A lightweight, semi-sheer, plain-weave fabric, often made from cotton or a cotton blend.
Cotton Incorporated describes cotton voile as a sheer, lightweight fabric with a slightly crisp feel, and notes that the properties that give it that crispness also make it wrinkle easily. It lists voile’s uses as blouses, dresses, nightgowns, lingerie and curtains. The name is the French word for veil. The V&A holds a 1991 Vivienne Westwood dress made from a single circle of red cotton voile, cut with diagonal slashes.
Among fine cottons, voile is easily confused with lawn and batiste. Cotton Incorporated describes lawn as thin, relatively sheer and high in thread count, resembling fine linen, and batiste as a lightweight plain weave of mercerized cotton; voile is the one it calls simply sheer.
In job listings
Voile appears in the fabric lists of sample-making and tailoring roles: one luxury house’s tailoring listing asks for demonstrated expertise with silk, chiffon, duchesse, georgette and voile. Listings for boutique tailors and seamstresses ask instead for knowledge of fabrics and garment construction in general. See current tailor roles.
