Pique Fabric Directory

What Pique Fabric Is

Pique, pronounced pee-KAY and also spelled piqué, is a double-knit construction in which tuck stitches are combined with plain loops so that certain yarns are held back and released in a pattern, forming raised geometric cords on the face and a smoother back. True marcella pique, the formal original, was woven rather than knitted, a stiff cotton with a honeycomb surface made for white tie waistcoats and shirts; the pique of modern trade is overwhelmingly the knitted version developed for tennis and golf shirts, where its structure does three jobs at once. The raised cells hold the cloth off the skin, the air pockets ventilate, and the textured face disguises moisture far better than a smooth knit.

Cotton is the classic fibre, ideally long-staple, because the tuck structure exposes yarn to abrasion at the cell edges; polyester and cotton-polyester pique serve team kits, uniforms and promotional polos where colour fastness and price matter more than hand. Weight separates the market: fine pique at the lighter end feels like a dress polo, heavy pique is almost a sweatshirt cloth, and birdseye and honeycomb variants trade the same tuck idea in different cell patterns. A good pique keeps its cell definition after washing, which is a quick field test of knit quality and finishing.

Where Pique Fabric Is Used

The polo shirt is pique's empire: tennis, golf and team sports shirts, school and corporate uniforms, hospitality and service polos, and the embroidered-logo trade, because the textured face takes chest embroidery cleanly once backed properly. Beyond polos, pique serves dresses and skirts that need a knit with presence, children's clothing, baby blankets in the softest cotton grades, and trims and collars even on garments whose bodies are jersey. Woven marcella pique survives in its original niche of formal shirting, waistcoats and bow-tie accessories, a small but durable market that the mills below mostly serve in the knitted form.

The seventeen listings below are this directory's pique mills, each linked to its Fabric Mills by Name profile: A K Dyeing, Alok Textile Industries, G R Garments, Sriyansh Ispat Limited and Tantra Tex of India, Beximco Group of Bangladesh, Carolina Cotton Works, Inc. and Safer Textile Processing Corp. of the USA, Ceyteks Tekstil and Dokuboy of Turkey, Jong Stit Knitting Co. Ltd. of Thailand, Nam Liong Enterprise Co., Ltd of Taiwan, Nutex International (Pvt) Ltd. and Supreme Textile Industries (Pvt) Limited of Pakistan, Rainbow Jersey and Shahtex (Leicester) Limited of the United Kingdom, and Xiamen C and D Inc. of China. None has been removed: no listing was verified dead, and this directory's standing rule is to keep a listing when in doubt. Thank you for using the Apparel Search Fabric Mill Directory.

Specifying and Caring for Pique

Specify pique by fibre, knit pattern (classic, honeycomb or birdseye), weight in grams per square metre, and width, and check a sample for cell definition and recovery: stretch it across the course and confirm the pattern springs back without bagging, since a pique that bags at the cell will bag at a polo's placket and collar within a season. Ask about shrinkage control and colour fastness together, because polo buyers wash hard and often; a resin or compacting finish should be declared, since it changes both the hand and the embroidery behaviour buyers downstream will meet.

Care is simple and forgiving, which is part of the fabric's commercial success. Cotton pique washes warm, tumble dries at moderate heat, and needs little or no ironing because the texture hides creasing; reshape a polo while damp, dry collars flat, and avoid hanging heavy wet pique by the shoulders, where its own weight can stretch the knit. Polyester pique washes cooler and dries fast, and should be kept from high iron heat. Wash strong colours separately at first, and turn embroidered polos inside out to protect both the stitching and the cell surface in the drum.

Pique Fabric Mills Listed Here