What Is Broadcloth?

How is broadcloth made?

Broadcloth is made in one of two ways, depending on which meaning is in play: woollen broadcloth is woven wide and then shrunk, napped and shorn into a felted cloth, while modern shirting broadcloth is simply woven tightly in plain weave. The two share a name, not a process.

Woollen broadcloth

The historic cloth belongs to what economic historians call the Old Draperies: heavy, fulled luxury woollens made from fine, short, curly wool. A lecture deck on medieval wool textiles, hosted by the University of Toronto, sets out the finishing sequence:

1. Fulling. The woven cloth was soaked in hot water with fuller’s earth, soap and urine, then trodden by foot or pounded by oak hammers in a mill.
2. Shrinking. Fulling shrank the cloth by up to 55 per cent by area, more in width than length. This is the main reason the finished cloth was so heavy.
3. Raising. The surface was teaselled, wet and dry, to raise a nap of loose fibres.
4. Shearing. The nap was cut with steel shears, and raising and shearing were repeated.

The same source notes that mechanical fulling mills became widespread in England from the later 13th century. The V&A describes the result as a cloth “shrunk, napped and shorn to produce a felted cloth”: a woven cloth finished to behave like felt.

Shirting broadcloth

The modern fabric is woven, not felted. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s CAMEO materials database describes it as a closely woven plain-weave cloth with a crosswise rib, made from cotton, polyester, rayon, silk or blends. CAMEO dates this shirting sense to Britain in the 1920s.

What are the properties of broadcloth?

Woollen broadcloth is dense, napped and so thoroughly felted that its cut edges do not fray, while shirting broadcloth is a close, smooth plain weave with a fine crosswise rib.

The V&A’s curators say the broadcloth of a brown three-piece suit from about 1780 would have been waterproof and hardwearing. On that suit, raw edges were used wherever possible, including the collar and the bottom edges of the coat and waistcoat. Colonial Williamsburg’s white broadcloth coat of about 1770 shows the same thing: its heavily fulled wool allowed the garment to be cut with a raw, unfinished edge, and it is only partly lined.

On woollen broadcloth the weave is hard to see: the Toronto lecture notes that fulling and shearing left woollens with their weave patterns “obliterated”. CAMEO also records the name being used for a fine, dense wool fabric with a napped face and a twill back.

How is broadcloth graded or measured?

Broadcloth has no grading scheme of its own; it is described by its width, its yarn counts and, for the woollen cloth, its weight after fulling.

• Width. The name itself is a measurement. The Online Etymology Dictionary records the word from the early 15th century and says it was so called from its width, usually 60 inches. CAMEO says that when the shirting appeared in 1920s Britain, the name referred to a fabric made on a loom wider than 27 inches.
• Thread count. CAMEO gives at least 60 filling yarns (weft picks) per inch for shirting broadcloth.
• Construction. The US Census Bureau’s export classification (Schedule B) defines cotton “poplin or broadcloth” as plain weave fabric “not of square construction”: the counts of warp threads and weft threads per centimetre must differ by more than a set margin. A cloth with equal counts both ways falls outside the class.
• Historic dimensions. Cloth sizes were fixed by ordinance. A 1552 standard for Suffolk and Essex short broadcloth set a finished width of about 1.64 metres, according to the Toronto lecture data.

How does broadcloth appear on a clothing label?

Broadcloth is a fabric name, not a fibre name, so the label tells you what it is made of, not whether it is broadcloth. Under US rules from the Federal Trade Commission, fibres must be named by their generic names, with percentages by weight, in descending order of predominance.

• “100% cotton” or “All cotton”. The classic shirting broadcloth. The FTC allows “All” in place of “100%” for a single-fibre product.
• Cotton and polyester. A blend; CAMEO lists polyester blends among broadcloth fibres.
• “Wool” or “Recycled wool”. Woollen broadcloth. In the US, wool reclaimed from earlier products must be labelled recycled wool, and wool must be disclosed by name and percentage even below 5 per cent.
• “Other fibers”. US labels may group fibres under 5 per cent this way, except wool.

Any further description on the tag, such as a fibre trademark, must not imply that the garment is made entirely of a fibre it is not, according to the FTC.

How do you tell good broadcloth from poor broadcloth?

Good broadcloth shows its construction plainly: shirting broadcloth has a tight, even plain weave with a fine crosswise rib, and woollen broadcloth is dense enough to hold a raw edge. Five checks, all physical:

1. Look for the rib. Hold a shirt panel up to the light at an angle. Shirting broadcloth should show a faint crosswise rib running across the fabric. A visible diagonal line means a twill, not broadcloth.
2. Count the picks. With a thread counter or a 1-inch window in a card, count the crosswise threads. CAMEO’s benchmark for broadcloth is at least 60 per inch. Then count the lengthwise threads: under the US trade definition the two counts should clearly differ, not match.
3. Read the label. Check the fibre percentages. A cotton-polyester blend is still broadcloth by structure, but the label is the only way to know the mix.
4. Check a cut edge on wool. On a woollen broadcloth coat, look at any raw edge on the collar, hem or pocket flap. Museum examples from the 18th century leave these edges raw because the felted cloth does not fray. If threads pull loose at a raw edge, the cloth is not behaving like the fulled broadcloth in those examples.
5. Look at the face of wool broadcloth. The surface should be napped and shorn smooth, so that you cannot read the weave on the face. Repeated raising and shearing was the finishing step that produced that face.

Red flags: a “broadcloth” shirt with a visible diagonal weave; a loose, open weave that shows light through the gaps; a wool coat with fraying raw edges.

For comparison, poplin is grouped with cotton broadcloth in US export statistics, so the names overlap. Judge the structure, not the name on the tag.

How do you care for broadcloth?

Care follows the fibre, not the name, so the care label is the instruction to follow. A cotton dress shirt in broadcloth is cared for as cotton shirting; a woollen broadcloth coat as tailored wool. For woollen broadcloth with raw edges, treat those edges gently: they depend on the fulling, not a stitched finish, to stay intact.

Is broadcloth sustainable?

Broadcloth is not sustainable or unsustainable as a category, because the name describes a construction, not a fibre; its footprint depends on whether it is cotton, wool, polyester or a blend. Durability is the one property the sources speak to: the V&A called its 18th-century suit cloth hardwearing and in excellent condition. Check the fibre content first, then read the entries for the fibre itself.