A garment is a fibre, a construction and a finish. Brands are required to publish only the first of the three.
Fibre content is a legal requirement. Construction is not. Cotton poplin, cotton jersey and cotton velvet carry the same label and behave nothing alike, and nobody publishes the weave, the weight in grams per square metre, or the finish.
So everything below is a tendency of the fibre, and the tendency is overruled by the construction whenever the two disagree. That is a limit on our own readings, and we would rather say it than have you find it.
| property | what it is | why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Drape | how far cloth falls from the vertical under its own weight | whether a garment follows your shape or replaces it |
| Stretch | how far it extends in wear | whether you can size down |
| Recovery | whether it returns after extending | whether it bags at the knee and seat by four o’clock |
| Weight | grams per square metre | a 90 gsm viscose and a 300 gsm viscose share a label and nothing else |
| How it ages | pilling, creasing, thinning, distortion | the only one that decides whether you still wear it in five years |
The last column is the one nobody prints.
| fibre | how it behaves | where it lets you down |
|---|---|---|
| Wool | falls with weight, insulates even when damp, and is the only common fibre that can be permanently shaped with heat and moisture | moths, and it felts if washed hot |
| Linen | conducts heat away from the body and absorbs a great deal of moisture before feeling wet | almost no recovery, so it creases hard and bags at the knee |
| Cotton | holds the shape it was cut in and softens with washing | absorbs water and stays wet; wears thin where it rubs |
| Silk | light and fluid, yet heavy enough to fall in a true bias | sunlight and deodorant both degrade it |
| Viscose | the most fluid of the common fibres, closest to silk in drape | loses roughly half its strength when wet, which is why it distorts in the wash |
| Modal, Tencel | viscose made properly — the same drape with far more wet strength | costs more; there is no other real drawback |
| Polyester | holds volume, springs back, dries fast, keeps colour | absorbs body oil rather than water, so it holds odour, and it does not breathe |
| Polyamide, nylon | smooth, light, far more abrasion resistant than polyester | degrades in sunlight faster than polyester does |
| Cashmere | very fine, very short fibres, extraordinarily soft | pills and thins — the pilling is the fibre, not a fault |
| Acrylic | light, bulky, cheap, holds dye well | pills badly and does not breathe |
| Elastane | supplies extension, and sometimes recovery | perishes in three to five years whether worn or not |
The only test that matters, since a garment you stop wearing has failed however well it fitted on the first day.
| it gets better | it holds | it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Linen — softens for years | Wool — if kept from moths | Cashmere — pills, then thins |
| Denim — takes your shape | Silk — away from sunlight | Acrylic — pills within a season |
| Cotton twill — softens | Tencel — washes well | Viscose — distorts in water |
| — | Polyester — outlasts you | Elastane — perishes on a clock |
A jean with 2% elastane has an expiry date. A rigid one does not. Neither fact appears anywhere on the product page.
The fibre matters far less than how long you keep it. A polyester coat worn two hundred times has a smaller footprint than an organic cotton dress worn five. Longevity dominates everything else, and it is decided by fit and by how the cloth ages, not by the word on the label.
Three things that are true and rarely said. Blends are close to unrecyclable — a single-fibre garment can be reprocessed, a cotton-polyester one essentially cannot. Generic viscose depends entirely on where the wood came from, while closed-loop lyocell does not. And the most sustainable decision available to you is buying the garment that will still be worn in five years, which is a question about length, cut and cloth rather than about a certificate.