How to Choose Fabric for an Armchair

Choosing the right fabric is the most important decision you make when ordering a bespoke armchair. Get it right and you have a piece that looks beautiful for decades. Get it wrong and even the most perfectly made chair can feel like a mistake the moment it arrives.

This guide covers everything you need to know — from fabric types and durability to colour, pattern, and how to use free samples effectively.

Start with how the chair will be used

Before you think about colour or pattern, think about use. A chair in a formal sitting room that rarely sees daily use can take a more delicate fabric — a printed linen, a lightweight cotton, even a silk-blend. A chair in a family kitchen or a well-used living room needs something more robust: a tightly-woven velvet, a sturdy plain weave, or a performance fabric with a high rub count.

The standard measure of fabric durability is the Martindale rub count — the number of rubs a fabric can withstand before showing wear. For occasional use, 15,000 rubs is generally sufficient. For everyday use, aim for 25,000 or higher. Most of our designer upholstery fabrics fall in the 25,000–100,000 range.

Understanding fabric types

Velvets

Velvet has been the defining upholstery fabric for centuries, and for good reason. It is warm, tactile, and extraordinarily good at absorbing and reflecting light — which means a velvet chair changes character throughout the day. Modern cut velvets like Romo’s Omega collection are designed specifically for upholstery: they are durable, colour-fast, and available in a wide range of saturated tones. Linwood’s Wiggle and Ian Sanderson’s Hinako are other excellent choices.

One important consideration with velvet: it shows pile direction. This is not a flaw — it is part of what makes velvet beautiful — but it does mean the chair will look slightly different from different angles. Always view a velvet swatch at an angle before ordering.

Woven plains and textures

Plain weaves and textural fabrics are the workhorses of upholstery. They tend to be highly durable, they work in almost any interior setting, and they are generally more forgiving of everyday wear than prints or velvets. Romo’s Elba — a finely woven plain available in a range of muted and saturated tones — is one of our most popular choices for exactly this reason.

Printed fabrics — botanicals, geometrics, and checks

A printed fabric is a commitment. It defines the character of the chair more decisively than any other choice. Done well, a bold botanical print like Sanderson’s Hydrangea & Rose or a graphic geometric like Harlequin’s Ashfield can make a chair the focal point of a room. Done carelessly, it can date quickly or fight with everything around it.

The key questions to ask: Does the print scale work for the chair? A large repeat botanical may look spectacular on a generous wingback like The Budmouth but feel overwhelming on a smaller occasional chair. And does the colour palette work with your existing scheme — or are you redesigning around the chair?

Checks and stripes

Checks and stripes are among the most enduring choices for upholstery. They are inherently versatile — at home in traditional and contemporary interiors alike — and they tend to age well. Lewis & Wood’s Babington Check in Teal/Spice and their Honfleur Check are beautifully crafted examples of checks that feel genuinely individual rather than generic.

Colour: the practical considerations

Colour is deeply personal and we would never tell you what to choose. But there are some practical points worth knowing.

Light in your room matters enormously. A fabric that looks deep and saturated in a showroom or on a screen can read quite differently in a north-facing room with cool natural light. This is the single most important reason to order free fabric samples and live with them for a few days before deciding.

Dark fabrics show light dust; pale fabrics show dark marks. Neither is superior — it depends on your household. A mid-tone fabric in a textural weave is generally the most forgiving.

Solid colours tend to be more versatile over time than prints. A chair in a beautiful deep teal velvet will sit comfortably in three different rooms over its lifetime; a very specific printed fabric may feel less adaptable.

Pattern repeat and chair shape

When ordering a bespoke chair in a printed or checked fabric, the upholsterer will need to match the pattern across panels. This means some fabric will be wasted in cutting — a larger repeat means more waste. Most printed upholstery fabrics have a pattern repeat of between 20cm and 64cm. Your upholsterer will account for this in the cutting, but it is worth knowing that a fabric with a very large repeat may require significantly more fabric than a plain.

The case for ordering free samples

We cannot stress this enough: always order free samples before committing to a bespoke chair. What looks perfect on screen can read very differently in your home. Colours shift in different light. Textures feel different from how they look. The weight and hand of a fabric tells you things a photograph cannot.

We offer free fabric samples delivered anywhere in the UK. Order up to 5, live with them for a few days, hold them against your walls and floors, see how they look in morning and evening light. It costs nothing and can save considerable regret.

Our fabric collections

We stock 64 designer fabrics from 17 leading British and European fabric houses, including Romo, Sanderson, Harlequin, GP&J Baker, and Zoffany. Browse the full range on our Our Fabrics page, or explore the chair gallery to see how different fabrics look on different chair styles.