Antique + Vintage Fabric Sample Books

Identifying vintage and antique fabrics, I must admit, is not one of my strongest suits. I am constantly referring back to vintage catalogs for descriptions and fabric contents of similar clothing in my shop to get an idea of fabrics. Throughout the years of selling vintage online, I have gotten a bit better. I can identify rayons, silk, poly, cotton, linen... but there's just a few out there I get really stuck on. And well, when you get into more specific fabric terminology like pique, flannelette, jaconet... I definitely turn to my sources.



It is a dream of mine one day to own an antique and vintage fabric sample book. Can you imagine my absolute glee upon discovering these scanned fabric sample books from the Met Museum?

All images from Met Museum Online Gallery