How to Choose Your Fabric Plain

Fabric plains – seemingly a simple choice, but it rarely ever is so. Choosing the right colour, measurement, fabric composition and performance finishes – and then making sure it complements the other colours in a room - can often feel a bit overwhelming if you’re starting a project from scratch.

But, at Harlequin: we’re here to help, and break it down into steps – for people with little experience to lots - and give you some starting points to consider, to pick the plain that’s right for you.

PURPOSE

First of all, you need to be specific on what the plain is for. If you are looking for a plain for an upholstery project – you need to make sure you’re not getting a plain that has been designed for drapes – it won’t be able to hold the wear and tear that something like a sofa has to withstand on a daily basis.

Something like our Performance Velvets have an outstanding Martindale Rating (which is the industry metric used to measure the fabric’s performance to endure wear and tear) of 70,000 rubs.

Our plains collections like Mineral, Allegra, Sgraffito, and Performance Velvets are ‘dual purpose’ meaning they can be used across drapery and upholstery uses, whereas Ario is solely for drapery use.

Secondly: you’ll want to think about the fabric’s purpose over time. Perhaps it's in a room where spills and stains are inevitably going to happen. To mitigate the stress, look to buying a ‘performance’ fabric plain. This applies to Mineral, Allegra, and Performance Velvets – across all of these collections each plain is water repellent and stain resistant. Knowing the daily stresses the fabric will likely have to contend with before you consider buying, is a good approach.

COLOUR

No colour is an island. Immediately walking into a room – you’ll see the ceiling colour interacting with the wall paint, or maybe the sofa is in a colourful chatter with the painting above it. The same of course applies to your choice of fabric plains. So before you buy – make sure you take into account if you’re happy with the colour pairings the fabric plains will inevitably create within the space. Maybe it’s a bold, daring colour contrast – or perhaps the fabric plain coordinates with the colours of your indoor plants. Whatever it is, you can find which colours strike a good balance within the interior. You’ll also need to think about how the light enters the room as well – might this change the colour across the day?

Harlequin’s plains have a whole host of colour options – our Mineral collection, which is a cotton/linen mix has a choice of 75 colours, while Allegra has an array of 58.

TEXTURE

Much of the fabric plain’s texture will come down to its fabric composition and its loom technique. Our Allegra plain collection is 100% cotton, while Ario is recycled polyester and cotton, while Mineral is a cotton/linen mix. These will have a different handle, so it’s best to order samples to make sure that it’s the right tactile feel for you.

Plus, with our plain collection like Sgraffito II, there’s a tweed effect with Cestino and bouclé effect with Aiko – all these are worth considering if a strong sense of tactility is the right effect for your project.

These are some starting points to consider for your first project. The better you understand your brief, what you want, and the effect you’d like to create within a room, the easier it will be to get started.