All posts tagged: terminology

Terminology: What is matelasse or marseilles cloth?

As I’ve just finished a matelasse waistcoat, it’s high time I (finally) finished my matelasse terminology post and added the term to the Great Historical Fashion & Textile Glossary! Matelasse or Marseille’s cloth (sometimes shortened to marcella or called pique de marseilles) is also known as woven quilting, because it is a weave specifically designed to imitate quilting. It looks like a fine quilt, or like a slightly bubbly, blister-y brocade. Matelasse is sometimes patterned in simple geometrics, or (like my waistcoat), in elaborate foliate designs. It can range from a heavy, bulky fabric, to a fairly light but still puffy and squishy crepe. A very similar fabric (sometimes sold as matelasse, and it’s difficult to tell the difference on some examples), is cloque. From a technical standpoint: Matelasse is a figured fabric made with either three or four sets of yarns. Two of the sets are the regular warp and weft yarns; the other sets are crepe or coarse cotton yarns. They are woven together so that the yarn sets crisscross. When the fabric …

Terminology: What is cire?

Published by The Dreamstress

Cire is a highly glazed wax finish applied to fabric through a process of heat and pressure, known as calendering (remember calamanco?) which is giving a wet or polished look. The name can also refer to the fabric or garment with the resultant finish. The process tends to produce a stiffer, crisper fabric per weight. It is sometimes, particularly in interior decorating, called a French wax finish. The term dates to the 1910s, when high fashion garments played with contrasts in fabric and textures, and the shiny, wet look of cire lent an edgy modern twist to combinations of chiffons and brocades and satin. Cire literally means waxed, so the first references to it are to waxed flowers. This Worth evening coat features “a collar of ruched velvet, tied with two ribbons held by a roundels of satin and wax flowers”. Cire treated fabrics were popular throughout the 20s, particularly as cire ribbons. Cire reached its zenith in the 30s, when frocks in cire taffeta, cire satin, and even cire lace (ah, a time when …

Terminology: Rayon, viscose, acetate, cuprammonium and all those other manufactured naturals

Published by The Dreamstress

My ‘Smooth Sewing‘ trousers for the HSF ‘Innovations‘ challenge were made of rayon (as is the 1940s aloha shirt I paired them with), so it seems high time that I do a terminology post on rayon and the other ‘semi-synthetic’ or ‘manufactured natural’ fibres. Rayon is the generic name for a whole family of fabrics made by dissolving cellulose fibres in chemicals and extruding the resulting viscous solution. Different chemicals and variations in the processes yield different types of fabrics in the rayon family. Viscose (called rayon in the US), cuprammonium (also known as cupra, cupro and Bemberg silk or Bemberg rayon), nitro silk, acetate, modal and lyocell are all types of rayon, as is most ‘bamboo’ fabric – which is simply rayon made from bamboo rather than other cellulose bases. Art silk (or artificial silk), is an older term for rayon, as is mother-in-law silk (which gives an indication about how people felt about rayon when it was first invented). The first manufactured natural fibres have their origins in the exciting experimentation that characterised …