Meet our silk habotai printed fabrics | Blog

This blog is going to be all about our gorgeous silk habotai! Silk habotai is the most basic of all silks but don't let it's simple composition fool you! This silk is highly drapable and extremely versatile.

Our feature fabric this week, silk habotai, is the definition of ethereal. It is our lightest weight silk by 15 g/m2, which creates in this fabric a beautiful, flowy drape that moves with ease. Not only is it light, but it’s one of our thinnest fabrics overall. Because of this, prints on silk habotai are able to penetrate about 80-90% of the way through the fabric, allowing for a high degree of print through. This can be hugely beneficial depending on your intended project. It is also our most affordable silk due to the fact that silk is priced by weight. That sounds like a win to me!

Silk habotai fabric printed and sewn into a flowy scarf!

One of the huge benefits to silk habotai is that it prints almost all the way through the fabric so you see the prints on the backside as well as you do on the front side. While there's no perfect way to measure print-through, we would say the silk habotai is almost 80% which is the highest amount for any of our fabrics!

Here you can see the same image printed on the front side and backside of the fabric. Silk habotai has one of the highest print-through amounts of any of our fabrics!

Silk habotai, like all silks, has a very smooth surface texture and some degree of surface shine. However due to how thin it is, it doesn’t have as high of shine as some other silk fabrics. It also has a slightly looser weave than some of the denser silks. The end result when it comes to prints is extremely vibrant colours with a slightly matte finish and a relaxed drape. Silk habotai is also machine washable, and because this natural fabric undergoes reactive printing, the prints are unlikely to fade or run at all during washing. Like with all fabrics, washing silk will soften it and can potentially change the texture slightly. Just something to keep in mind.

Backlit silk looks etheral and just makes you want to wrap yourself in it!

Silk habotai is a great silk for so many projects, from scarves to formal wear, semi-sheer clothing or even home decor! Think drapey silk curtains. Of course it’s important to keep in mind that this fabric is on the thin side so it will not be opaque and it’s not the greatest fabric choice for high contact pieces.
If you want to try silk habotai, head over to our design lab to get designing your own custom print today! To find out more about silk habotai and our other silk fabrics, check out the silk fabrics page on our website.

You can design silk fabrics printed with any images! Let your imagination run wild. Here we're inspired by our inside garden.