Let's think of fabric like a CD. A CD is made out of a certain kind of material and the type or style of CD is classical, rock and roll, jazz, etc. Like hip-hop is a type or style of music, damask is a type or style of fabric, usually silk or rayon. Here's the twist: Rayon costs less than silk. So a rayon damask would be like your average garage band CD, but a silk damask would be more like a Beatles CD. Get it? Well, you can't say I didn't try.
Anyway, a moiré or a damask is a treatment that's applied to a basic uncolored swatch of cloth. It's not the fabric, it's the style, type or treatment of the fabric. So are gingham, chintz and cretonne.
OK, let's back up and take a bite out of fabric history. Fabrics have been with us for more than a couple of weeks. In fact, wool is the first fabric we know of and it was in use in the late Stone Age.
From 5,000 BC we know that flax (a vegetable fiber found in rivers) was woven as a fabric. How do we know? The well-dressed Egyptian mummy wouldn't go to the afterlife without it. Flax was used to make the burial shrouds for pharaohs. We now call it linen.
Next on our hit list is cotton, thought to be used between 3000 and 5000 B.C. also made into clothing many moons ago by the Egyptians.
Silk was first used in China circa 2600 B.C., apocryphally believed to have been first used by a Chinese princess who was apparently into worms, which, of course, makes silk. We then skip a couple of millennia to 1725 with the beginning of a silk-dominated culture, sponsored by the wife of a Chinese Emperor. The secrets of silk cultivation, worm "round-ups,"-"git along little wormy"-were closely guarded by the Chinese for 3,000 years and
that
is a long time to keep a secret.
Manmade fibers, with the exception of rayon, which was invented in 1910 by the American Viscose Company, were, for the most part, an outgrowth of the war effort during WWII. Nylon traces its history to just prior to the war and is the second most used fabric in the United States today.
We then get a plethora of man-made fibers coming to us during the last half-century; polyester, triacetate, the ever popular spandex, polyolefin and microfibers. These each possess certain qualities that make them appropriate in terms of wearablity. They beat the heck out of chintz, for what it's worth.
Speaking of chintz, let's define a few fabrics so that you know what you are in for when shopping for the right fabric and style to do the job for you.
Chintz
As mentioned above, chintz is chintzy, as in "that stuff is pretty chintzy." The style originally hails from India and was brought to the West by the British Raj. Chintz is a highly polished, rather thin, "calico" brightly colored cotton fabric (cotton takes dyes beautifully as we remember from Fabricology 101). Still popular for upholstery and slipcovers.
Cretonne
A plain weave fabric with both printed floral motif and angular shapes for people who can't make up their minds as to what they like. Oten used for chair coverings and curtains.
Damask
Damask is a glossy Jacquard weave (a Jacquard weave is made with a Jacquard loom which was invented by a dude named Jacquard, how appropriate) that has a flat look on the pattern itself, but glossy for the background. In silk, rayon or linen: often used for draperies and upholstery.
Gingham
A relatively inexpensive fabric that usually has a checkered pattern. Looks swell as a dining tablecloth in Italian restaurants. Or on kitchen or nursery windows.
Grosgrain
A silk with a "ribbed" appearance.
Herringbone
No, not from the bones of herrings, but a regular geometric pattern consisting of two slanted rows that form a "V" shape on the fabric. This menswear look is popular in upholstery now.
Moiré
For some reason the French liked fabric with water spilled on it, just like your kids do. Moiré is a "water-marked"(now produced by cylindrical presses) fabric that has "cathedrals" (lines that look like the peak of a cathedral) running vertically.
Mohair
Angora goats' hair. How delightful. Sometimes used for throws and pillows.
Satin
This one dates from the 14th century. It is believed to be named after the town of Zaitun in China, though no one knows where Zaitun, was as it is not found on Mapquest. Satin was originally a glossy silk fabric with a dull back, but the look can be reproduced in rayon for the cost conscious.
Tapestry
Tapestries were originally developed in the Middle Ages as a form of insulation as the walls at the time had pretty low "R" values. Tapestries helped to block the wind coming in through the chinks in your basic castle's mortar and later developed into a brocade type of weave with ornamentation.
Ticking
Clocks do this, but so does fabric. Ticking is a striped cotton fabric traditionally made in black and white, but also seen in blue/white and red/white. It's used for mattress covers, of course, but also for informal curtains and coverings.
Toile de Juoy
Literally meaning "Fabric of Joy," toile is a French fabric with a pattern that is somewhat naive featuring country scenes of a solid black, red, gray or blue against a cream colored background. Toile is often associated with cottons.
