''You may be looking to recover an old sofa, or buy a new arm chair. High traffic areas, such as family or living rooms will need durable fabrics. While furniture that doesn’t get as much wear and tear for example a cushion cover or headboard, needn’t be as robust.''
Upholstery
Durable upholstery fabrics are required when recovering an old sofa or buying a new armchair for a high traffic area, such as a family or living room, while furniture that doesn’t get as much wear and tear, like a cushion cover or headboard, needn’t be as robust.
Applying the latest technology fabrics are being designed to ensure the ultimate look, feel, and performance, even in the toughest conditions.
Thoughtfully considered and curated upholstery fabrics in expansive palettes enable designers and homeowners to add personality to every room. The textile business is evolving and technological advancements in upholstery fabrics encompass everything from linen upholstery fabrics, boucle upholstery fabrics, and velvet upholstery fabrics to highly robust vinyl upholstery fabrics. The handle of these fabrics is becoming softer in addition to a range of high-performance benefits including UV resistance in outdoor upholstery fabric, moisture wicking, and anti-microbial and stain resistant properties.
Check out information on how to best care for your upholstery fabrics here.
Upholstery Considerations
Upholstery fabrics are more robust than typical curtain fabrics and are used to cover chairs, couches, and other pieces of furniture. Available in a variety of colours, weaves, and designs, these fabrics encompass everything from floral upholstery fabric to green upholstery fabric and upholstery vinyl fabric. Whether you’re furnishing a formal living room, or a chair subjected to the rigors of children and pets, always take your home's style and the function of the furniture into consideration as all fabrics for upholstery have special characteristics making them more or less appropriate for particular jobs.
You may want to reupholster a worn-out couch or purchase an occasional chair; whatever the piece of furniture, you need to think about how it’s going to be used, by whom, and where it will be positioned in your home. High foot traffic areas such as family or living space will require a durable material, while furniture that isn’t used frequently, like a cushion cover or bedhead, needn’t be as sturdy.
Consider at the attributes below when choosing fabric from your upholstery fabric suppliers:
Stain Resistant Fabrics
Technological advances in fabric design have led to fabrics that can withstand stains and spills; allowing you to rest easy knowing that your beloved furniture will remain clean year after year. These fabrics are available in many colours and designs and are a suitable choice for families with children and pets. Unlike topical stain resistant coatings which are applied to woven fabrics after production, inherent stain resistance is produced when the molecular structure of the textile is engineered to possess stain resistant characteristics at the yarn level, which will last for years and can't be washed out. See our FibreGuard range of inherently stain resistant upholstery fabrics here.
UV Resistant Fabrics (Fade Resistant Fabrics)
No matter where you live in the world, our homes are vulnerable to harmful levels of sunlight. UV rays are still present even when sunlight isn't and although all fabrics will fade under UV exposure, it is the speed of that fading which UV resistant textiles can combat. Through a combination of yarn type and dying processes, fabrics will perform to a greater or lesser extent under harsh sun conditions and UV exposure.
The Blue Scale rating is a way to understand the relative resistance a fabric may have to UV. The Blue Scale runs from 1 = very poor to 8 = exceptionally good. Fabrics achieving a Blue Scale result of 6 will perform well over time but as a general rule of thumb, if you are seeking a UV resistant fabric select one with a rating of 7 or 8 as products achieving these results are usually designed for use outside.
We take great care to deliver outdoor designs with quality finishes, colour palettes, and design styles which could work just as well inside the home. This complements our indoor-outdoor lifestyles and enables these spaces to flow into each other. Read more about how to apply SPF to your interior here.
Outdoor Performance Fabrics
Many of our outdoor fabrics combine high performance attributes such as UV resistance, soil and stain resistance, mildew resistance, high abrasion results and fire retardancy with the bonus of being machine washable. This ensures their relevance for residential, commercial, indoor, and outdoor projects where high performance attributes and easy care features are required and/or desired.
Designed and engineered for both outdoor and indoor use, these high performance textiles are durable, easy care, and have fabulous sunlight resistance. Due to technological advancements in outdoor yarns, these textiles offer a more natural aesthetic with a softer handle and finer construction than ever before. Outdoor fabrics are woven in solution dyed acrylic and solution dyed olefin/polyolefin/polypropylene compositions which are proven to provide benefits in both the quality and longevity of the fabric in our harsh outdoor environment. Read more about high performance outdoor fabrics here.
Flame Retardant Fabrics
FR stands for flame retardant. FR properties can be either inherent in the yarn or applied as a finish to the woven fabric. Inherent FR cannot be washed out and generally achieves a higher certification of fire retardancy. An after-market or solution finish applied to the material can also achieve a good FR rating in the short term but may lessen over time depending upon how the fabric is treated and cared for. Some 100% polyester qualities can also produce a successful fire retardancy test result due to the nature of the fabric, which is inclined to melt in direct heat rather than contribute to the spread of a flame.
FR standards vary across countries and sometimes regionally within countries. When specifying a commercially applicable FR rated fabric it is best practice to check the local standard or building code requirements and fabric suitability with an expert. The responsibility for attaining the appropriate FR certification lies with the specifier, as every project and location has a different requirement with varying context.
Anti Microbial/Healthcare Fabrics
Hospitals, clinics, and aged care environments are no longer identified by stark, clinical interiors. The technical performance, comfort, and design of anti-microbial textiles have evolved to offer attractive, comfortable fabric options which are suitable for these facilities.
Anti-microbial fabrics are inherently ‘bio-static’ textiles that will discourage the growth of microorganisms, preventing yeast, fungi, and bacteria from settling within the weave. These fabrics also offer stain resistance and a moisture barrier, impeding the absorption of liquids including blood and other bodily fluids. This is vital in the healthcare sector where the spread of infection is of utmost concern and must be limited. Anti-microbial fabrics are needed for beds, seating, and privacy screens in hospitals and hospices, but add value wherever there is a high traffic environment.
The demand for anti-microbial textiles in the hospitality sector is growing due to the constant exposure to food and liquids which can encourage the growth of bacteria, alongside concerns around the durability, performance, ease of care, and cleanability of furnishings. Anti-microbial fabrics provide a stress-free solution for any high-traffic, high-use environment where large numbers of people will be interacting with the fabrics.
High Abrasion Results / Rub Ratings
A fabric’s durability is dependent on the quality of the yarns, dye-stuffs, weaving, and finishing techniques used during the manufacturing process. All Mokum textiles adhere to tough testing processes to ascertain their durability and resistance to abrasion/rubbing - i.e. a fabric's ability to withstand the breakdown of yarns caused by everyday surface friction.
Test results give critical data about a fabric's durability and relevancy for certain uses, allowing us to make recommendations about how to use them properly. We externally test all Mokum textiles in Melbourne at a respected laboratory who are amongst the most conservative and stringent in the world, due to the extremely harsh environmental conditions we face here in Australia and New Zealand.
The British standard, known as Martindale Cycles, is also recognised in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Wyzenbeek Double Rubs is the North American standard. These mutually exclusive tests are performed by different machines with different methodologies, so a high result in one test does not determine or infer a high result in the other, they stand as separate results with no correlation.
For the Martindale Cycles test a small piece of the fabric (known as the testing swatch) is wrapped around an oscillating head and rubbed against a standard abradant (wire mesh or cotton duck) in an irregularly looping figure-8 motion. The machine is motor driven with an electronic digital counter measuring the number of loop cycles, or “rubs.” The end point is reached when two adjacent yarns break, or in the case of a pile fabric such as velvet the test will end when the pile has completely worn away, or when the count reaches 100,000 rubs – whichever comes first! The machine is switched off at this point because a result higher than 100,000 rubs is not thought to be an indication of increased lifespan. The test is performed four times and the final average is drawn and recorded on our sampling as a numerical rub rating.
The Wyzenbeek Double Rub test is performed in a similar way, in that a series of small testing swatches are rubbed against a stationary abradant but in this case, instead of an oscillating motion it is has a backwards and forwards motion in both the warp and weft yarn directions. Again, the normal end point is when two adjacent yarns break, or the count reaches 100,000 rubs. From numerous tests an average is drawn and listed on our sampling. Essentially - the higher the number, the better the resistance to surface abrasion. To find out more on the topic of abrasion read our article here.
