In antiquity men and women consumed more labor to produce products from fiber bearing plants and animals than any other activity. Today the manmade fiber industry has reached dazzling heights frying to improve on the quality of natural fibers like wool, cotton, and asbestos and at the same time trying to offer the product at a better price. The identification of the tiny textile fiber fragments which cover our clothes and floors and contaminate our manufactured products illustrates how light microscopy can help improve the work environment, keep our products clean, and solve the most serious crimes. The consulting microscopist sees fibers as penultimately a problem of materials identification and finally as part of an intriguing mystery. In other words, from an archaeologist's point of view, fabric analysis always reveals something of the weaver in the same way as a forensic scientist learns something of the criminal through identification of extraneous fibers on the victim's clothing.