---
title: "Brocade"
description: "Brocade is a woven fabric with a pattern made by extra, supplementary weft threads that are worked only where the design needs them."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/brocade
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Brocade

*Brocade is a woven fabric with a pattern made by extra, supplementary weft threads that are worked only where the design needs them.*

In a brocade, the pattern is not printed or embroidered but woven in. Alongside the ordinary weft that makes the cloth, the weaver adds extra weft threads, often of a different colour or of metal thread, and works them only across the areas of the design.

## How do you recognise it?

Turn it over. Where the extra threads are not needed on the front, they float across the back, so the reverse of a brocade shows long loose threads. The ground can be a plain weave, twill or satin. Historically, patterned silks of this kind were woven on a drawloom, which needed a second person to raise the pattern threads.


## Sources

1. [Brocade (glossary)](https://search.museums.ualberta.ca/g/8-272225/21-19713). University of Alberta Museums
2. [Brocade](https://blog.stephens.edu/arh101glossary/?p=2868). Stephens College art history glossary
3. [Brocade](https://sarweb.org/embroidery/history/precontactembroidery/brocade.htm). School for Advanced Research

Canonical: https://teazle.art/glossary/brocade