Whether they realise it or not, consumers of cotton textiles have an influence on the properties of the fibres that spinners request from their cotton fibre suppliers to produce their yarns. That link is not direct, as many operations and stakeholders perform their activities between the shop shelves and the raw fibre stocks of the spinning mills. This presentation explores the evolution of the "quality" criteria used at each operating level, and those used at the interfaces between operating levels. By moving from the criteria used to describe finished products to those used to describe cotton fibres, can the quality criteria used to market the fibres be justified?