What Is Chiffon?

How is chiffon made?

Chiffon is made by weaving finely twisted yarns in a plain weave into a light, sheer cloth, usually from silk or a synthetic fibre. In a plain weave each crosswise yarn passes over one lengthwise yarn and under the next. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s CAMEO materials database also lists rayon and, occasionally, cotton as chiffon fibres.

From fibre to cloth

• Silk chiffon starts with the cocoons of silk moths, such as the domesticated Bombyx mori. CAMEO gives a filament length of 250–750 metres for Bombyx mori silk.
• Synthetic chiffon is woven from synthetic fibres. The fibre is named on the fibre-content label, never by the word “chiffon”.
• Colour: chiffon can be dyed or printed, which is why it appears in both plain colours and prints.

Where it comes from

CAMEO states that chiffon originated in France, but none of the sources consulted gives a date for the first chiffon cloth. The word itself is French: chiffon is a 17th-century diminutive of chiffe, a rag or piece of cloth. English borrowed it in 1765 for women’s finery, and the earliest recorded English use for a sheer silk fabric dates from 1890.

What are the properties of chiffon?

Chiffon is sheer, light and soft, yet Britannica describes it as “a relatively strong, balanced fabric” despite its delicate look. Most of its behaviour after that depends on the fibre it is woven from.

• Sheerness: CAMEO calls it “sheer, diaphanous”. Anything behind it shows, including seam allowances, so the way a chiffon garment is sewn is part of how it looks.
• Lightness and drape: the word is so closely tied to lightness that it also names other light, softly draping fabrics, such as chiffon velvet.
• Moisture (silk): silk has a moisture regain of 11 per cent, a measure of the moisture the fibre takes up from the air.
• Give (silk): silk fibre has an elongation of 20–25 per cent, rising to 30 per cent when wet. Wet silk therefore gives more, so handle silk chiffon gently while damp.
• Weak points (silk): silk is degraded by sunlight and damaged by weak alkali solutions such as soap, two facts that shape how silk chiffon should be stored and washed.

How is chiffon graded or measured?

None of the rules or references cited here sets a grade for chiffon: the US and EU labelling rules govern fibre names and fibre percentages, not the name of the cloth.

What you can measure is fibre content. US law requires the percentage by weight of each fibre, so “100% silk” and “60% silk, 40% polyester” describe measurably different cloths even when both look alike on a hanger. Treat any “grade” attached to chiffon in a product description as the seller’s own term, not a standard.

The name is not even consistent across countries. Britannica notes that in Romania “chiffon” refers to a bleached cotton shirting, and in Germany and Austria to a stout, fine linen used for shirts and underwear.

How does chiffon appear on a clothing label?

On a clothing label chiffon appears as its fibres, not as “chiffon”: US law requires generic fibre names with percentages by weight, and EU law allows only the fibre names listed in its textile regulation. “Chiffon” may appear in the product name, but the fibre-content label is the part that carries legal weight.

Rules that protect the word silk

In the EU, fibre names are reserved for fibres that match their legal description, and may not be used for other fibres “on their own or as a root or as an adjective”. The same article states that the term “silk” may not be used “to indicate the shape or particular presentation in continuous filament yarn” of textile fibres. Annex I reserves “silk” for “fibre obtained exclusively from silk-secreting insects”, so a silk-looking filament polyester cannot be labelled as silk.

US labels must list fibres in order of predominance by weight, in lettering of equal size, and imported garments must also name the country where they were made.

How do you tell good chiffon from poor chiffon?

Good chiffon is judged at the label, at the seams and, for silk, at the fibre itself, because a sheer cloth hides nothing about how a garment was made. Work through these checks before buying.

1. Read the fibre-content label. Look for fibre names with percentages. If the product page says “silk chiffon” but the label lists polyester, the label is the record that counts.
2. Hold a seam up to the light. Seam allowances show through chiffon, so good makers use narrow, enclosed seams. A French seam encloses the raw edges completely; the University of Kentucky’s extension service notes it is usually used on lightweight, sheer and delicate fabrics. A hairline seam, a very narrow seam, is primarily used on sheer and lightweight woven fabrics.
3. Check the armholes. A mock French seam is a sound choice where a sleeve meets the bodice of a sheer occasion garment, according to the same guide.
4. Look at the raw edge of every seam allowance. A seam finish exists to stop ravelling. Edges that are only pinked (cut with zigzag shears) are a red flag: pinking alone does not prevent ravelling. An overlocked edge is a recognised finish for woven fabrics, but on a sheer cloth it is visible from the outside.
5. Test a silk claim on a swatch. If you buy chiffon by the metre, a dressmaker’s burn test on a snipped thread can confirm silk: silk burns readily with an unsteady flame, smells like burnt hair and leaves an ash that crumbles easily. Never test a finished garment, and work over a non-flammable surface.

Red flags

• A fibre trademark with no generic fibre name beside it.
• A label with no fibre percentages on a garment sold in the US.
• Pinked-only seam allowances, or loose threads along the edges.

How do you care for chiffon?

Care for chiffon according to its care label and its fibre; for silk chiffon, that means keeping it away from strong sunlight and from ordinary soap, both of which damage silk. Store silk chiffon blouses, dresses and scarves out of direct light, in a wardrobe or drawer rather than on an open rail by a window.

Because silk stretches further when wet, support a damp silk chiffon garment rather than hanging its full weight from one point. Synthetic chiffon follows the care rules of its fibre, so the care label is the only reliable guide.

Is chiffon sustainable?

Chiffon is neither sustainable nor unsustainable as such: its footprint comes from its fibre, and the fibre-content label is where you find that out. Silk chiffon is woven from silk, a natural protein fibre from silk-moth cocoons; synthetic chiffon is woven from man-made fibres.

The US and EU labelling rules cited here govern how fibres are named and declared, not environmental impact. Any sustainability claim about a chiffon garment therefore needs its own evidence, beyond the word chiffon and the fibre name. For a silk piece, the most practical lever is lifespan: storing it away from sunlight limits the degradation sunlight causes in silk.