Textile research in the third millennium

Textile industry has become a high-tech industry nowadays. Consumers demand low cost and high quality textile products. In order to cope with the growing demands, textile industry has to constantly innovate and develop new and quality products. Advances in other science and engineering disciplines have helped the textile industry to meet the demanding challenges. Some of the areas that will have significant growth and potential in the near future are smart textiles, development of novel and high performance fibers, manufacturing of efficient and high production textile machinery and simple quality evaluation instruments. In addition, for continued growth and development there should be cooperative research endeavors among textile academia, industries and research organizations. This article highlights significant developments in the aforementioned areas and throws some light on the research endeavors needed in the near future.