Tulle Fabric; No Longer Just for Brides & Ballerinas

Earlier this week I was thumbing through a stack of my favorite fashion magazines and, page after page, was reminded of just how popular a certain fabric, Tulle, has become in fashion lately.  No longer just for brides and ballerinas, the mesh-like fabric has been popping up in collections from Alice + Olivia to Oscar de la Renta and does not really show any signs of stopping.  As someone who has done quite a bit of sourcing for fashion designers, I thought I would quickly touch upon the various qualities of this somewhat newly popular fabric.

Contrary to what you may think, tulle is actually pretty diverse.  I know, for a lot of us it’s difficult to get past the visions of bridal veils and pink tutus.  But I’m telling you, high fashion has embraced and gone off running with it.   The fabric itself can be made of one or more of a respectable list of fibers including silk, cotton, polyester, nylon, or rayon.  It can be stiff and firm allowing for structure and form or it can be soft and flowy allowing for swathe and drape.  There are large holed nets that have very little compact cover as well as fabrics with holes so small that they need not have a lining at all.  The variety is almost endless.  Before making your choice, you want to make sure you check out as many qualities as possible.  I realize this can be a difficult task but I will say that a company called Edley stocks a pretty great selectionof styles and colors, so I recommend checking them out first.

As far as price goes, depending upon your chosen fiber and how intricate the weave, tulles can range anywhere from $5.00/yd to $100.00/yd.  Actually, come to  think of it, they probably go even higher than that.  I simply have not been lucky enough to ever get my hands on something so delicate and extravagant. Darn. Anyway, the point of this little ditty , was just to highlight a trend that has  moved beyond a specialty fabric and become rather mainstream with a pretty high “net worth”.   😉