Before the T-shirt, the Knits or the favourite piece they refuse to take off, there is a plant. And it’s one humans have been growing, spinning and weaving for thousands of years.
Cotton has travelled a long way to reach our wardrobes. For centuries, Europeans wore it without ever having seen the plant it came from. So they imagined an explanation of their own: somewhere far away, there must be trees with tiny sheep growing from their branches. A little piece of that story survives today in the German word for cotton, Baumwolle — literally, “tree wool.”
But cotton’s story has a darker side too. As demand grew and production industrialised, it became entangled with slavery, child labour and colonial exploitation. Which brings us to something we think is worth remembering: the plant itself is never the problem. It’s what we do with it.
A little like an apple. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, right? But if that apple is grown using harmful pesticides, treated with unnecessary chemicals, and produced by farmers who are kept in poverty, is the apple the problem? Of course not. Cotton is no different. How we grow it, how we turn it into clothes, how much we make, and how well we look after it once it’s ours matters.
Around 100 million families worldwide depend on cotton farming for their livelihoods. So this World Cotton Day, we’re celebrating the people who have grown it for generations, and who continue to keep its story alive today.
If you want to tell your children the story of how what they wear begins with a cotton flower, we recommend reading them Story of a T-shirt, a beautiful children's book published by the United Nations FAO.
The story follows the adventures of Celestina, a little T-shirt who finds herself alone in a landfill and has to make her way back to her “parents”. Along the way, Celestina discovers that she was born from a cotton plant, taking young readers on a journey through the life of a garment. 
At the heart of the story is a beautifully simple idea: a T-shirt is made from the same precious resources we need to produce our food: water, air, soil, and energy. And if we've learned not to waste one, why should we waste the other?
And while you read it, make sure to snuggle up in their favourite TSF Chunky Knit!
Happy World Cotton Day, folks 🌸
