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Fabric · Cloth

Corduroy

Corduroy is a warm, very hard-wearing cotton cloth with soft raised ridges, and fewer, wider ridges look more rustic than fine ones.

Corduroy is a cut-pile cotton cloth in which the pile forms vertical ridges, wales, separated by channels. It is counted in wales per inch: fewer, wider wales are more rustic; more, finer wales are closer to velvet. It is warm, extremely durable and, like velvet, has a nap.

Olive corduroy with its wales close up
Olive corduroy with its wales close up

Reading the wale count

Wales per inchCharacterTypical use
3–6Very wide, rustic ribsCasual trousers, workwear
8–11The standardTrousers and jackets
14–16FineJackets, shirts; tailors more cleanly
18–21NeedlecordShirts, lightweight trousers
 Wale count describes the rib, not the quality. Density of pile and weight of ground cloth matter more.

As a tailoring cloth

Corduroy tailors well in the finer wales and awkwardly in the wide ones, where the ribs fight the seams. Like velvet it has a nap and must be cut all one way. It also wears in a specific and rather attractive fashion: the pile flattens where the garment is stressed, so a corduroy jacket develops light patches at the elbows and seat that mark it as used rather than worn out.

Buying and wearing

For a jacket, a finer wale (14 to 16) tailors cleanly and reads as a texture rather than a statement. For trousers, 8 to 11 is the traditional range and wears best. Anything wider is workwear, deliberately.

Corduroy has a nap and every panel must run the same way; check a garment in raking light for a panel that reads a different shade. It also flattens at the seat and knees with wear, which is not a fault and is what gives an old pair its character.

At a glance

Structure
Cut-pile cotton in vertical wales
Measured in
Wales per inch
Has a nap
Yes

What it is used for

  1. A tweed sport coat on a hanger The sport coat

    A sport coat is a jacket worn with non-matching trousers, traditionally in textured cloth like tweed with patch pockets and a softer feel than suit jackets.
  2. Grey flannel trousers on a hanger Trousers

    Trousers wear out about twice as fast as the matching jacket, and how high they sit on your waist shapes everything else about them.
Last reviewed: September 2026 Report an error on this page

Related

FabricCotton Glossary termNap GarmentThe sport coat GarmentTrousers FabricVelvet FabricTweed FabricSuper numbers FabricDenim FabricLinen FabricFresco FabricFlannel FabricGabardine
Picture credits 3
  1. Olive corduroy with its wales close up: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  2. A tweed sport coat on a hanger: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
  3. Grey flannel trousers on a hanger: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art

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