Bouclè means curly in french. It's also the name of a fabric with a nubby textured surface created by bouclè yarn, Bouclè fabric is woven on a shuttle loom using a looped yarn, which is a yarn with loops, curls or knots. These yarns are made using a special twining technique where an effect yarn loops around the core yarn, and is held in place by a binder. Fabrics made from these yarns are nubby to a lesser or greater extent and have a structured surface.

Source: AlShukur, Malek. (2013). THE QUALITY OF FANCY YARN: PART II: PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND APPLICATION

The looping happens at the spinning stage. Two or more yarns are twisted together at different tensions, so one strand feeds through faster than the other and buckles into small loops along the length of the thread. Woven or knitted into cloth, those loops sit slightly proud of the surface, giving bouclé its characteristic nubbled texture and a body that a flat yarn of the same weight would not have.

What it's made from

Bouclé is a construction, so it can be spun from wool, cotton, silk, or synthetic fiber, and the result behaves differently depending on which. Wool bouclé holds warmth well because it is an animal fibre and because the looped structure traps air between the loops, the same principle that makes any wool knit insulating, amplified by the extra surface texture.

Bouclè vs Tweed

Bouclé and tweed are often mistaken for each other, since both are wool cloths with a rough, textured hand. Tweed gets its texture from a twill or plain weave of different coloured yarns, woven flat. Bouclé gets its texture from the yarn itself, the looped construction described above, regardless of how it's then woven or knitted. A tweed's texture comes from the weave. A bouclé's texture comes from the yarn.

Why it holds its shape

The looped structure gives bouclé more structure than a smooth yarn of equivalent weight. It resists creasing and drapes with a slight stiffness rather than falling flat, which is part of why it became associated with tailored jackets and structured silhouettes rather than fluid ones. A bouclé garment tends to hold the shape it's cut into.

Where it fits at Color Vision

The Babe Wool Bouclé Jacket and Babe Wool Bouclé A-Line Skirt are both cut from wool bouclé woven by Lanerie Grosber in Serravalle Sesia, Italy. The jacket is lined in cupro.

Sources:
Yrkeslitteratur as, Oslo 1995.
AlShukur, Malek. (2013). THE QUALITY OF FANCY YARN: PART II: PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS AND APPLICATION. International Journal of Textile and Fashion Technology (IJTFT). 3. 25-38.
Elsasser,V 2010. Textiles - Concepts and principles.

Written by Iben Bergstrøm, founder and third generation textile expert
Iben Bergstrøm is the founder of Color Vision and a third generation textile expert. Her great grandmother was a dressmaker, her grandfather a textile engineer, her mother a textile artist. She writes from that inheritance, on fabric, craft, and the quiet knowledge passed down through three generations of hands.