Have you realised how demanding we have become with our clothes today? We want them warm, but not thick and itchy. Or we want them to keep us cool, especially when we're exercising. We want them colourful, but we don't want the colour to fade after a few washes. We don't want them to crease after a few hours' wear, but we do want them supple and soft on the skin. We want them resistant, too – not many of us are very good at mending and darning nowadays. Some of us, even, can't be bothered with ironing.

All this has been made possible by the new fibres created thanks to the input of the aromatics industry. Have a look at the labels on your clothes. Acrylic fibres. Polyester. Nylon. They used to sound – or even look – cheap. Not anymore. Very often, they are added to luxurious fibres – linen, silk, cashmere wool – to give them more resistance. Which means that we don't have to take pains washing them by hand and drying them in a way that means you have to have a football-stadium sized bathroom or laundry-room.

These new textiles are also used in our furniture, of course, in our carpets, our bed sheets and blankets, our curtains, our fuzzy slippers, our mattresses and pillows. With all the advantages depicted above. But the research is continuing, with advanced, aromatics-derived polymers being developed for revolutionary, "intelligent clothes" – such as pyjamas that will monitor a patient's vital signs, or clothes that can detect a soldier's wounds, and then goes on to administer an antibiotic. We're leaving the domain of the frivolous to go to life-and-death matters...

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