Bamboo textiles are cloth, yarn, and clothing made out of bamboo fibres. While historically used only for structural elements, such as bustles and the ribs of corsets, in recent years a range of technologies have been developed allowing bamboo fibre to be used in a wide range of textile and fashion applications. Modern bamboo clothing is clothing made from either 100% bamboo yarn or a blend of bamboo and cotton/organic cotton yarn. The bamboo yarn can also be blended with other textile fibres such as hemp or even spandex.

A scarf made of bamboo yarn and synthetic ribbon

In China and Japan, thin strips of bamboo were woven together into hats and shoes. One particular design of bamboo hats was stereotypically connected with rural life, being worn almost universally by farmers and fishermen in order to protect their heads from the sun.

An 1881 bustle design.

In the West, bamboo, alongside other components such as whalebone and steel wire, was sometimes used as a structural component in corsets, bustles and other types of structural elements used in fashionable women’s dresses.

Kinhyōshi yōrin (Yang Lin), hero of the Suikoden, holding a bamboo hat. From Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s series of woodblock prints illustrating the 108 Suikoden.