Fabric Friday: Bouclé

[denisebrain]

Baby, it's cold outside (19ºF/-7ºC in Spokane at this moment ), time for a cozy fabric like bouclé, with its small loops that insulate, as well as decorate.


Characterized by loops on one or both sides, bouclé comes from the French word for “buckled,” “ringed” or “curled.” Some versions of the fabric combine looped sections with plain; others are looped all over. Most commonly wool—with mohair a fine choice for this treatment—bouclé may also be acrylic or other fibers. It may be woven or knitted.

Uses: Coats, suits, sweaters

See also:
Bouclette
Poodle cloth
Ratiné
Terry cloth

Woven wool and mohair bouclé from a 1960s suit

Wool knit bouclé from a 1950s skirt suit

Woven wool bouclé with plain yarns intermixed

Bouclette is the diminutive of bouclé (French for “buckled,” “ringed,” or “curled”) and features very small loops over the surface of the fabric. As with bouclé, it is usually made of wool, and its uses are similar. I haven't seen the name bouclette applied to a knit.

This is a woven wool bouclette

This is a 1960s wool bouclé set I have in my shop. The coat has thicker and bigger loops than the dress, but I'd still call them both bouclé.

Knit bouclé was used a lot for sweater suits from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Certain companies seemed to specialize in these suits. (Kimberly, Snyderknit and Brittany Club are some I remember at this moment.)

Here's one of those sweater suits

What's really great about the bouclé texture is that you can mend it invisibly without too much effort. Plus, they are comfortable, being knit.

Any questions, doubts or thoughts?

 

[claireshaeffer]

Maggie, thanks for the info and great photos.

 

[Vintagiality]

Woven wool and mohair bouclé from a 1960s suit

I have always thought that this is the only way bouclé could look.

Didn’t realize or associate the other plain wool knits as bouclé at all. Aren’t a lot of knits “loopy” in a way? Are there specific style/ shape loops that make it a bouclé? I am especially struggling to see it with your last example.

 

[retro ruth]

Didn’t realize or associate the other plain wool knits as bouclé at all. Aren’t a lot of knits “loopy” in a way? Are there specific style/ shape loops that make it a bouclé? I am especially struggling to see it with your last example.

As a knitter, I may be able to help with this. All knits are made of interlocking loops, but with bouclé, the yarn itself is loopy - so it has loops before it's knit, which then become part of the fabric.

Here's some boucle yarn - hopefully you can see the little loops.

Here's the same yarn, knit up into fabric. In this case, the loops are so dense, you can't even see the knitted stitches.

(my pics, over on ravelry)

I think Maggie's lovely cream sweater, has fewer and smaller loops, so the effect is more subtle, and you'd need a close up of the fabric to see it. And on the red knit, the loops are quite infrequent, so you see the knitted stitches, and just occasionally a loop.

 

[retro ruth]

So I suppose, bouclé isn't really a type of weave or knit - it's actually a characteristic of the yarn itself, creating at the spinning stage.

This refers to hand spinning, but of course it will be machine spun too:
https://www.ashford.co.nz/blog/how-to-spin-a-boucle-yarn

 

[Vintagiality]

Thanks Ruth! That makes sense. That’s probably why I always associated bouclé with the fuzzy kind where the red one above looked like a regular knit.

 

[denisebrain]

Wow, those are great illustrations of bouclé yarn Ruth, thank you! The 50s bouclé knit sweater suits are really quite subtle by comparison.

I really should add a more loopy bouclé knit to the Fabric Resource.

 

[retro ruth]

That’s probably why I always associated bouclé with the fuzzy kind where the red one above looked like a regular knit.

I also had to look closely at the red example, to be able to say, yes that is a boucle - it has occasional large curls.

Wow, those are great illustrations of bouclé yarn Ruth, thank you! The 50s bouclé knit sweater suits are really quite subtle by comparison.

I really should add a more loopy bouclé knit to the Fabric Resource.

It's a vintage yarn as it happens - 1970s.

You are welcome to any of my photos if they are appropriate. Here's another, same vintage 1970s yarn, different colourway.

There was a quite a trend for boucle hand knitting in the 1970s.

 

[denisebrain]

Here are some ads for those late-1940s to 1950s bouclé wool knit skirt suits.
1957

1954

1957

 

[retro ruth]

Here's a 1970s knitting pattern for the yarn I show above.