PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
The cloth behind these terms
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
BUYING SILK · 100% MULBERRY SILK · FROM A CHINESE MILL
A swatch tells you the colour. A metre tells you the cloth.
A swatch card answers the colour question and nothing else. It is too small to drape, too small to wet, and far too small to tell you how a fabric will behave under a needle. That is why we cut samples from one metre: it is the smallest length that behaves like cloth.
Tell us which families you are comparing and we will send the relevant stock colours. If weight is the open question — and for silk it almost always is — ask for two weights of the same family and hang them side by side.
Hold a swatch up and it does what your fingers tell it to. Hang a metre and it does what gravity tells it to. Only one of those is the garment.
Wash the sample, press it, sew it. A metre is enough for a test seam and a shrinkage check, which are the two things that go wrong in production.
The difference between 16 mm and 19 mm is invisible on a spec sheet and obvious in the hand. Sample both.
| Test | How | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Drape | Hang the full length and let it fall | Whether it clings, falls or holds shape |
| Hand | Handle it dry and after a press | Whether the finish survives finishing |
| Shrinkage | Wash or steam a measured length and re-measure | Your marker allowance |
| Seam test | Sew two layers with your needle and thread | Whether the needle picks threads |
| Colour | Look at it in daylight and in the room light | Metamerism before it costs you a lot |
| Opacity | Hold it to the light, lined and unlined | Whether you need a lining |
A sample length is worth more if you abuse it. Wash it, press it, sew a seam through it and then unpick that seam to see whether the needle left a mark. A fabric that looks beautiful on the roll and picks threads under a needle is a production problem, and you cannot find that out from a swatch.
Sample the weight, not just the colour. If you are choosing between two mommes, order both and hang them; the difference that matters — whether the cloth clings, falls or holds a shape — is not visible in a photograph or a specification.
These search phrases all land here because they mean the same thing:
If you were looking for a different commercial question, the wholesale page covers programmes and the ready-stock page covers what is on the shelf right now.
Yes. Any stock colour is cut from one metre and posted worldwide. Tell us the families and weights you are comparing and we will send the closest matches from the shelf.
Swatch cards of the current stock colours are available on request. For a full book or a one-metre cut in several colours, tell us what you need and we will confirm the arrangement before posting.
One metre of full-width cloth is our standard sample. A swatch card carries small pieces of each stock colour, which is the right format for choosing a colour and the wrong one for judging a fabric.
They are cut and posted promptly and travel by post. Air transit depends on where you are; we will tell you when it goes out so you know when to look for it.
Yes, and in this order: sample the stock colour to confirm the weight and the hand, then approve the lab dip to confirm the colour. Doing it the other way round means approving a colour on a weight you have not felt.
PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
Tell us the quantity and the colour and we will quote it with a confirmed dispatch date.
