Fabric Definitions — definitions of fabrics, cloths, laces and textile materials from Apparel Search
Poplin is a heavy, durable fabric that has a ribbed appearance. It is made with wool, cotton, silk, rayon, or any mixture of these, and the ribs run across the fabric from selvage to selvage, formed by using coarse filling yarns in a plain weave. The name poplin comes from papeline, a fabric made at Avignon, France in the 1400s, so named for the papal residence there; the first poplin was made from silk.
The name poplin comes from papeline, a fabric made at Avignon, France in the 1400's. The fabric was so named for the papal residence there.
The first poplin was made from silk.
Shirts made from this material are easy to iron and do not wrinkle easily.
Poplin looks ribbed but is not a rib weave; its ridges come from a deliberate mismatch of yarn sizes inside an ordinary plain weave. The warp is set with many fine yarns per inch, the weft is inserted as a much coarser yarn, and as the fine warp bends over and under the thick filling, each filling yarn tents the surface into a low, regular ridge. Multiplied across thousands of picks, the ridges become the fine horizontal rib that runs from selvage to selvage and gives poplin its identity. The engineering is elegant: the coarse filling supplies body, weight and durability cheaply, while the fine, dense warp supplies the smooth, abrasion-resistant face that meets the world. That is why poplin can be simultaneously heavy and durable, as the definition describes, yet present a refined surface suitable for shirts and dresses. The rib is fine enough to read as texture rather than pattern, catches light in soft horizontal lines, and helps the cloth resist the glazed shininess plain cotton can develop.
The name remembers the fabric's first prestige. Papeline was made at Avignon in the 1400s, when the papal court resided there, and the cloth took its name from that papal residence; the first poplin was a silk fabric, a luxury ribbed weave for formal dress. As production spread and fibers multiplied — wool, cotton, silk, rayon and mixtures of them all — poplin moved down-market in price while keeping its structure, and by the modern era it had become a workhorse: cotton poplin shirts and shirt dresses, uniforms, rainwear shells in tightly woven versions, and durable casual trousers and jackets. The care reputation in the definition is earned by the structure: the dense warp face irons smooth readily, and the rib texture disguises minor wrinkling, so poplin garments look pressed longer through a day than flat plain weaves do. When comparing poplin to percale, the contrast is instructive — both are plain weaves, but percale balances fine warp and fine weft into a flat sheet, while poplin deliberately unbalances its yarns to raise a rib; one weave family, two distinct fabrics, decided entirely by yarn proportions.
The ribs are structural: poplin is a plain weave built from fine warp yarns and noticeably coarser filling (weft) yarns. The fine warp packs closely over the thick weft, so each coarse filling yarn raises a fine ridge, and the ridges repeat across the fabric from selvage to selvage as a fine crosswise rib.
They are very close relatives — both are plain weaves with a fine crosswise rib from heavier filling yarns — and the terms overlap in the shirting trade. Poplin is the older and more general name, defined by the ribbed structure across fibers from silk to cotton; broadcloth is used mainly for the smooth cotton shirting version.
The definition notes shirts of this material are easy to iron and do not wrinkle easily. The dense plain weave and the ribbed surface work together: the cloth is firm and stable, creases show less against the fine rib texture, and the smooth warp face presses flat without a fight.