Material sense: The lighter scarf

It was nothing short of a revelation for us!

Two neck scarves, woven with mulberry Silk yarn. One woven with plain weave  and another with deflected double weave texture. The one with deflected double weave is obviously heavier, but interestingly, we didn’t ‘feel’ the heaviness.

Strange!

To validate our thoughts, we started doing some blind-man test (hope women don’t feel offended with this usage, as I am sure equality is not desired in this usage!) . We asked our intern to close her eyes and extend her arms. We draped one arm with the plain woven scarf and other with the double weave scarf. Asked her which one was the lighter scarf. Lo and behold, she said the one with double weave scarf is actually lighter!

So, we brought out our lab weighing balance and weighed the neck scarves individually… the one with plain weave weighed about 134 grams and the one with double weave weighed about 183 grams!! How is it even possible that she said the 183 g scarf is lighter?!

 

We have done this blind-man test at least with 30 people so far. Students, designers, visitors and whoever else happened to be at the studio. And ladies and gentlemen, the results are always consistent. Everyone said the heavier scarf actually feels light!

Our guess is that it is not just the physical weight which makes something feel light or heavy, it should be a combination of factors including surface contact and bounciness of the fabric. For example, a plain woven scarf is kind of ‘flat’ whereas the scarf with deflected double weave is bouncy because of the special fabric texture!

Worth investigating in a textile testing lab specialising in comfort properties of textiles! Don’t you think so too?

This article is part of the "Material sense" series, documenting yarn behaviour and weaving observations at Shuttles & Needles.