The London Lounge

What does the term "dry" mean in the context of cloth, for example what does it mean to say that a worsted is dry? And what would be the opposite of that?

The opposite would be a woolen fabric like a West of England flannel; in relative terms, a hopsack (i.e.: Mistral) is less dry than a worsted cloth (a twill or a herringbone).
A dry cloth is tightly woven, with little to no hairs.

Dry means matte finish as compared to a shiney finish. E.g., the following cloths have a shine: sharkskin, silk, and mohair.

Mark Seitelman wrote:Dry means matte finish as compared to a shiney finish. E.g., the following cloths have a shine: sharkskin, silk, and mohair.

I don't think the above is correct (but then, English is my third language). The process of fulling gives cloths that are milled, as opposed to dry. It doesn't have anything to do with shine. As a matter of fact, it's more likely that dry cloths have a shine and milled cloths don't.

[Italian: follati (milled) vs. pettinati (worsted)]

Wikipedia wrote:The second function of fulling was to thicken cloth by matting the fibers together to give it strength and increase waterproofing (felting). This was vital in the case of woollens, made from carding wool, but not for worsted materials made from combing wool. After this stage, water was used to rinse out the foul-smelling liquor used during cleansing.

Dry is used to describe the hand of the cloth.

From AATCC Evaluation Procedure 5-2006 Fabric Hand: Guidelines for the Subjective Evaluation of

hand, n.—the tactile sensations or impressions which arise when fabrics are touched, squeezed, rubbed or otherwise handled.

constituent elements of hand, n.—those components, qualities, attributes, dimensions, properties or impressions which make the sensation of touching one fabric different from that of touching another.

NOTE: The various terms comprising elements of hand can be categorized by physical attributes of compression, bending, shearing and surface (see Appendix A).

You can take a dry hand as literally meaning a dry feeling. Think of how dry skin, leather, paper or foliage feel when you touch them. Contrast this with how healthy skin, conditioned leather, wet paper or living foliage feel.

Applied to cloth, I would expect a dry cloth to be somewhat rough, coarse, scratchy, stiff, or hard.


Regards.

C.Lee wrote:[...] Applied to cloth, I would expect a dry cloth to be somewhat rough, coarse, scratchy, stiff, or hard.

Thank you for the link, C.Lee. I would say linen is dry; a mogador tie has a drier hand compared to a wool tie. Mohair and high ply fabrics are dry and flannel is not. A fine worsted, without being rough, coarse, scratchy, stiff, or hard, can have a dry hand.

"Dry" refers to the hand of cloth and is an indicator of excellence in worsteds.

To use the list C Lee posted above:

Fullness (dense), springy, lively, resilient equals DRY.

That is the quality we look for in all varieties of exceptional worsted cloth.

By contrast, thin, soft, limp, loose, slippery are the qualities of lesser, commonly marketed and distributed worsted cloth (though it also depends on the weave in question) we should not send to our dear friends, our tailors.

Cheers