Tweed is a type of fabric made from coarse wool yarns. It has small weave patterns. Tear Wool fibers are usually added to form small nubs. Tweed fabric is mainly used for warm coats and jackets, but also other garments such as costumes, pants and skirts.

What are the characteristics of tweed fabric?

The most important and typical properties of tweed fabric are due to the usually high proportion of wool. Tweed fabrics are very durable and have a good heat retention. This means that the robust fabric has a warming and insulating effect. Especially in the case where tweed fabric is made from carded wool yarn, a warming effect is build. They create and maintain heat in the air pockets in the fabric of the garment. Furthermore, tweed fabric is highly wind resistant and has a waterproof surface because of the naturally occurring wool grease. It's breathable and lets moisture escape at the same time.

Tweed is very comfortable and elegant despite often having a rough feel.

What is tweed used for?

Tweed fabric by the meter can basically be used for all garments. Tweed fabric is ideal for autumn weather and winter clothing like a nice tweed jacket. But there's also lighter summer tweeds available. Tweed fabric is often used for accessories such as bags, scarfs or hats. They can also be used for interior and upholstery.

How and when to wear tweed fabric?

Genuine Scottish tweed fabric is usually an expensive and high quality material. It is worn on more elegant occasions, but also for business reasons or even leisure time, like hunting. Patterns, colors, make and texture play a big role, since traditionally tweed fabrics were sometimes made for one certain family or sport. The kilt is a traditional Scottish wraparound skirt made of plaid woolen fabric, which is made according to special criteria and is reserved for men only. In Scotland it is a cultural item. 

Nowadays tweed is also worn in everyday life. It is especially suitable in the outdoors and for harsh, inconsistent weather. Tweeds today are also often combined with sneakers and denim pants to build a casual look.

In the high fashion world especially Coco Chanel is known for her use of tweed fabrics. Her successor Karl Lagerfeld also continued the use of tweed in his collections.

What different fabric patterns are available?

Tweed fabric comes in many different patterns and colors. Depending on the purpose or tradition, there are very specific combinations in tweed fabrics. The most common types in tweed fabric are glencheck, herringbone and tartan check but there's wide variety of different patterns:

Glencheck:

This check pattern looks rough at first glance, but it's particularly fine and small. There is a large check made of several dark and light lines and small squares in a pattern called houndstooth. The colors here are mainly white and black. There is often a thin line overlayed and woven into a contrasting color like red, green or yellow. 

Glencheck is mainly used in blazers, jackets, vests and suit pants.

Herringbone:

At first glance, the herringbone pattern looks like Fishbone. The horizontal lines in various widths but regular intervals contain many small oblique lines Alternately, these point either from the bottom left to the top right or vice versa which forms a zig-zag pattern. Herringbone is usually kept in two tones and in muted colors like brown, black, white and gray. Herringbone is an extremely classic fabric and can be worn well for elegant occasions. 

Tartan check:

This tweed fabric consists of two to four colors and is a symmetrical superimposed check pattern. Classic colors for a tartan tweed fabric are bold red, green, blue, yellow and beige. The tartan is often used for kilts or plaids (Scottish garments). 

Houndstooth or Houndstooth:

This tweed fabric has a pattern of two colors, usually black and white in a distinctive design.  The pattern can range from very small to oversized. But the individual elements always remain the same size. 

Sheperd's Check:

This pattern contains even spaced small checks in usually two colors. These are usually light and dark brown or green and are inspired by the surrounding nature.

Tips for care and washing

Since tweed fabric usually has a very high virgin wool content, you should follow the general guidelines for wool cleaning when caring for it.

Wool has a natural self-cleaning effect. This makes it very easy to care for. Often, simply shaking it out or letting it hang outside is enough to get rid of dirt or odors.

When you want to wash your fabric always follow the sewn-in care label!

Washing:

When washing, you should generally avoid using the washing machine because will fabric is better to be washed by hand. Wash your fabric with cold water and a mild wool detergent. If you wash your fabric in the machine always choose the wool cycle.

Drying:

You should never dry your tweed fabric in the dryer because it would shrink. 

Instead, you can lay the wet tweed fabric on a towel and let the tweed dry lying down until it is completely dry.

Ironing:

Generally, you don't need to iron wool fabrics because the fibers are not susceptible to wrinkling. However, if you do need to iron anyways you can do it without steam and at a low temperature.

Specific information about your tweed garment can be found on the labels inside the garment or, for fabrics, in the manufacturer's information.