Moss crepe

Moss crepe is a woven fabric with a grainy, mossy surface and a spongy feel. The Textile Institute defines it as cloth made with a moss-crepe weave and S- and Z-twist moss-crepe yarns in both warp and weft.

What is a moss-crepe yarn?

It is a two-ply yarn made by doubling a normal-twist yarn with a high-twist one. The institute's typical example is a 100-denier dull viscose, S or Z, doubled with a 75-denier yarn. A January 1934 article in the American trade journal Textile World described the same idea as a soft-twist yarn wrapped around a crepe core, which gives a well-bodied cloth with a soft, mossy surface.

What is the weave?

A crepe weave whose repeat, in warp and weft, is large compared with many other crepe weaves. Textile World called it a combination of the sand-crepe weave, an extended mummy weave, with the new yarn. Cloth that has only the yarn or only the weave has, in the institute's words, some but not all of the characteristics of true moss crepes.

Where did it appear?

By Textile World's account it reached the United States from Europe in 1933 and was a vogue in silk, acetate and rayon by 1934. In the 1969 to 1976 dresses Ossie Clark designed, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, it is viscose. Compare plain crepe, crêpe de chine and georgette.

Sources

1. Textile World, January 1934, vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 74-75 (moss crepe construction; mossy crepe trade report). Textile World (via Internet Archive)
2. Textile Terms and Definitions (1960 ed.; later eds. 1975, 1995). Textile Institute, Manchester
3. A. T. C. Robinson and R. Marks, Woven Cloth Construction (1967). Butterworth / Textile Institute
4. Dress 'Poppy', Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, 1969, T.282-1985. Victoria and Albert Museum

See also

• Crêpe

Read more

• Moss Crepe: The Grain Is in the Yarn

Last updated October 18, 2026 · Markdown