as bulletproof and heat-resistant garments.
John Kay invented the flying shuttle in 1734 in Bury, Lancashire, Samuel Crompton built a spinning machine in 1779, and Edmund Cartwright invented the first power loom in 1785. The spinning jenny, invented in the United Kingdom in 1765, made textile production the first economic activity to be industrialized.
After the oil industry, the fashion industry is the second biggest polluter of agricultural land. The textile sector is believed to use 79 trillion litres of water per year and to discharge around 20 percent of all industrial effluent, with dyes considered among the most significant contaminants.
In 2013 the top five exporters of textiles were China at 274 billion dollars, India at 40 billion, Italy at 36 billion, Germany at 35 billion, and Bangladesh at 28 billion. China is the largest exporter of textile goods, helped by low prices, abundant labor, and a ready supply of raw materials.