WEAVES
ALCANTARA,
A composite fabric used to cover different surfaces. It is a synthetic fibre used to create polyester and polyurethane based fabrics.
Classified as a non-woven fabric or microfibre, Alcantara is made by aligning very fine polyester fibres in a web, bonded together by applying hot polyurethane resin.
BROCATELLE,
Exported from Italy, it is a fabric that looks like a small Brocade with a raised woven pattern. Brocatelle is less precious than Brocade (with gold and silver threads) and has a very special "bumpy" appearance.
Brocatelle differs from Brocade in that its smaller satin patterns are raised on a cotton or linen twill background.
EMBROIDERY,
The art of adding to the surface of an already woven background a flat or raised pattern made of simple threads, sometimes incorporating materials such as sequins, beads or even precious stones.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries embroidery on velvet or satin, played a major role in furnishings: drapes, doorway curtains, bedspreads, curtains, etc.
With the return of Romanticism, embroidered veils became used as curtains.
CHENILLE,
Generally soft, bulky, single-coloured fabric of a taffeta or gauze weave with a high pile created in the weft from specially treated chenille yarns.
Reversible chenille fabric is used for curtains. The name of the fabric comes from the yarn used to produce.
CREPE,
Medium-thickness cotton fabric, produced from medium-fine yarns of a crepe weave. Used to make women's dresses and men's shirts.
DAMASK,
Glossy, high yarn density fabric made of cotton, sometimes linen, produced from fine yarns. Woven in a jacquard pattern in a satin weave; alternating warp and weft weaves creating a wide range of large patterns
BURN OUT,
Burn out is a technique which, starting from a fabric with a determined and uniform covering capacity, generates areas of transparency from the rest of the fabric.
Use is made of fabrics consisting, on the one hand, of filament yarns, either natural or manmade, not affected by the processing to ensure the fabric remains intact with a minimum dissolving capacity and, on the other, woven, cellulose- or protein-based yarns with a higher dissolving capacity.
These are in principle dissolved or burnt out. Examples of such fabrics are silk-cotton, polyester-cotton and polyester-viscose blends.
In this way, the fibres that can be destroyed, which are normally integrated into the fabric in the form of spun yarns made up of one or more types of fibre, are removed.
DUPION,
Fabric distinguished by its rough and uneven surface. Generally used in a taffeta, weave, with natural silk or rayon thread in the warp and dupion silk thread in the weft which enhances the effect of the fabric.
Dupion silk yarn is obtained by silkworms spinning too close together, forming double cocoons. These cocoons are spun by special processes.
It is light and supple, has a grainy appearance and an irregular surface strewn with knots.
COATING,
For fabric, the coating can be applied by calendering, blade, squeegee (used for single-sided treatment on a textile substrate), immersion or spraying. A substance (resin, vinyl, microfibre, etc.) is deposited on one side of the fabric. Skaï and Alcantara are coated fabrics.
FAILLE,
Heavy to medium-heavy silk, relatively strong, slightly glossy with transverse ribbing. Made from fine silk thread in the warp and schappe silk thread or a combed wool thread in the weft.
By using warp and weft threads of different colours, an iridescent effect is achieved.
Schappe is a raw silk; it is a natural silk waste, created during the unwinding of the silk.
GABARDINE,
Made of wool, cotton or silk, fine and thick, remarkable for its prominent diagonal line on the right side, structured (twill) and very tight weave.
JACQUARD,
Patterned fabric mechanically shaped by crossing threads with a Jacquard loom. This loom enables the warp threads to be controlled individually. Heavy and often thick fabrics, they are widely used to cover upholstery seats.
KNIT,
A fabric obtained by industrial knitting, composed of complete loops of yarns passed through the previous loop. It is usually made with one yarn, as opposed to weaving with two yarns (warp and weft). Knitted fabric is made up of stitches.
MICROFIBRE,
A fibre or filament with a diameter of less than 1 decitex (10km of fibre weighs less than 1g). Microfibres are obtained by spinning polymers.
MIKADO,
Originally from Japan, this is a twill fabric with a fairly stiff hand. It is an excellent choice for modern architectural dresses. It is less shiny than satin and less matte than crepe.
It is a natural silk fabric with a thick, slightly coarse and very firm texture.
MOIRE,
This is attained by folding the fabric so that the face is touching and then passed between two heated calenders (rollers). The calendering creates the pattern by crushing under pressure equivalent to 70 kg/cm². The rollers are heated from 90 to 140 degrees depending on the material resulting in a pattern made up of long undulations and concentric patterns.
Faille or ottoman are often used as a base for moiré. It is not washable because the threads crushed by the calender swell up in water thus making the effect disappear.
CHIFFON,
This is made from single, very finely combed yarns and is a light, sheer fabric made of cotton grown in Bangladesh.
Chiffon is made from carded cotton, silk, polyester or polyamide yarns, usually unbleached or white. It is used to make designs for embroidery, garments, voiles, etc.
BASKET WEAVE,
Basket or panama weave (because it is similar to the weaving that characterises the Panama hat) is a textile derived from plain weave.
It is obtained by stacking several threads, either warp or weft, so that a layer equal in number of warp threads rises to pass the same number of weft threads. This gives it a square sett. The braiding can be of two, three or more threads, but the strength of the fabric is inversely proportional to this number.
The material used can be very varied but always of a regular cross section. The thickest basket weaves are made of wool, the thinnest of cotton, polyester, etc
NEOPRENE,
Neoprene is the trademark under which the Du Pont de Nemours company introduced a family of polychloroprene rubbers to the rubber industry in 1931.
It was the first synthetic rubber. Neoprene latex (a family of aqueous emulsions of chloroprene) appeared in 1934.
In order to be used in furniture or clothing, neoprene is not left in its raw state. It is transformed thanks to innovative lamination techniques that give it a sandwich appearance.
ORGANZA,
Muslin whether cotton (organdy), silk or polyester, fine, transparent, stiff (highly finished), with a plain weave. This regular weave and is used for trimmings, collars, facings and wedding dresses.
OTTOMAN,
Formerly made in the empire of the same name, it is a cotton weft silk bringing out the large horizontal ribs. Nowadays, it is more often woven with cotton threads. It is a ribbed plain weave with ribs perpendicular to the selvedge.
PERCALE,
A very fine cotton fabric of very high calendered quality. The glazed effect used to be obtained by applying a thin film of wax to the fabric which was crushed between two rollers (calendering). Now, the wax is replaced by a permanent chemical-based primer known as "everglazed".
PLEATED,
A mechanical action that is carried out on a polyamide-based fabric using a heated blade.
PONGEE,
Silk originating from Japan which is soft and comes in several thicknesses. Plain weave with very fine threads. Nowadays, artificial fibres are also used.
POPLIN,
Tightly ribbed, absorbent, soft and slightly silky. Tightly woven plain weave forming ribs in the warp direction with far fewer threads in the weft than in the warp.
Weavers use a finer warp yarn than a weft yarn.
SATIN,
Satin weave is one of the three main types of weave. Thus, the term satin refers to all textiles made using this type of weaving without apparent weft, i.e. smooth, plain, fine fabrics, glossy on the surface with a dull back.
Originally made of silk, satin is nowadays made of natural (cotton) and synthetic (polyester) materials.
Different fabrics come with a satin weave:
- Duchess is a shiny, heavy and thick, high quality satin made of pure silk or synthetic fibres.
- Liberty, satin brushed on the reverse side.
- Satin crepeis a fabric with an unsmooth grain surface.
- Sateen is a fine cotton satin mainly used as a lining.
SEERSUCKER,
Lightweight embossed fabric made of cotton of Indian origin. The puckering effects of real Seersucker are achieved by the weave.
Imitations of these effects can be achieved by sizing, a chemical operation. This material is mainly used to make jackets targeting heat loss and air circulation.
SHANTUNG,
Pure or wild silk fabric of Asian origin, with a ribbed appearance due to the irregularity of the threads used in the weft. Nowadays made of synthetic fibres, polyester or other materials such as cotton, rayon, etc.
IMITATION LEATHER,
Referred to as artificial leather, imitation leather, plastic-coated fabric or Skai (registered trademark), large quantities of materials with, more or less, a surface similar to that of leather. These types of materials can be prepared in a wide variety of ways.
TAFFETA,
Very tightly woven plain weave made of fine yarns. The expression "taffeta weave" in clothing refers to a weave of woven cloth according to the principle of pick one thread, leave one thread.
Lightweight fabric of natural silk or synthetic fibres (acetate, polyester). As it receives a finish, it is relatively stiff and wrinkles easily. It can be referred to as "shot" when the warp thread is a different colour from the weft thread. Creases easily.
PLAIN WEAVE,
The term refers less to a fabric than to a weaving technique, in which the threads cross regularly at right angles, without back or front. It is the simplest and strongest weave as it has the maximum number of interlacing threads. It is the only weave with a square sett: the warp and the weft are as visible as each other.
The following are also classified as plain weaves: poplin, taffeta, chiffon, crepe de chine or georgette, shantung and percale.
The term "plain weave" evokes a rustic-looking fabric. This is the case with linen and jute fabrics. Conversely, cotton fabrics are fine and supple. Tweeds are also plain weaves but made of wool.
TULLE,
Very light, transparent fabric, used for curtains in the south or for wedding dresses.
TWILL,
Very supple fabric made of silk or schappe silk, of a twill weave, with very fine ribs. Twill is both a weaving technique and a fabric made of this technique.
This distinctive-looking fabric is easily recognised by the instantly visible diagonal stripes on the fabric.
VELVET,
From the Latin "vilosus", hairy, velvet is a fabric short on one side and covered on the other with a very tight, upright pile held together by the threads of the fabric (in v or more resistant w-form). Soft, medium-weight fabric with short, thick pile formed by cutting weft threads (used in clothing) or warp threads (used in furnishings) and pile-on-pile (two backs and then the pile is cut between the two). Its basic weave is the plain or twill weave. After cutting, the pile is combed, finished and smoothed.
Velvet comes in all materials: silk, cotton, linen, wool, mohair, viscose, acrylic, polyester (the most resistant). It can be embossed, uncut, ribbed, chiselled, shaped (velvet patterns obtained on a background fabric on a jacquard loom) and stamped.
VOILE,
Very thin, very light plain weave fabric. Placed in front of a window, it is transparent on the inside and opaque on the outside. Cotton voile does not go yellow in the light. Polyester is the most resistant and easiest in terms of care (machine washable).