Curtain and drapery fabric is one purchase with six variables, and most sourcing mistakes come from naming the type and leaving the rest open. "Blackout polyester curtain fabric" tells a mill the light-blocking target and nothing else: the opacity, the weight, the width, the lining and the quantity are all still open, and each one of them moves the price. Naming the type properly is the first half of the job; specifying the four numbers is the second.
This guide walks the curtain fabric types a buyer actually chooses between, states what each one is bought for, and then gives the specifications that decide whether a mill can make it. It is written from the weaving shed rather than from a catalogue, so it says plainly which of these are our programmes and which we do not make.
The curtain fabric types and what each one is for
| Type | What it is | What it is bought for | What to specify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sheer voile | An open, light-filtering weave that passes daylight through while keeping the room unseen from outside | Daytime privacy where the room still needs its light | Sheer openness, weight, width, whether it is backed for dimout |
| Dimout | A heavier weave or a coated construction that cuts glare and holds privacy without reaching full darkness | Hotel rooms, offices and living rooms that need privacy at a lighter weight | Opacity percentage, weight, coated or dense-weave route, laundering rating |
| Blackout | Dense construction or multi-pass coating that blocks 85–100% of transmitted light | Bedrooms, night-shift rooms, media rooms and blackout hospitality programmes | Opacity percentage, construction route, weight, finished width, edge treatment |
| Lined and interlined | A face fabric with a separate lining behind it, or a foam interlining between face and lining | Curtains that hang flat and hold a shape without a heavy face cloth | Face fabric, lining construction, interlining weight, finished width |
| Jacquard and dobby figured | Pattern woven into the structure rather than printed onto it | Contract and hospitality drapery where the pattern has to survive washing | Motif and repeat, jacquard or dobby, colourway count |
| Printed | Rotary screen print or digital print applied to a greige base cloth | Seasonal or client-specific drapery, and short-run programmes | Print method, colour count, fastness grade, minimum quantity |
| Microfiber and peachskin | Brushed, sueded polyester with a soft surface hand | Soft-touch drapery, hospitality bed and window programmes | Yarn denier, brushing route, weight, colour fastness |
| Taffeta and satin | Smooth, lustrous plain-weave polyester | Curtain linings, dimout linings, and decorative face cloths | Yarn count, luster, weight, width |
| Functional drapery | Base cloth carrying a treatment - flame retardant, anti-bacterial, or water-repellent | Contract hospitality, healthcare and public-space programmes | Treatment and the standard it is tested to, certification scope, wash durability |
| Wide-width seamless | Single-piece cloth wide enough to drop from ceiling to floor without a horizontal seam | High ceilings and full-drop hotel and residential programmes | Finished width, weight, shrinkage allowance |
| Natural fibres | Silk, linen and cotton face cloths, and polyester stand-ins for them | Premium or heritage interiors where the natural fibre is the specification | Not our programme - we weave 100% polyester and name the honest stand-in for each |
Two of these rows carry the detail the buyer will actually argue about, and both have their own pages: blackout against dimout is a construction question rather than a preference, and natural against synthetic is a performance question. The rest are specification choices, and a mill should be able to answer "can you weave that" without going back to the office.
What this mill weaves for curtains
Not every type above is ours to supply, and the honest version of this section is narrower than the table. This mill weaves 100% polyester and nothing else, on 650+ waterjet looms, with daily output above 200,000 meters of polyester fabric. What that means for a curtain programme:
- Greige in plain and twill, 160–330 cm wide and 55–120 GSM. The base cloth under every finished curtain route. Stock greige specifications can ship without a minimum; make-to-order combinations of width, GSM and weave start at 5,000 meters.
- Blackout at 85–100% light block, through a dense-weave route or multi-pass coating, on the same base cloth rather than a bought-in special.
- Satin stripe in production, woven on waterjet with a dobby head, so the sheen bands sit in the cloth instead of being printed or dyed on afterwards. Dobby figured fabric is an attachment on those same waterjets, not a separate weaving hall.
- Rotary and digital print on greige, including the rotary against digital decision and the disperse against pigment chemistry behind colour on polyester.
- Finished width 150–315 cm, against a greige that starts wider and takes a small shrinkage. For full-drop programs, the wide-width fabric page sets out what each loom type can actually reach.
- MOQ floors that follow the route: 5,000 meters per specification for most woven and finished routes, no printing minimum on digital, and for regenerated GRS greige no minimum in stock with a 3,000 meter floor on its dyeing route.
The catalogue on this site lists what is in production today, and the mill-direct polyester page sets out the whole route from greige to finished drape.
How to write the PO line
A curtain order that names the type, the opacity, the weight, the width and the quantity can be quoted without a sample round trip. One that names only the type cannot. The line should carry:
- Type and construction. "Blackout, dense weave" and "blackout, multi-pass coated" are different products at different prices, and they launder differently.
- Opacity percentage. 85%, 95% or 100% is a construction choice, not a word. Ask for the figure, not the label.
- GSM and finished width. These decide the loom, the yarn and the price, and they are the two numbers a mill quotes back fastest.
- Lining and interlining. A face fabric with a separate lining is two price lines; a lined-and-interlined curtain is three.
- Quantity and programme intent. 5,000 meters per specification is a production lot. Stock greige, stock regenerated GRS greige and digital printing have different floors, and the MOQ-by-route guide sets out which applies where.
If the programme is a repeat of a construction that already ran, say so and quote the construction code rather than the description. If it is new, approve a full-width production-route sample before bulk rather than a lab dip - a small swatch will not show edge light leakage or the pinholes that a coated route can hide, and that is exactly where blackout programmes fail in the field.
Where to go deeper on each type
The comparisons that usually need their own page are already on this site: blackout against dimout for light control, plain against twill and satin against plain for structure, dobby against jacquard for figured cloth, and solid dye against print for how colour gets into the cloth. For the material vocabulary itself, the polyester fibre page and the greige and PFD comparison explain what the base cloth is before finishing starts, and the polyester fabric types guide covers the wider catalogue of home-textile constructions.