What Is Brocade?

How is brocade made?

Brocade is made on a loom by adding extra, or supplementary, weft threads to a ground cloth while it is being woven, so the pattern is part of the fabric rather than applied afterwards. The ground can be plain weave, twill, satin or leno, and the pattern itself is usually worked in a satin or twill weave.

The pattern wefts are extra coloured yarns that come to the surface only where the motif needs them. Where they are not needed, they pass along the back of the cloth as loose lengths of yarn called floats.

From drawloom to Jacquard

Brocade was traditionally woven on a drawloom, a complex loom worked by two people: a “drawboy” at the top and a second weaver working the lower part. Today brocade is usually woven with the help of a Jacquard attachment fitted to the loom.

Brocaded versus brocade

Textile specialists use “brocading weft” in a narrow sense: a supplementary weft that does not run from selvedge to selvedge but is confined to the area of the motif. Britannica’s general definition is broader: a fabric with a raised design introduced during the weaving process. Knowing the strict sense helps when you turn a piece over, as described below.

What are the properties of brocade?

Brocade is a rich, fairly heavy cloth with a raised pattern on the face and floats on the back. Most of its other properties, such as warmth, breathability and how it washes, come from the fibres it is woven from rather than from the weave.

• Weight and thickness: the floats on the reverse make brocade slightly thicker than other multicoloured woven fabrics such as tapestry.
• One-sided pattern: the design appears only on the face. The back shows floats, not a mirror image.
• Raised surface: the floral or figured motif is raised from the ground rather than flat like a print.
• Uses: brocade is frequently used for evening dresses, draperies and upholstery.

What is the difference between brocade, damask and embroidery?

Brocade adds extra weft threads to make its pattern, damask makes its pattern by contrasting weave structures, and embroidery is stitched onto a finished cloth with a needle. All three can carry floral motifs, so the back of the cloth is the quickest way to tell them apart.

“Jacquard” is not a rival fabric but the loom mechanism. Brocade and damask are both commonly woven on Jacquard looms, so a label reading “jacquard” tells you how a cloth was woven, not which of the two it is.

What is silk brocade?

Silk brocade is brocade woven in silk. When the word entered English in the 1560s, it meant a silken fabric “variegated with gold and silver or otherwise ornamented”. Britannica illustrates its brocade entry with a handwoven Italian silk brocaded on silk, dated about 1730–50.

Banaras brocade

One brocade with a legally protected name comes from Banaras (Varanasi) in Uttar Pradesh, India, where the sari is protected alongside the cloth. “Banaras Brocades and Sarees” is a registered geographical indication (GI) in India: filed by the Banaras Bunkar Samiti and others on 4 July 2007; its registration certificate (no. 110) is dated 4 September 2009. As of 2026 the registration is valid until 3 July 2027.

The GI record names the product and the place; it is not a fibre-content statement, so read the fibre label as well as the name.

Is it really silk?

Under US labelling rules, a cloth can only be called “100% silk” if it is entirely silk: a blouse of 97% silk and 3% polyester cannot carry that label. “Silk brocade” on a hang tag is a description; the fibre content line is the evidence.

How is brocade graded or measured?

None of the sources consulted sets a numeric grade for brocade. Brocade is judged instead by three things you can check: its fibre content, its structure (true supplementary-weft brocading or a print or embroidery imitating it) and, for named regional cloths, a protected origin such as the Banaras GI.

How does brocade appear on a clothing label?

A US fibre label lists fibres, not weaves, so “brocade” itself has no legal label name. What you will see is the generic name and percentage by weight of each fibre, in order of predominance.

• Metallic threads are listed as “Metallic”, one of the generic fibre names set out in US rules (16 CFR 303.7).
• Ornamentation, meaning fibres or yarns that create a visible pattern, can be left out of the fibre content when it is no more than 5% of the fibre weight. The label then reads, for example, “exclusive of 4% metallic ornamentation”.
• Small amounts: fibres under 5% are usually listed as “other fiber” rather than by name, although wool must always be named, and a fibre with a functional purpose may be.
• Trade names: a fibre trademark may appear next to the generic name, so the line still shows generic names such as rayon, polyester or acetate.

Because a brocade’s pattern yarns fit the US definition of ornamentation, a fibre line that ends “exclusive of ornamentation” tells you the metallic or coloured motif is not counted in the percentages above it.

How do you tell good brocade from poor brocade?

Turn the cloth over: true brocade shows floats of pattern yarn on the back and the design only on the face, while prints, embroidery and surface imitations show something else. These checks need no tools.

1. Look at the back. You should see lengths of pattern yarn floating behind each motif. If the back shows no pattern yarns at all, the cloth is not brocade: it may be a print, or a weave such as damask that is patterned by its own threads.
2. Follow the pattern yarn. In brocading in the strict sense, the pattern weft stops at the edge of each motif instead of running from selvedge to selvedge. Coloured blocks confined to motif areas on the reverse are the sign.
3. Check the direction. Pattern threads in brocade run across the cloth with the weft. Stitches that wander in all directions and pierce the ground are embroidery.
4. Compare the sheen. In damask, the pattern comes from the contrast between shiny satin areas and duller plain or taffeta areas, made from the cloth’s own threads. In brocade, the motif is built from separate pattern yarns you can see floating behind it.
5. Read the fibre line. Check for “Metallic” and for an “exclusive of ornamentation” note, and compare the silk percentage with any “silk brocade” claim.
6. Check a named origin. For Banaras brocade, the GI registration (application no. 99, certificate no. 110 in India’s GI registry) is the reference to ask a seller about.

How do you care for brocade?

Care for brocade according to the sewn-in care label, because the right method depends on its fibres, especially silk and metallic yarns. In the US, care labels on clothing are required under a separate FTC rule from the one that governs fibre content.

Treat the reverse gently. The floats are lengths of yarn lying unbound across the back, so keep rings, hook-and-eye fastenings and rough surfaces away from them, and line garments where the back would rub against skin or other clothes.

Is brocade sustainable?

Brocade is a weave, not a fibre, so its environmental footprint depends mainly on the yarns used. None of the sources consulted gives impact data for brocade as such. Judge a piece by its fibre content and origin, and see the entries on silk and polyester for what those fibres involve.