Piqué fabric

What is Piqué?

Piqué, also known as pique, is a fabric most often made of cotton. It belongs to the category of double weaves and has a textured surface that resembles quilting. This means that the surface features alternating raised and recessed areas.

How is piqué fabric made?

Piqué belongs to the category of double-weave fabrics. Its production therefore uses two warps, one on top of the other, instead of just one. Each of these two warps receives its own weft thread. They are joined together by regularly transferring individual warp threads into the other warp and tying them in with the respective weft thread of that warp. To give piqué its textured surface, finer yarn and twice as many threads are used for the top side of the fabric as for the bottom. Where the warp threads tie into the other warp—for example, when a warp thread from the bottom side is tied into the warp of the top side—indentations are created. This results in the characteristic texture of piqué fabric, with its raised and recessed areas.

3 different piqué qualities

The first quality is the so-called "true" piqué. This is made from two warps and two wefts, as described under " How is piqué fabric made? ". The second quality is "half" piqué, which consists of two warps but only one weft. The third quality is the so-called "false" piqué, which is made from only one warp and one weft.

Properties of piqué fabric

The three essential properties of piqué fabric are its robustness, breathability, and lightness.
The double-weave structure gives piqué its stability, a characteristic that makes it ideal for polo shirts. Although it is a double-weave fabric, piqué is still relatively lightweight and therefore comfortable to wear.

Piqué, striped piqué and waffle piqué

The French spelling "piqué" usually refers to true piqué. This is a fabric with four thread systems, a plain weave face fabric, and a coarser back fabric. The points where the warp threads are tied are visible in the face fabric. It looks as if the face fabric has been stitched to the back fabric in a patterned fashion. If thicker weft threads were inserted between the face fabric and the stitching warp, the raised and recessed areas could be further emphasized.
So-called striped piqué has narrow longitudinal ribs (stripes) on its surface. This fabric can be produced in various ways, for example, with a filling warp and stitching wefts, or with a hollow weft weave.
Waffle piqué is a two-thread-system fabric. Its waffle-like appearance is achieved by weft and warp thread floats that shorten towards the center. The square relief patterns are thus created by regular thread floats. With this fabric, both sides of the fabric look identical.