Decorating
Author and cultural historian Kassia St Clair on how the workmanlike fabric that has been on a journey from blue-collar uniform to byword for preppy style is about to make a mark on interiors too
In 1928, Farmers’ Bulletin, an American publication dedicated to rural life, published a cotton-textiles report by Ruth O’Brien of the Bureau of Home Economics. Ms O’Brien, clearly a taciturn woman, defined chambray as ‘plain-weave, smooth, shiny surface’. Her abrupt tone was perhaps because she felt that defining chambray to an audience of American farmers was pointless: this was, after all, very much their fabric.
The name chambray is derived from that of a northern French town, Cambrai, renowned for its linen textiles from the 16th century onwards. Cambrai was best known for producing cambric, a lightweight, undyed linen. Like cambric, chambray is a plain-weave: the simplest kind of weaving, where the weft threads alternate over and under the warp ones. Chambray, however, is distinctively coloured, with the warp threads being dyed – typically, but not exclusively, blue – while the weft ones are white. It’s light and soft, with a fine, dense weave, and excels at keeping the wearer cool by wicking moisture away from the skin. It was this quality that led to chambray’s association with American farmers. During the latter decades of the 1800s and into the early 1900s, work shirts were a sartorial semaphore for rugged manual labourers: miners, goldpanners, foresters, sailors, cowboys. Manufacturers began to market their clothes accordingly, emphasising how hardwearing and tearresistant the work shirts were, how well-placed and roomy the pockets, how airy, light and cool. Chambray was ubiquitous.
In interiors the use of chambray has always been low key: the bridesmaid rather than the bride
Like many similarly understated workhorses – think gingham, denim and
