What will you talk with your customer if the topic relates to wool fabric? I know you will mention wool fabric for coat like alpaca, angora, camel hair, cashmere, lamb’s wool, melton, merino, mohair and shetland. Besides of these regular types of wool fabric, today I will share some ideas about the other types of wool fabric in a different classification.
Wool Fabric for Coat
Wool fabric is the main material for coat which can be classified to 3 big categories.
Worsted woolen fabric
Woolen fabric
Plush wool fabric
And there’re 10 wool fabrics in the 3 categories. Let’s first take a look at the 3 big categories with the ideas about how they made and what are the properties.
Worsted Woolen Fabric
It’s one kind of wool fabric for coat which made by worsted woolen fiber. The fiber is thin and long. The fiber inside of the yarn is stable with the tight yarn construction.
The worsted woolen fabric usually uses double woolen yarn at 27.8-167tex as warp. The main products including with wool satin fabric, wool gabardine fabric, wool serge, cavalry twill, and tricotine.
Woolen Fabric
Using the fiber directly going through the carding machine. So the fiber arrangement is not in good order and with fluffy structure. The fiber is with more hairs outside. The warp and weft fiber are usually single fiber in 250-62.5tex (4-16S). The main products contain melton, flannel and navy cloth.
Most of the woolen fabric will going through milling process. The milling process is a finishing procedure to make the woolen fabric tight and thick, and make the fabric surface with hair. The texture will blur because of this process.
Plush Wool Fabric
It’s the wool fabric with the warp yarn with hair and the hair is standing on the surface. It has a special weaving construction which has 2 slice of cotton ground fabric connect with wool yarn. Machine will cut in between and it becomes 2 pieces of fabric with hair in several millimeters.
The properties: warm and soft hand feel, excellent warmth retention.
Wool velvet is one of the main product of plush wool fabric.
Wool Fabric for Coat Properties
Wool fabric has many properties. For example, the natural color shade, warm touch feel, breathable, heat retention, water resistance, abrasion resistance, anti-dirt. Wool cloth can wear many years. It’s also one of the advantages. Even wool fabric has so many properties, it’s still not perfect. The biggest disadvantage is it’s easy to be bitten by insects. We need to pay more attention to take care of our wool cloth.
Wool Fabric for Coat Characteristic, Weaving Method and Finishing Procedure
In the second part of this blog we will go through the main characteristic, weaving method and finishing procedure for some wool fabric for coat.
1. Wool Satin Fabric
It’s a kind of medium thickness tight satin wool fabric for coat by using combed wool yarn. The idea fabric weight is around 260-380g/m2. It’s suitable for men and women suit.
Wool Satin Fabric Properties
The satin surface is flat with stiff and smooth hand feel. Because of the satin texture, it shows a nice sheen.
Normally the wool satin fabric is dyed in jet black color because it’s the main color for official suit. But it also looks elegant in 2 tones (weave by warp and weft yarn in different colors), and mélange color.
2. Wool Gabardine
Gabardine is also using combed wool yarn. It’s a twill wool fabric with certain water proof ability. It’s the main material for trench coat, uniform and casual wear.
The fabric shows 63° twill 2/2 Z twill. The weight is during 270-320g/m2. There is another gabardine in light weight about 250-290g/m2 and in 2/1 twill. It’s called single gabardine. The heavy weight gabardine is during 330-380g/m2.
Wool Gabardine properties
It’s with flat surface, clear twill, stiff hand feel. Most are in solid color but some have 2 tones or mélange.
Warp yarn density is double of the weft. So the warp strength is high. The coat made by wool gabardine can wear for many years.
3. Wool Serge
The fabric made by combed wool yarn in 2/2 twill construction is wool serge. Most of the wool yarn can be used in wool serge. Normally it uses double ply wool yarn between 33.3-16.7tex (30-60S) as warp yarn, and single wool yarn as weft yarn. The warp density is bit higher than weft one. And the fabric will show 45° Z twill.
The weight of light weight serge is between 190-210g/m2. The medium weight is around 240-290g/m2. And the heavy weight is about 310-390g/m2. Normally the dyeing method is piece dye.
4. Cavalry Twill
Cavalry twill is a heavy weight twill wool fabric with combed wool yarn. The name comes from the fabric property which is tight and abrasion resistance (Mainly use for cavalry suit.) The fabric weight is 340-380g/m2.
The warp density is double or more of weft density. The construction shows strong twill effect. Some cavalry twill will brush at the back side to make the fabric soft.
5. Tricotine
Tricotine is similar as cavalry twill but the twill is thinner than cavalry twill.
The warp yarn is double ply wool yarn in 20tex (50S) in weight around 270-320g/m2.
It’s good for sportswear, uniform, pants and trench coat.
6. Doeskin
Doeskin is a medium weight wool with clean and tight fabric texture. It has the similar effect like doe skin. That’s that the origin of the name.
Doeskin Properties
The fabric surface is flat, clean, soft touch with stretch. Mostly are in black color.
7. Tweed/Harris Tweed
Tweed/Harris tweed is familiar to everyone in fashion area. It has many different patterns. Good for making suit, coat, and pants. All are very classic.
Herringbone is one of the tweed. It has 0.5-2cm herringbone pattern twill on the fabric so here comes the fabric name herringbone.
8. Navy Cloth
This wool fabric is the main material for navy uniform. So we give the name “Navy Cloth”. It uses class 1 or class 2 wool to be the main material. Warp and weft yarns are in size 100-83.3tex (10-12S) with 2/2 twill texture.
Most of the fabric is in navy color but some are also in army green, and grey color.
The content for blend navy cloth is 20%-30% vicose blend with wool.
9. Melton
Melton comes from U.K. It’s the main fabric for winter coat. Its weight is around 390-490g/m2. It’s waterproof and windproof.
Sometimes we will mix 20%-30% viscose in the content to make a blend melton. The stretch and strength are all better than normal melton.
10. Wool Poly Blend Fabric
Wool poly blend wool fabric is easy to understand. The content has wool and polyester. But according to the high price for wool, some customers are asking for 100% polyester wool fabric to reduce the price and hit the market.
Wool fabric is a classic fabric in fashion industry. And it makes wool fabric for coast to be a long lasting topic for us to discuss. Hope you had a clear understanding about the wool fabric for coat with its classification, weaving methods and properties after reading this post.
Here I have one more knowledge want to share with you. I presume you’ve already noticed the wool fabric are usually dyed in medium or dark colors. Why no light colors? Because it’s very difficult to make wool fabric in light colors like white. The defects will be easily see and there is no way to fix.
We will be glad if you can share some ideas with us in comment. Have a nice day and stay tuned for the next post.