Plate No. 030 · fabric

Broadcloth

Broadcloth began as the great export wool of medieval England: woven oversized on a broad loom worked by two weavers, then fulled, pounded in water until it shrank and felted into a dense, weatherproof cloth whose weave barely shows. That wool trade financed towns and made the word a synonym for fine cloth. The modern shirting called broadcloth in America is a different animal, a smooth, tightly woven cotton essentially equivalent to poplin, keeping only the name's sense of quality.