Black Fabric

What could be more striking, more refined, yet more subtle and understated than black fabric?

Please take a look at some of our black fabric, including black curtain fabric and black upholstery fabric by clicking on the images on this page

Alternatively, to see our black and white fabric click here

And to see our black velvet fabric click here

Black Upholstery Fabric

At Loome was have a wide range of Black Upholstery Fabric. If you are looking for a plain black then consider Alderley Onyx, Oberon Basalt, Swale Basalt or Troutbeck Jet

Black is an excellent colour choice for upholstery as it combines a very stylish look with a practical and durable shade. Darker colours look better for longer and black is the ultimate example of this.

Black upholstery fabric is pure and simple - elegant and never out of style.

Black Curtain Fabric

Black is an excellent choice for curtains and will bring a rich elegance to any room. Black is highly opaque and so black curtains are the most effective at blocking out light and creating cosy, private, rooms. Black curtain fabric is also excellent for matching with other colours, as black will compliment pretty much any other colour.

About Black Fabric

Historically the best black dye was that obtained from the Oak apple or gall; indeed, oak galls have been used to produce of ink since the Roman period. The oak apple or gall is a small round lump which grows on oak trees in response to injection by the gall wasp of its eggs. Black dye made from galls required huge quantities of galls and was, therefore, very expensive. Because of this expense only Kings and princes could afford clothes that were black. From the seventeenth century the logwood tree (Haematoxylum campechianum), a flowering tree native to Central America and Mexico, was used to produce red, blue and black dyes and this source was considerably cheaper than oak gall based dye, and synthetic sources of black dye emerged. Synthetic black dyes, including Nigrosin, have now mainly replaced natural dyes.

In Europe and America rsearch shows that black is the colour most associated with elegance followed by white, silver and gold. In the 17th century black became a fashionable men's clothing colour beginning with the courts and aristocracy in Italy and Spain. This trend spread so that by the 19th century, black was de rigeur for men both in business and for evening wear, especially in the form of the long tailed black coat.

Black has long been the most popular colour for women's fashion. It is said that black's popularity began with the invention, in 1926, of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel. After that time at formal occasions a long black gown has been considered appropriate and the simple black dress for everything else. Designer Karl Lagerfeld has said "Black is the colour which goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground."

Nowadays we often say of something that it "is the new black" by which we mean that this thing is always stylish and fashionable. Shades of black, which differ only slightly from pure black, include charcoal, jet, onyx, and black olive, charcoal, and jet.