Traditional luxury fabrics which include velvet, wool, silk, and linen are natural cloth derived from animal hair and silkworm fibre, plant seeds, pods, and flax. There are also natural fabrics made from natural mineral sources and produced from inorganic and mineral salts. They are mostly derived from silica and metal oxides and include glass fibres, metallic fibres, rock, and asbestos fibres.
And then, there are the synthetic fabrics – acrylic, nylon, rayon and polyester, produced from man-made polymers; materials derived from petroleum-based chemicals.
Fabric Usage
Traditionally, and even today, fabrics are mainly used in apparel, home décor and furnishing, art, and crafts, and industrial purposes. They are classified and categorized differently, based on the fibres and other raw materials included in their production processes. And while some fibres are used as sole raw materials to make textiles, most fabrics are made from a mix of natural and artificial fibres woven into each other to create textile materials.
Types of Luxury Fabrics
Even fabrics have luxury genres and there are textiles that define quality, superiority and class. If you are a fabric expert, you can tell a luxury fabric by feeling the weight, texture, and density of the weave. You can also tell by the roughness or smoothness of the fabric’s fibres. Some of the most luxurious materials and perhaps the priciest are:
Silk Fabric
Silk is obtained from the cocoons of silkworms, but even silk fabrics have different grades. Some of the most expensive ones are Mulberry silk and Sea-silk. They are extremely rare, fine, and valued fabrics.
Wool Textiles
The most high-priced fabric is wool, and the topmost type comes from the South American Vicuna sheep with its fine and soft hairs. It is the most expensive and rare wool because the Vicuna sheep are sheared only once every three years. Cashmere and alpaca wool are other high-priced wool fabrics.
Velvet Fabrics
Velvet fabric is the epitome of luxurious fabrics with the top grade being silk velvet, a fabric type popularly used by royalty. Silk velvet is made from silk and is expensive and rare. Velvet fabric can also be made from other fibres as well, including cotton and man-made fibres like polyester and rayon.
Linen Materials
Linen is an expensive and top-quality fabric made from fibres from the flax plant. There are varying grades of linen which are also known as luxury fabrics which means that the fibre quality of linen depends on the type of plant. Less expensive linen is made from hemp, cotton and other non-flax fibres but the highest quality type is made from flax.
Fur
Animal fur is the oldest fabric ever known and has been worn for protection, and used for household stuff in pre-historic homes. Today, faux fur is considered a luxury fabric and is one of the most luxurious materials in the world. Faux fur is used to make apparel, home decor items, and fashion accessories.
Leather Materials
Asides from the more popular and trending man-made faux leather materials, the most expensive and high-quality leather come from the Native American buckskin. Another luxury leather is alligator skin followed by saltwater crocodile leather. The other exotic leather materials which are more commonly used because they are more affordable for most people are deerskin, shark skin, ostrich, and calfskin.