A lightweight, sheer, plain-weave cotton fabric with a crisp finish.
Organdy, organdi in French, is woven in plain weave from fine combed cotton yarns. The Académie française defines it as a fine, light cotton muslin given a strong finish, and the finish is what makes it crisp, where batiste is soft. It is easily confused with organza, which Brentano’s textile glossary describes as a transparent, crisp silk organdy: organza is the silk counterpart, organdy the cotton.
The V&A describes a 1955 Balenciaga evening coat in pea-green organdie and notes that plain fabrics show up defects in any aspect of dressmaking. A 1987–88 John Galliano dress in its collection builds a petal skirt from overlapping bands of bias-cut organdie, which the museum says evokes the crisp and sculptural qualities of scallop shells.
In job listings
The word is rare in current listings. Sheer cottons such as organdy belong to textile roles in mills and design studios: finishing operators who work on a fabric’s color, hand and appearance, and textile designers who develop fabrics with production teams. See current textile roles.
