Over the past decade or so, I've read several different articles by different journalists visiting Afghanistan who described their respective experiences wearing a burqa. (Most recently here.) And most, if not all, of these articles mentioned that the burqa was made of some synthetic fibre that doesn't breathe.
How did that come about?
Conventional wisdom is that Afghanistan doesn't have much in the way of infrastructure. A lack of infrastructure should make manufacturing synthetic fabrics difficult, so I would expect people to wear natural fabrics made in traditional ways - whatever it was that people did in the centuries and millennia before industrialization. Synthetic fibres also seem inconvenient for burqas (something that breathes would be better), and more convenient for other things. So why are they using it for burqas? This would suggest that synthetic fibres are more readily available than natural fibres. How did that happen in a country with so little infrastructure?
Obviously not all burqas are made of synthetic fibres. Some of the burqas available for sale on the internet in English are available in cotton and sometimes even silk, although I'm certainly not assuming that what I can google up in English is representative of the general burqa market. I've also seen a number of newspaper articles mentioning in passing (for the purpose of explaining to readers what a burqa is) that they're made of cotton; it's quite possible the people writing these articles have no first-hand experience with burqas or are just repeating what they've googled up. But every article I've read by a journalist who actually wore a burqa in Afghanistan has them describing it as made of synthetic fibres that don't breathe. (Unless they're purposely giving synthetic ones to journalists for some reason?)
There's a story in there somewhere. Even if it turns out to be obvious to those familiar with the Afghan garment industry, there's a story in there for ignorant westerners like me.
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