In a previous post, we outlined some key aspects to look out for when buying furniture for your home. You can basically use that checklist and be guaranteed to find comfortable and durable pieces. Furniture fabric, however, is a little more complicated, because not all fabrics are created equal. It can be hard enough deciding what color and texture you want your sofa to have, but there are also different use cases for each fabric type that you have to factor in as well. Let’s go over some information that might be helpful for you!

What is a performance fabric?

If you are looking for a fabric that can withstand the wear and tear of everyday life, you are likely going to want a performance fabric. This is a term used to describe fabrics that are either easy to clean, more durable or UV resistant. Many times they cover one of those aspects, but not both. Buyer Beware: Many companies market their materials as performance fabrics without any of the qualities that make performance fabrics so important, so you should always test them yourself.

Durability

For durability, you want a fabric with a high double rub count, which is derived by rubbing the fabric against itself to test its abrasion resistance and durability. Fabrics are assigned a double rub count through various methods - which is a whole other blog post. We typically try to stick to no less than 20-25,000 where we are expecting high traffic.

UV Resistant

Stabilized UV and color pigments prevent from fabrics from fading in the sun. Not only is this important for fabrics that will live outdoors on your patio, but it is also important if you have a piece by a window that is getting a lot of UV rays during the day.

Stain Resistant

The ability for a fabric to resist a stain is the other important factor in a performance fabric. We’ll go into more detail on this below…but just know that simply pouring water on some fabrics can ruin them. A colleague of ours ordered the sample below, which was marked as a “performance fabric.” However, she performed this water test and, as you can see, pale blue spots remained after it was blotted off very lightly and dried. YIKES. So while the fabric may have been durable, it is going to look like crap after the first dribble of water is dropped on it.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is to always test your fabric before you commit to it, like we do! We have piles and piles of fabric samples that we have done similar tests on to see for ourselves that the fabrics we recommend are of the utmost quality for our clients. Three of the performance brands commonly used for upholstered furniture are Sunbrella, Crypton, and Inside Out. All of these brands produce great fabrics, but as we said, they all have different strengths.

Sunbrella vs Crypton vs Inside Out

Sunbrella - Great for outdoors

Sunbrella was one of the first fabric brands on the market. These fabrics are made with an inherently stain-resistant acrylic fiber, which is synthetically manufactured to imitate wool. Sunbrella fabrics are great for outdoor use mainly because they have UV resistance. Prolonged exposure to UV rays can cause dyes or fibers to break down, which can lead to fading. These fabrics have been specifically treated to resist these harmful rays, and the acrylic material means it is easy to clean (even with bleach) and avoids wrinkling and soiling. The ability of Sunbrella fabrics to repel water means that it does great in the rain, but it is also more prone to creating static electricity as a result. They can be the victims of pilling. You are likely familiar with the sight of pilled fabric even if you don’t know the word; these are the little fuzz balls that are created by fibers of fabric loosening up and tangling with each other. Since outdoor areas are usually not high traffic, if you use your Sunbrella fabric outside, this should not be much of a problem. Sunbrella has a decades long history of creating great fabrics, especially for use outside, and it remains high on our list of favorites for that reason.

Crypton - great for liquid spills

Crypton, rather than a spray-on treatment applied to finished fabric, is a treatment embedded into the fabric fiber itself, so it allows for a variety of fabrics to share its benefits and won’t wear off. It’s great for spills, since the nature of the chemical treatment makes the liquid ball up and roll off. These fabrics clean easily with water or a mild detergent, though most cannot be bleached and only some are machine washable. Even though it is a chemical process, “cryptonization” will not affect how your fabric looks or feels; in fact, Crypton fabrics are odor resistant and extremely soft. Because the Cypton treatment can be applied to almost any type of fabric, durability can vary depending on the material you choose, but as a general rule, Crypton fabrics should not be used outside, as it doesn’t have the same type of environmental durability as Sunbrella. However, Crypton has a lot of variety and customization available, and it works incredibly well at resisting life’s daily liquid messes.

Inside Out - a little bit of everything

Finally, Inside Out is the latest performance fabric on the market, and it honestly has a little bit of everything. It is not acrylic or created with a treatment, but has fibers made of a blend of Olefin and polyester, making it soft with a wide variety of textures but with fewer material options. As the name suggests, this brand functions both indoor and outdoor, meaning it gives you outdoor benefits like UV resistance while also acting like a stain resistant indoor sofa. Inside Out fabrics are also extremely durable; they claim to be pill resistant, have high double rub counts, and cause liquids to bead up rather than soak in. Spots can be blotted with soap and water or cleaned with bleach, and no re-treatment is necessary to maintain water resistance after cleaning. Inside Out has a variety of uses and makes extremely durable fabrics that we love to use in our designs for clients.

In the end, picking a furniture fabric depends on a lot of factors. Performance fabrics are definitely the way to go if you want a reliable covering that is easy to clean, but the choice can still vary depending on what you’re looking for.

What should I look for in a performance fabric?