A soft, lightweight, usually plain-weave fabric with a supple drape.
Challis is a fine, soft, lightweight cloth in plain weave, usually printed. It may be made of wool, cotton or rayon, so the name fixes the construction, weight and hand but not the fiber. The point a newcomer most often misses is that challis is not a fiber or a single material: the composition has to be stated alongside the name.
In job listings
Challis is rarely named in luxury listings. It belongs to the work of fabric teams in the design studio, who build fabric charts for each collection, keep the studio’s fabric library and record each fabric’s details on fabric cards, and to couture product developers and alterations specialists whose listings ask for knowledge of fabrics. See current fabrics roles.
