Unfortunately, the classical empirical friction laws do not hold true for fibrous and viscoelastic materials comprising most of the textile fibres. In the second half of the twentieth century, fibre surfaces have been studied by many distinguished scientists who were able to complete numerous researches for the frictional characteristics of different types of fibres. Most of the researchers have aimed to develop a new test method and a test device that can be used to measure the frictional characteristics of fibres quickly, accurately and easily in their studies. Unfortunately, there is not a standard test method or a test device for the measurement of textile fibres' friction properties. For today's competitive marketing, the instrument for fibre testing must be very fast and accurate; otherwise, it will not be useful for commercial purposes. For example, hundreds of thousands of cotton bales should be tested within a very short period of time in terms of the length, colour and trash content of the cotton bales. Without having the data describing the properties of cotton fibres, cotton bales cannot be sold commercially in most of the countries. Therefore, it is an important factor that the fibre-testing instrument should be fast and accurate. Most of the properties of cotton fibres can be assessed by using a HVI fibre-testing instrument. In this review, the historical perspective of fibre friction studies has been demonstrated with the fibre friction measurement-testing devices.