What is Ikat Fabric?

Your Quick Reference Guide To Learning Everything You Need To Know About Ikat Fabric

The world of textiles is large, diverse, and even quite exotic. Dating back to the days of the Silk Road in ancient times, fabrics from all around the world are renowned and coveted for their various features, characteristics, and benefits.

With so many different fabrics to choose from, we figured we’d make things simple by introducing you to ten of the most widely used fabrics and going into detail regarding where they’re from, what they are, and what they’re used for.

Welcome to part 5 of this 10-part blog. Today, we’ll talk about everything you need to know about Ikat fabric.

What Is Ikat Fabric?

Ikat fabric is essentially fabric that has undergone resist dying. This process is intensive and requires the knowledge and understanding of multiple techniques to achieve this unique pattern. While Ikat fabric still remains a traditional fabric and fabric pattern process, it has also become quite common in the fashion world as a type of design aesthetic commonly found on everything from scarves and shawls, to dresses and sweaters.

The history of Ikat fabric goes back quite far, and it has become culturally central to the people of East Asian culture, Southeast Asian culture, Middle Eastern culture, and some European cultures as well.

What Is Ikat Fabric Used For?

The interesting thing about Ikat fabric is that it is not necessarily constructed by any single type of fabric fiber. In other words, Ikat fabric can include a variety of fibers from both natural and synthetic origins. The fiber isn’t really the critical component here – instead, it’s the fabric pattern that we’re really interested in.

The fact of the matter is that nearly any type of dyed garment that you’ve worn before in your life was likely made with Ikat fabric at some point. For that very reason, Ikat fabric has become such an integral component of so many different cultures’ fashion styles. There are only so many ways to dye clothing, and Ikat is one of the best ways to do so.

You can find Ikat fabric used to create everything from clothing to accessories. Another use of Ikat patterns is in furniture and pillow design.  Even bedding, pillowcases, and bed sheets can feature Ikat patterns. It’s used widely, and it’s loved wherever it’s used!

Everything You Need To Know

Before we finish off this blog, let’s recap. Ikat fabric is not necessarily a particular type of fiber – instead, it’s all about the fabric pattern. Most garments that you wear come from some sort of Ikat fabric process that involved dying and “resisting.” Today, Ikat fabric is used and praised all around the world.