While Jonano has gotten attention in the fashion world over the past four years for its eye-catching designs and unique use of novel fabrics, last year it got a dose of unwanted legal attention from the Federal Trade Commission.

The company and three other small clothing and linen designers and outlets that all sold items made from bamboo were charged civilly by the FTC in August 2009 with false labeling and advertising of their products.

The allegations resulted in a settlement with all four companies by December, although two of them later closed, in part because of the impact of the case.

The allegations also began a much larger debate about the science and environmental qualities behind bamboo clothing and fabrics -- which is still ongoing -- as well as the true motivation of the FTC in pushing the case.

"I'm guessing the cotton industry had something to do with it," said Chris Tait, owner of Mad Mod of Nashville, one of the companies the FTC charged. "Because they don't want to have their industry taken over by bamboo."

A spokeswoman for the National Cotton Council, the industry's lobbying arm, said the group did not push for the FTC's investigation of bamboo.

"Oh my heavens, you have to be kidding me," said Marjory Walker. "I've been doing this for 21 years and I have never heard anyone even mention bamboo as competition."

Bonnie Siefers, owner of Jonano, which is still open and thriving, said, for her, the whole situation came down to the novelty of the fabric.

"There hasn't been a new fabric introduced into the marketplace that hasn't taken time to perfect," she said. "But I think it's important to take the lead and be a pioneer and try to make the world cleaner and greener."

All the owners point out the same general advantages to the bamboo plant: It takes no irrigation to grow, doesn't require pesticides, grows quickly and can be harvested over and over again.

The FTC does not disagree with that. But it claimed that Jonano, Mad Mod, Pure Bamboo of Los Angeles and Bamboosa of Andrews, S.C., had improperly labeled their products as being made from bamboo fibers, and that they made improper environmental claims, including that they had natural antimicrobial properties and were biodegradable.

Using fabrics made from bamboo is a relatively new in the United States, really only picking up steam in the past four or five years -- which is what FTC officials said drew their attention in the first place when they began looking into the companies back in 2006.

"We were shocked and other people were shocked that what was being sold as antimicrobial bamboo was in fact rayon made by an environmentally unfriendly process," said James Kohm, associate director of the FTC's division of enforcement. "We were looking at a slew of environmental claims that just weren't true."

By calling it "rayon," Mr. Kohm is referring to the process that produced the fabric, in which the cellulose from the bamboo plant is chemically treated to create a fiber, just as wood cellulose is typically used to create the rayon found in many clothes.

A pure bamboo fiber can be created without chemicals through a more intensive, manual process, but it is much stiffer and less comfortable to wear.

"We didn't know that it wasn't technically bamboo fiber," said Morris Saintsing, one of the owners of Bamboosa. "I mean, it says it right on the bales we get" from China, where virtually all of the fabric from bamboo is made.

Rather than call it "bamboo clothing," as Jonano did, the FTC required the companies to change that to either "rayon from bamboo," or "viscose from bamboo," which they did.

But the FTC also wanted the companies to remove any environmental claims -- including that it was antimicrobial -- unless the claim was backed by "competent and reliable scientific evidence that substantiates the representation," according to the settlement order.

The companies all said they had found studies from around the world that, they say, showed that bamboo clothing -- even if made from viscose -- retained bamboo's natural antimicrobial properties and was biodegradable.

"It didn't matter what we sent in as far as facts and scientific research. They didn't care," said Mr. Tait, owner of Mad Mod, which closed, as did Pure Bamboo, after the charges were levied against the company.

Mr. Saintsing said he even sent in the results of a study he had a lab in Texas do on the antimicrobial properties of his fabric, but it was dismissed.

The FTC relied, in part, on a survey of the scientific literature on bamboo done by Peter Hauser, a textile researcher at North Carolina State. Dr. Hauser, who has not done his own research on bamboo, said other studies show that when the bamboo plant "goes through the rayon process, it loses all the environmental benefits the plant has, including that it's antimicrobial."

But Mr. Tait and the other owners say not only do they have their own studies -- almost all of them done outside the United States -- but their customers all speak to the benefits of their bamboo towels or socks.

"You can use one of our bamboo towels day after day and it will never smell, whereas a cotton towel will get mildewy and gross," he said.

But Dr. Hauser said there's just no verifiable evidence that that's true.

"Send me a copy of a peer-reviewed work on bamboo," he challenged. "If there is any, I haven't seen it."

Mr. Saintsing said he's not giving up and he's going to push to get such a study done. "I'll prove it's antimicrobial eventually," he said.

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