Wool upholstery best

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 6

Wool upholstery best

Housewives who have trouble choosing the best fabric for upholstery coverings nay draw some kind of comfort from the fact that even the professional furniture manufacturers are confused, according to a New Zealand Wool Board correspondent in London.

To help the trade, an expert paper was delivered recently to manufacturers attending the Furniture Production Exhibition, held at Olympia in London. Mr Brian Weyland, of Margo Fabrics, one of the top British firms in upholstery fabric, was chosen to give advice. “I am quite adamant on this,” he said. “In upholstery, there is no substitute for wool. No other fibre would seem to offer the same allround performance: elasticity, warmth, dirt-resistance, wear, and appeal.’* Mr Weyland added, however that it should be remembered that there were two

methods of spinning yami from wool.

The first, or “woollen system” of spinning, produced a full and lofty fabric with a good handle. The second, spun on the “worsted sys--1 tem” produced finer and more lustrous yam with coni siderably higher abrasion resistance. Wrong approach “Too many people choose upholstery fabric by looking ! at it against the light and, if I it appears thin, rejecting it ! as unlikely to wear well. In . fact, the opposite is often true," he said. He said that when choos- , Ing wool fabrics, it was sen- . sible to insist on the Wool- . mark. This symbol gave an . assurance of mininmum standard, not only of the quality ! of the fibre used, but also with regard to abrasion and ■ general performance.

“A large number of woollen fabrics have come on to the market for upholstery at very low prices, but they are not awarded the Woolmark label,” he said. “This is because they are mostly made from re-manu-

factured fibres and, while they may look well and handle well, their wear properties—for abrasion ana tensile strength—ere low.” Among other synthetic fibres, acrylics came nearest to wool in general characteristics, he said but added: “All synthetics suffer from a certain amount of dirt attraction, and this cannot yet be easily overcome.” Blending Most manufacturers of woven upholstery fabrics employed a number of blended yams, wool and rayon for example, which tended to igve the performance of wool, with some added strength, at a lower price. High tenacity fibres such as nylon were ideal from the point of view of strength, but they had shortcomings in upholstery fabrics. For example, mixtures of 20 per cent nylon with wool tended to "pill” or “fluff” very badly in upholstery. This fluffing happened with wool cloths or carpet at first, but did not recur later. With nylon in the blend, the pilling was aggravated and continued. “My advice to the upholsterer,” he said, “is to get what you pay for. But make sure you know what you are paying for. If you have doubts,” he told the furni-ture-makers, “talk it over with a reputable fabric weaver first”