Recovery from bending is an important end use requirement of most textile struc tures, being directly related, for example, to crease recovery of apparel fabries. Al though fabric bending recovery is influenced by yarn and fabric geometry, filament bending recovery plays a significant role. Thus, an understanding of the influence of filament properties on filament bending recovery is essential to the understanding of fabric bending recovery. An analysis of the bending recovery of filaments is presented. The filaments arc assumed to be linearly elastic for tensile stresses below the yield stress, and to have a sharply defined yield point. The filaments are further assumed to exhibit linear work-hardening beyond the yield, and to have the same properties in compression as in tension. Time effects, although not explicitly included, are discussed. The tensile behaviur of fine-diameter metal wire and several polymeric filaments is approximated by these assumptions. The analytical expressions obtained for the recovered radii of curvature of circular filaments as a function of the filament diameter, material properties, and initial radius of curvature are verified experimentally. The rigidity and bending recovery of ribbon and circular filaments of the same material and tensile strength are compared. Future publications, the basic work for which has been completed, will extend the analysis to twisted singles yarns, and woven and nonwoven fabrics.