Fabric Weight - Topic of the day 4/22/25
From the lightest silk to the heaviest chain mail, fabric weight is an invisible yet still notable part of clothes and fashion. How does fabric weight impact what you buy and what you wear? Are there any must have (or must skip) fabrics because of their weight? Weigh in here! ⚖️
16 Replies
Matters a good amount, impacts drape primarily for me.
heavy and mid weight linen
is what im obsessed with currently
Silk is also one of those fabrics where weight can make or break a garment
I tend to aim for heavier weight but breathable fabrics for pants and extremely lightweight for tops in warmer weather.
think fabric weight contributes most to the premium hand feel of a garment, that "heft"
i think we had a conversation at one point that boiled down to a lot of ppl thinking "heavier weight = higher quality"
which i do not agree with, but i do think there's 4 sure a satisfying feeling when thing is heavy
I think there's like a real psychological effect there that causes that but agreed that it's very much not necessarily true
one of my favorite pairs of pants rn are like impossibly thin and I love them specifically for that
I'm gonna say the line
it depends
yeh, everything has a time and place or w/e
the fabric weight should match the use case
"this is the highest quality white t-shirt we made, with a gsm of 500 it is ultra heavyweight biological cotton"
lmao
would sell out in an instant
lightweight denim tends to drape pretty bad imo, and lightweight shirts can be billowy and fun
Yeah, but heavyweight denim does drape even worse ime
Lightweight vs heavyweight cotton is two different worlds
I got a pair of lightweight mtm cotton chinos and they instantly winkle the second you look at them
Picked up some casatlantic ones recently at a third of the price of those MTM ones and the difference is insane
Love the heavier weight casatlantic ones
I feel like last year there was a rush of brands all competing to say they had the highest gsm hoodie - I'm sure a lot of people learned why you might not want to wear 1200gsm all the time
This is a bit of a tangent, but if you are looking for lighter fabrics that still have good drape, one of the factors you want to look at is the ply. Three plan four ply are more likely to retain their shape.
Western brands tend to use heavier fabric ime and I don't really like that but idk why