High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The textile industry (known colloquially in the United Kingdom and Australia as the rag trade) is a term used for industries primarily concerned with the design or manufacture of clothing as well as the distribution and use of textiles.Prior to the manufacturing processes being mechanized, textiles were produced in the home, and excess sold for extra money. Most cloth was made from either wool, cotton, or flax, depending on the era and location. For example, during the late medieval period, cotton became known as an imported fiber in northern Europe, without any knowledge of what it came from other than that it was a plant; noting its similarities to wool, people in the region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep.