What To Look For In Durable Fabric For Your Luxury Sofa

(And Why It Isn't As Simple As Just One Statistic)

Luxury furniture is about more than just how your sofa looks, or even how it sits. Ideally, luxury furniture should last. While every home is different, those of us who have active households — whether due to pets, kids, or lots of guests — benefit from an upholstery fabric that can thrive under heavy use.

• Will the fabric survive daily life?
• Will it still look good after years of use?
• Will it be easy to keep clean?
• Will the fabric age gracefully instead of making the sofa look tired and cheap?

In my experience, people who are seeking a high-performance fabric tend to latch on to one specific criteria that they are convinced — or have been told — is a requirement. In doing so, they may miss the bigger picture: there are a number of aspects to fabric composition and construction. Zeroing in on one while ignoring others can set you up for disappointment.

The key factors that will define fabric performance.

• Abrasion resistance
• Pilling resistance
• Fabric composition
• Fabric structure / weave
• Cleanability and stain resistance
• Texture and color

Let's dig in to each of these factors to help tailor your search.

First, one thing to ignore.

Many, many people come to us convinced that they simply must have a particular fabric brand. Performance-focused brands often have well-deserved reputations for practicality, but the brand alone means less than you may think.

Sunbrella and Perennials fabrics, for example, are well-known for their solution-dyed lines. Solution-dyed fabric does indeed offer tremendous benefits for stain and fade-resistance, but these brands offer a wide range of textiles that will vary greatly in terms of overall durability. Cleanability does not alone mean that a particular fabric will be trouble-free — they can pill or wear rapidly, leaving you with a sofa that is free of stains but not necessarily new-looking.

Another frequently-requested brand is Crypton. People assume that this is a type of fabric, but it is actually a trademarked name referring to a formerly patented stain protection process. The Crypton brand utilizes a variety of textile manufacturers with products of varying levels of durability, so the name alone doesn't mean all that much. Also note that, as this stain protection technology is no longer exclusive to that brand, a number of alternate textile manufacturers offer essentially identical performance.

Abrasion resistance — a measurement to assess rate of wear.

A high abrasion resistance fabric is less likely to:

• wear thin
• fray
• develop holes
• lose structural integrity

You've likely seen fabrics with a stated "double rub count." There are two types of machines used in the industry to measure this, and they generate slightly different numbers. The most common is the Wyzenbeek double rub count; the Martindale cycle is an alternative but less common method.

Generally speaking, a measurement in the range of 10,000 rubs and up is suitable for light residential use. 30,000 and up is good for heavier everyday residential durability. 50,000 and up is going to deliver commercial-grade performance — meaning it can survive in high-traffic settings like hotels, restaurants, and lobbies. It is not uncommon these days to see fabrics rated in excess of 100,000 double rubs.

Keep in mind that higher rub count fabrics can often — though not always — feel stiffer than lower count fabrics. So, yes, a high count is great, but you may be trading some level of comfort.

Pilling resistance — not exactly the same thing.

Pilling is what happens when little bits of yarn from a fabric roll themselves into little fuzz balls on the fabric surface. In most cases, this is a minor issue, but they can be unsightly and obnoxious.

Sometime people are surprised to learn that abrasion resistance does not always mean that a fabric will be resistant to pilling. In fact, counterintuitively, some very abrasion-resistant fabrics can actually pill more.

Pilling resistance, which is a harder statistic to find and not ranked by as universal a rating as abrasion, measures how likely the fabric is to develop those annoying little fuzz balls on the surface.

Pilling happens when:

1. tiny fibers loosen from the yarn
2. friction tangles them together
3. they form little knots or pills on the surface

A fabric can be very durable structurally but still pill noticeably. That's because pilling a surface appearance problem, not necessarily a structural failure.

Some fabrics that are extremely abrasion resistant actually pill more. This is because the fibers of the fabric are strong, and as a result the loosened yarn fuzz doesn't break off as it might otherwise. The result? Little fuzz balls. Weaker fabrics, like many natural lines, will still pill but these will break off without attracting much attention.

Fabrics more likely to pill are often those with shorter fibers, fuzzy/brushed surfaces, a looser weave, softer feel, or, as mentioned above, particularly strong fibers like some synthetics.

Fabrics that are less likely to pill include tightly-woven performance lines, high-quality wool blends (thought some wools absolutely will pill!), solution-dyed fabrics (polypropylene is generally better than acrylic), velvets and mohairs, denser basket weaves.

One reality check regarding pilling: All fabrics shed at first, some more than others. During an initial break-in period, you are likely to see loose excess fibers work themselves out. This is not necessarily an indicator of poor quality fabric or a failure, and it in most cases tapers off relatively quickly with use. So...expect some shedding, lint, and, yes, pilling with most fabrics. Stubborn pills can be removed if you feel necessary; an inexpensive electric fabric shaver can do the job. (You may already have one for caring for garments.)

When is pilling a problem? When you see continuous heavy pilling, new pills immediately forming after removing previous ones, or big fuzzy patches or visual degradation of the fabric in high-contact areas.

Fabric composition — different fibers fail in different ways.

Some general insights into how various yarn content performs:

• Linen: lovely and breathable, but quick to wrinkle and fast-wearing in active households. Yes, I know someone told you that linens are amazing. They...aren't really.
• Cotton: comfortable and natural, but easy to stain and more prone to color fade.
• Polyester: extremely durable and stain resistant. Lower-end lines can feel fakey, but a high-grade polyester can be an excellent choice for even luxurious settings.
• Acrylic: A good option for softness and fade resistance (particularly if solution-dyed).
• Wool: Naturally stain-resistant and long-wearing, but the weave and thickness can greatly impact performance.

Why are so many textiles a blend of different fibers? Because it is a strategy for combining the aesthetics of one fiber with the performance strengths of another. Instead of a pure linen, a linen blend can be far more practical while still retaining much of the look and feel.

The way a textile is woven can matter as much as the fiber composition.

Tighter, denser weaves generally resist snagging better, hold their shape longer (particularly on seat and back cushions, in which the fabric cover moves independently of the insert inside), pill less, and wear more evenly.

Loose weaves look cozy and luxurious, but can be more prone to stretching, snagging, and developing pressure lines.

This is going to matter more in homes with dogs, cats, kids, rivets on jeans, and where people are more likely to flop onto their sofas instead of gently "taking a seat like Victorian aristocracy." You know, a normal human household.

Cleanability and stain resistance — the other half of durability.

A hard-wearing fabric is great, but a hard-wearing fabric that stubbornly holds on to every smudge of dirt and pizza sauce is not going to win many points.

Many upholstery fabrics offer at least some level of cleanability. Spot cleaning with a gentle cleanser can often work, but the composition and treatment of the fabric will impact the results.

In the interest of making textiles safer for us to have in our homes, the majority of the industry has shifted away from the harmful applied stain protections of the past.

Applied stain protections now typically avoid PFAS, the longer-chain carbon molecules that have been found to linger in the human body. Think of the old-school Scotchgard that worked well, but at a cost of safety. Instead, new applied protections utilize a shorter chain that is thought to be safer. That does, however, mean that the effectiveness and longevity of these protections is reduced. Safer and still pretty good.

Baked-in (as opposed to sprayed-on) stain protection is a significant upgrade. This process involves immersing the textile in a protectant bath that is then locked to the fiber using a specialized drying process. It is generally considered to be safer, more effective, and longer-lasting than spray-on methods. This is the process that was formerly exclusive to Crypton but now is available through a number of mills.

Finally, solution-dyed fabrics deliver stain resistance using a method entirely unique. Most fabrics are colored by applying a layer of dye to a bleached white yarn. (Different fibers take dye in different ways; it's a whole huge complicated thing and why, for example, you can't find certain colors on certain fibers.) The end result is a fiber that, were you to slice it in half, has a white core with a thin layer of color on the outside. Think of a radish — red on the outside, white in the middle. This dye layer is relatively fragile and can be bleached out with exposure to UV rays from the sun or stronger cleaning products.

Solution-dyed fabrics are manufactured with the dye injected into the yarn itself. Think of a carrot — cut it in half, and it's orange all the way through. This results in much more durable color, and makes them ideal for sunny settings (all good outdoor furniture is solution-dyed for example) and allows you to use pretty tough cleaning products on stubborn stains. It also means that solution-dyed fabrics do not need anything sprayed on to them for protection. Keep in mind that you will only find solution-dyed fabrics made from synthetic fibers — the dyeing is integral to the manufacturing of that fiber.

Keep in mind that most modern "performance fabrics" are dramatically better than earlier generations. Some now feature excellent levels of softness instead of always feeling like patio furniture or something from a hotel lobby.

Texture and color — the factor people tend to overlook.

Stains, abrasion, and snags are going to happen to some level on just about any heavily-used piece of furniture. If you want your luxury sofa to keep looking luxurious as long as possible, the texture and color you choose can make a huge difference.

Textiles with a flat texture and solid color — regardless of their performance level — will be faster to show areas of wear, wrinkling, lint and pet hair, and any small imperfections or stains.

Textured fabrics, heathered coloring, boucles, and anything with some subtle variation will generally age more gracefully because the everyday wear is better disguised.

And, of course, color. Most stains are additive, in that they make the surface darker. So the lighter the color, the more likely it is to show stains. Yes, a bright white performance fabric may be very cleanable. But you will be cleaning it more frequently. Choose wisely.

Ironically, the fabric that still looks beautiful after ten years may not be the one with the highest lab rating — it may simply be the one that hides the wear of daily life better.

Look for these forgiving fabrics:

• Textured, woven fabrics
• Tweeds
• Velvet/mohair pile fabrics
• Tonal color variation rather than a single solid color
• Something a few notches down from pure white

Don't overlook "good" in pursuit of "perfect."

I know that this is a lot to consider when selecting a fabric for your custom furniture. Keep in mind that there is no single, guaranteed "win" to be found. It's smartest to triangulate a bit — focus on the look, feel, and colors you want while seeking a good blend of performance in the areas mentioned above. For most of us, a fabric that is "good" in a number of these traits will be a better fit than one that is "best" in one and unremarkable in the others.

As always, we are here to help guide you through the options. Contact us with your fabric questions and concerns, and we will be happy to share our input and feedback we've received from our thousands of customers.