Corduroy Fabric Mills

What Corduroy Is

Corduroy is a woven pile fabric: extra weft yarns are floated across the cloth in rows and then cut, so the cut ends stand up as parallel ribs - wales - running the length of the fabric, with bare ground channels between them. The Corduroy Fabric Definition gives the structure precisely. The rib count is the fabric's identity card, quoted in wales per inch: fine pincord and needlecord run fourteen to sixteen or more wales to the inch and read almost as velvet from a distance; standard corduroy sits around eleven; wide wale drops to eight or fewer; and jumbo cord's three to five fat ribs are pure 1970s upholstery energy. Same name, same construction - four visibly different fabrics, which is why a corduroy order that omits the wale count is not an order yet.

Traditionally corduroy is cotton, and cotton cord remains the standard for trousers, jackets, shirts and children's wear; cotton blends with a little polyester add abrasion resistance, and a touch of elastane has modernised the trouser cord considerably. The fabric's folk history - its name popularly read as corde du roi, the king's cord, though scholars dispute it - matches its working life: corduroy was the durable, warm, washable cloth of country and working dress for two centuries before fashion adopted it, and its cycle through style - scholars' jackets, seventies flares, nineties revival - never displaces its base in practical clothing. A dedicated section of this site gathers the fabric's trade in one place: Corduroy Search.

Buying and Caring for Corduroy

Pile direction is corduroy's working subtlety. The ribs shade differently up and down - the cloth looks richer with the pile running down on a garment - and all pattern pieces must be cut the same way, which adds yardage a flat fabric would not need; mills quote and garment factories cost with that in mind. Pile crush is the other fact of life: corduroy flattens where it is sat on, folded or pressed, recovering partly with steam and brushing, and dark cords show lint against the ribs, which a clothes brush handles. Abrasion bald patches at seat and knee are the fabric's honest end-of-life, delayed by finer, denser wales and blended fibers.

Washing inside out, on a gentle cycle, and drying away from direct heat keeps the pile standing longest; ironing, when unavoidable, happens on the reverse over a towel, never flat on the ribs. For buyers, the specification is wale count, fiber, weight and colorfastness of the deep pile dyeings the fabric is famous for - rust, bottle green, chocolate and burgundy among them, all present in the mills' ranges below. Around this directory, the Fabric Directory hub covers the pile family alongside velvet and velour, and the trade runs through the Machinery directory, Clothing Industry Factories, Yarn Factories, Fabric Retail and Fabric Wholesalers.

Using This Directory

This directory lists ten mills across China, Bangladesh, Taiwan and India, each linked to its own profile in the Fabric Mills by Name section. Corduroy weaving and pile-cutting is a specialism inside the cotton trade, and this list's concentration in the big cotton-weaving countries reflects it. Industry readers also use the Fibers Directory, Fabric Definitions, Fashion Industry News, Clothing Industry Employment and Conversion Charts. Thank you for using the Apparel Search Fabric Mill Directory.

Corduroy Fabric Mills Listed in This Directory