Fabric has always been one of society's expressing either of folkways or of the manners of highly developed civilizations. In the Neolithic Age, tasseled aprons proclaimed the fertility of females. These fringed garments, sometimes with baubles hanging from the tassels, attracted attention to the eligible females. Later, the color of garments was associated with the life stages of their wearers. In nearly all societies, for example, brides dress differently than widows. Both may wear a veil, but the color will always differ within a particular culture.
The development of a technology to produce fabric was already quite advanced as early as 10,000 years ago. Admittedly it was still extremely labor-intensive to produce even the plainest of weaves. By the Bronze Age -- say 4,000 years ago -- people in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans were wearning sewn garments woven in ornate patterns in different colors and often with emboridered decorations.
The making of cloth became a significant part of the inter-regional economies and artists expressed myths, invented new symbols and told narratives, all in textile goods that traveled along the merchant routes, spreading the technology, the myths and the legends.
Actually, when we come to think about it, in relatively recent times, the Renaissance and Impressionist masters of painting were "decorating" a piece of linen with surface design. Of course, when we look at one of the masterpieces, we usually don't see the linen, just the masterful use of oil paints that cover its surface. By their time in history, textile production had been greatly automated and was taken for granted. Creative persons began to use the linen fabric -- once an important piece of art in and of itself -- as merely a background, both literally and figuratively, for the newer art of painting in oil.
In fact, we see today that much of textile art is concentrated on the practice of painting surface designs on cloth woven in a simple rectangular pattern by a highly automated process. But if we go back in time to the Middle Paleolithic, before much "everyday" clothing was worn, the surface designs were often applied directly to the human skin in culturally prescribed patterns. From there, humanity moved to the design and production of textiles which performed the same cultural function as well as providing protection for the wearer and a medium for artististic expression.
Much of the fabric of all historic periods since the Bronze Age was used for material other than garments. Even when fabricating household textiles, cloth was created in an "expressionist" mode. Baby blankets might be of a color or design to ward off evil spirits, for example. Even the coverings for camels in present-day Central Asia are designed and colored to protect the camel and the goods it carries from the influence of evil spirits.
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