Horsehair



HORSEHAIR

   Horses are not just for transportation, farming, or sport.  Horsetails of different species can be a fabric option.  Woven horsehair is made into luxury upholstery fabric.  Weaving of horsehair started in the middle of the eighteenth century.  The goal was to reduce the dependency of imported fabrics.  This new fabric option was quickly picked up by the wealthy as a status symbol.

    Horsehair came into fashion during the eighteenth century due to aristocrats wanting to elevate their own elegant interiors.  The hairs themselves cannot be spun but instead are used as filling yarn and woven strand by strand into the fabric.  This filling is woven horizontally and the fabric usually woven on cotton warp.  Because of this constraint, fabric width cannot be wider than tail length.  For white horsehair, the fabric is roughly twenty-three inches and black hair is between twenty-five to twenty-seven inches.  The finished look of horsehair fabric is smooth and lustrous.

     In conclusion, luxury upholstery fabric can include fabric made of woven horsehair.  Aristocrats sought after this fabric in the eighteenth century in order to bolster their wealth status.  Horsehair is used as a filling yarn and woven into the fabric.  Tail length determines the fabric width.   Smooth and lustrous is the quality look of horsehair fabric. 

References

1.)    www.horsehairfabrics.com/about.htm

2.)    Yates, Marypaul (2002).  Fabrics: A Guide for Interior Designers and Architects, 41-42.