![Charvet corsage](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Charvet_corsage.jpg)
Cambric or batiste, is a fine dense
cloth
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
.
It is a lightweight
plain-weave fabric, originally from the
commune
A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to:
Administrative-territorial entities
* Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township
** Communes of ...
of
Cambrai
Cambrai (, ; pcd, Kimbré; nl, Kamerijk), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord (French department), Nord Departments of France, department and in the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, regio ...
(in present-day northern
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
), woven
greige
The textile bleaching (or bleaching of textiles) is one of the steps in the textile manufacturing process. The objective of bleaching is to remove the natural color for the following steps such as dyeing or printing or to achieve full white. A ...
(neither bleached nor dyed), then
bleached,
piece-dyed, and often glazed or
calendered. Initially it was made of
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
; from the 18th and 19th centuries the term came to apply to
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
fabrics as well. Chambray is the same type of fabric, with a coloured (often blue or grey)
warp and white filling; the name "chambray" replaced "cambric" in the
United States in the early 19th century.
Cambric is used as fabric for
linens
Linens are fabric household goods intended for daily use, such as bedding, tablecloths, and towels. "Linens" may also refer to church linens, meaning the altar cloths used in church.
History
The earliest known household linens were made from ...
,
shirt
A shirt is a cloth garment for the upper body (from the neck to the waist).
Originally an undergarment worn exclusively by men, it has become, in American English, a catch-all term for a broad variety of upper-body garments and undergarments. I ...
s,
handkerchief
A handkerchief (; also called a hankie or, historically, a handkercher or a ) is a form of a kerchief or bandanna, typically a hemmed square of thin fabric which can be carried in the pocket or handbag for personal hygiene purposes such as wi ...
s,
ruffs,
lace
Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted o ...
, and in
needlework
Needlework is decorative sewing and textile arts handicrafts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework. Needlework may include related textile crafts such as crochet, worked with a hook, or tatting, worked with a ...
.
[
]
Description
![Chambray fabric](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Chambray_fabric.jpg)
Cambric is a finely woven cloth with a
plain weave
Plain weave (also called tabby weave, linen weave or taffeta weave) is the most basic of three fundamental types of textile weaving, weaves (along with satin weave and twill). It is strong and hard-wearing, and is used for fashion and furnishin ...
and a smooth surface appearance, the result of the
calendering
Calendering of textiles is a finishing process used to smooth, coat, or thin a material. With textiles, fabric is passed between calender rollers at high temperatures and pressures. Calendering is used on fabrics such as moire to produce its wat ...
process. It may be made of linen or cotton. The fabric may be dyed any of many colours.
Batiste is a kind of cambric;
it is "of similar texture, but differently finished, and made of cotton as well as of linen".
Batiste also may be dyed or printed.
''Batiste'' is the French word for cambric, and some sources consider them to be the same,
but in English, they are two distinct fabrics.
Chambray, though the same type of fabric as cambric, has a coloured warp and a white weft, though it may be "made from any colour as you may wish, in the warp, and also in the filling; only have them differ from each other."
Chambray differs from
denim
Denim is a sturdy cotton warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck. While a denim predecessor known as dungaree has been pr ...
in that "chambray's warp and weft threads will alternate one over the other, while denim’s warp thread will go over two threads in the weft before going under one." As a result, the colour of chambray cloth is similar front and back, while the reverse side of denim is lighter in colour.
The term "cambric cloth" also applies to a stiff, usually black, open-weave cloth typically used for a dust cover on the bottom of upholstered furniture.
History
Cambric was originally a kind of fine, white, plain-weave linen cloth made at or near
Cambrai
Cambrai (, ; pcd, Kimbré; nl, Kamerijk), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord (French department), Nord Departments of France, department and in the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, regio ...
.
[''Oxford English Dictionary''] The word comes from ''Kameryk'' or ''Kamerijk'', the
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
name of Cambrai,
[ which became part of France in 1677. The word is attested since 1530.] It is a synonym of the French word ''batiste'', itself attested since 1590. ''Batiste'' itself comes from the Picard ''batiche'', attested since 1401 and derived from the old French ''battre'' for bowing wool. The modern form ''batiste'', or ''baptiste'', comes from a popular merge with the surname Baptiste, pronounced ''Batisse'', as indicated by the use of the expressions ''thoile batiche'' (1499) and ''toile de baptiste'' (1536) for the same fabric. The alleged invention of the fabric, around 1300, by a weaver called Baptiste or Jean-Baptiste Cambray or Chambray, from the village of Castaing in the peerage
A peerage is a legal system historically comprising various hereditary titles (and sometimes non-hereditary titles) in a number of countries, and composed of assorted noble ranks.
Peerages include:
Australia
* Australian peers
Belgium
* Belgi ...
of Marcoing
Marcoing () is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.
History
During World War I, there was an alleged incident between a British soldier named Henry Tandey and Adolf Hitler in this area. Hitler was unarmed and appeared wounded, so T ...
, near Cambrai, has no historic ground. Cambric was a finer quality and more expensive than lawn
A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...
(from the French ''laune'', initially a plain-weave linen fabric from the city of Laon in France). Denoting a geographic origin from the city of Cambrai or its surroundings (''Cambresis'' in French), cambric is an exact equivalent of the French ''cambrésine'' (), a very fine, almost sheer white linen plain-weave fabric, to be distinguished from ''cambrasine'', a fabric comparable to the French lawn despite its foreign origin. Cambric is also close to chambray () from a French regional variant of "Cambrai", a name which "also comes from Cambrai, the French city, where the material was originally made of linen yarn". Chambray (also spelled "chambrai") appears in North American English in the early 19th century. Though the term generally refers to a cotton plain weave with a coloured warp and a white weft, close to gingham
Gingham, also called Vichy check, is a medium-weight balanced plain-woven fabric typically with striped, check or plaid duotone patterns, in bright colour and in white made from dyed cotton or cotton-blend yarns. It is made of carded, medium or ...
, "silk chambray" seems to have coexisted. Chambray was often produced during this period by the same weavers producing gingham.
White linen cambric or batiste from Cambrai, noted for its weight and lustre, was "preferred for ecclesiastical wear, fine shirts, underwear, shirt frills, cravats, collars and cuffs, handkerchiefs, and infant wear". Technical use sometime introduced a difference between cambric and batiste, the latter being of a lighter weight and a finer thread count.
In the 18th century, after the prohibition of imports into England of French cambrics, with the development of the import of Indian cotton fabrics, similar cotton fabrics, such as nainsook
Nainsook is a soft, fine, lightweight form of muslin. Muslin encompasses a broad range of fabrics of varying weight and fineness, but is always a plain weave, cotton fabric. The word 'nainsook' is first documented in 1790, and derives from the H ...
, from the Hindi ''nainsukh'' ("eyes' delight"), became popular. These fabrics, initially called Scotch cambrics to distinguish them from the original French cambrics, came to be referred to as cotton cambrics or batistes. Some authors increased the confusion with the assumption the word batiste could come from the Indian fabric ''bastas''.
In the 19th century, the terms cambric and batiste gradually lost their association with linen, implying only different kinds of fine plain-weave fabrics with a glossy finish. In 1907, a fine cotton batiste had 100 ends
End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to:
End
*In mathematics:
**End (category theory)
** End (topology)
**End (graph theory)
** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous)
**End (endomorphism)
*In sports and games
** End (gridiron footbal ...
per inch in the finished fabric, while a cheap-grade, less than 60. At the same time, with development of an interest in coloured shirts, cambric was also woven in colours, such as the pink fabric used by Charvet for a corsage, reducing the difference between cambric and chambray. Moreover, the development and rationalization of mechanical weaving led to the replacement, for chambray, of coloured warp and white weft by the opposite, white warp and coloured weft, which allowed for longer warps.
In popular culture
The English folk song ballad " Scarborough Fair" has the lyric in the second verse "Tell her to make me a cambric shirt / Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme / Sewn without seams or fine needlework, / Then she'll be a true love of mine."
It also appears in the David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
song, " Come and Buy My Toys" in the lyrics, "You shall own a cambric shirt, you shall work your father's land."
In the Andrzej Sapkowski
Andrzej Sapkowski (; born 21 June 1948) is a Polish fantasy writer, essayist, translator and a trained economist. He is best known for his six-volume series of books ''The Witcher'', which revolves around the eponymous "witcher," a monster-hunte ...
Witcher novel, ''The Last Wish'', Renfri described her privileged upbringing, referring to "...dresses, shoes. Cambric knickers. Jewels and trinkets..." as if suggesting that the cambric material was an indication of the fabric's high quality.
In Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, (; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictiona ...
's novel ''Murder on the Orient Express
''Murder on the Orient Express'' is a work of detective fiction by English writer Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 1 January 1934. In the U ...
'', a cambric handkerchief with an H monogram is one of the clues in the murder.
In '' Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'', Angelica, daughter of Captain Blackbeard, wears a white cambric shirt.
See also
* Lawn
A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...
* Nainsook
Nainsook is a soft, fine, lightweight form of muslin. Muslin encompasses a broad range of fabrics of varying weight and fineness, but is always a plain weave, cotton fabric. The word 'nainsook' is first documented in 1790, and derives from the H ...
* Gingham
Gingham, also called Vichy check, is a medium-weight balanced plain-woven fabric typically with striped, check or plaid duotone patterns, in bright colour and in white made from dyed cotton or cotton-blend yarns. It is made of carded, medium or ...
References
External links
Article on cambric
The history of cambric's use in clothing
{{fabric
Woven fabrics
Lace
Needlework
Cambrai