Corduroy

Corduroy is a cotton pile cloth in the fustian family: extra weft yarns float over the ground weave, are cut, and brush up into velvety ribs called wales that run the length of the cloth. The wale count per inch names the cloth, from fat eight-wale jumbo cord to fine twenty-one-wale needlecord. Woven around Manchester from the eighteenth century, it became the hard-wearing cloth of laborers and farmers, then of professors and 1970s tailoring. The render shows its signature ribbed face in stylized form.

Illustration: a Manchester fustian cutter's workroom in the 19th century, a long table with cloth stretched flat, the cutter seen from behind drawing a long knife down a wale, gaslight and hanging bolts — A Manchester fustian cutter's workroom in the 19th century, a long table with cloth stretched flat, the cutter seen from behind drawing a long knife down a wale, gaslight and hanging bolts.

Named for

Probably from cord plus duroy, an old English coarse cloth. The popular story that it is French for cord of the king, corde du roi, is folk etymology with no French source.