Silk fabrics fall into two broad classes, those made from thrown silk yarn with a smooth, lustrous surface and those made from spun silk yarn having a warm, softer handle and subdued lustered surface.
Chiffon: A plain woven lightweight, extremely sheer, airy, and soft silk fabric, containing high twisted filament yarns, fabric characterized by very fine wrinkles.
Organza: A balanced plain weave fabric that it is crisp and very sheer, the stiffness comes from the natural gum that remains on the filaments.
Georgette: A plain woven light weight drapery woven fabric created from highly twisted yarns creating a pebbly texture, fabric surface has crepe-like appearance, open and strong.
Habaotai: A soft, lightweight silk fabric originally woven in the gum, normally plain weave with low twisted yarn.
Paj: Plain weave very light, sheer silk fabric, originally woven in the gum, normally the weight is below 26 g/sm.
Pongee: A thin soft fabric of Chinese origin woven from raw silk. It is a medium-weight, balanced woven fabric in plain weave with an irregular filling and a fine regular warp.
Taffeta: A lustrous, medium weight, plain weave fabric with a slight ribbed appearance in the filling (crosswise) direction, have a high warp/weft density, originally wove in the degummed silk filament, it provides a crisp handle. When woven of three colors, it is called chameleon.
Crepe: A lightweight fabric characterized by a crinkled or pebbly surface, hiding the base structure (often plain weave) beneath. This surface is obtained through the use of crepe yarns (yarns that have such a high twist that the yarn kinks), and by chemical treatment with caustic soda, embossing, or weaving (usually with thicker warp yarns and thinner filling yarns) which makes the fabric has a special shrinking.
Crepe de Chine: A very sheer, pebbly, washable silk with the fabric degummed to produce crinkle, has a slightly crinkly surface created with highly twisted weft yarns, normally plain weave, fabric has a soft and pleasing handle, drapes very well and is durable.
Crepon: Crêpe effect appears in warp direction and achieved by alternate S and Z, or slack, tension, or different degrees of twist. It is much stouter and more rugged than the average Crêpe, has a wavy texture with the “waves” running in a lengthwise direction.
Satin: A basic weave, characterized by long floats of yarn on the face of the fabric, in this manner, a smooth and somewhat shiny surface effect is achieved, satin fabrics drape very well and do not wrinkle easily.
Crepe-back Satin: A satin fabric in which highly twisted yarns are used in the filling direction. The floating yarns are made with low twists and may be either high or low luster. If the crepe effect is the right side of the fabric, the fabric is called satin back crepe.
Brocade: A colored satin or twill based jacquard fabric, normally the fabric has more than three colored weft yarn, the yarn was dyed before weaving and with low or have no twist.
Douppion Silk: A crisp fabric with irregular slubs, mainly in plain weave, the yarn comes from the fiber formed by two silk worms that spun their cocoons together in an interlocking manner, this yarn is uneven, irregular, and larger than regular filaments.
Shantung: Similar to Douppion silk, a plain weave fabric has a characteristic texture of subtle, uneven horizontal ribs from slubs in the silk yarn. Shantung has a more refined appearance with smaller slubs, Shantung is generally lighter than doupioni silk.
Tussah: Silk fabric woven from silk made by wild, uncultivated silkworms. Tussah is naturally tan in color, cannot be bleached, and has a rougher texture than cultivated silk.
Ghatpot: Twill weave fabric with a clear twill effect on the fabric surface.
Velvet: A medium weight cut-pile constructed fabric in which the cut pile stands up very straight. It is woven using two sets of warp yarns on a special loom that weaves two piece of velvet at the same time, the extra set creates the pile, after weaving the two pieces are then cut apart and the two lengths of fabric are wound on separate take-up rolls.
Burn-Out Velvet: Created from two different fibers, the velvet is removed with chemicals in a pattern leaving the backing fabric intact.
Moiree: A corded fabric, usually made from silk or one of the manufactured fibers, which has a distinctive water marked wavy pattern on the face of the fabric. Moiré uses a horizontally ribbed fabric, most often taffeta or faille, the watermark effect can be achieved in a variety of ways, including engraved rollers, weaving, and printing.
Faille: A plain weave fabric with pronounced, fairly flat crosswise ribs and a silky, somewhat lustrous surface, the weave is constructed with heavier (or grouped) weft yarns and finer and more numerous warp yarns. The warp fibers are usually filament (silk, manufactured fibers) while the weft is usually cotton or cotton blends, sometimes wool or silk.
Tussores/Grosgrain: A plain weave fabric with heavy, round filling ribs created by a high warp count and coarse filling yarns, as compared to Faille, the ribs are rounder. The warp is characteristically silk or rayon with the weft being cotton, sometimes silk.
Bengaline: A ribbed fabric similar to Faille, but heavier and with a coarser rib in the filling direction. Usually plain weaving use filament yarn as warp and interlace with spun weft yarn.
Ottoman: A heavy, plain weave fabric with a hard slightly lustered surface, the fabric has a wide, flat crosswise ribs that are larger and higher than in Faille and bengaline. It sometimes comes with alternating narrow and wide ribs, when made of narrow ribs only, it is called soleil. The ribbed effect is created by weaving a finer warp yarn with a heavier filler yarn, in the construction, the heavier filler yarn is completely covered by the warp yarn, thus creating the ribbed effect.
Lame: A woven fabric using flat silver or gold metal threads to create either the design or the background in the fabric.
Noil – A silk fabric that produced by noil yarn, the result is a cotton-like fabric with a nubby texture which is the same on both sides. Silk noil (also spelled noile) is spun from short fibers of waste cocoon, when these short fibers are spun into yarns, the resulting yarns have occasional slubs and loose ends.
Plush: A compactly woven fabric with warp pile higher than that of velvet. Originally the pile of plush consisted of mohair or worsted yarn, but now silk by itself or with a cotton backing is used for plush.