Displaying fabric at textile fairs

1–10 days

installation time, with fabric hung on the last day

Stand types

The rail and the drape

Stretching cloth over a panel is easy and wrong. Stretched fabric becomes a printed surface, while what the buyer wants to read is weight, handle and drape. All three appear only when the cloth hangs free. Put the same fabric stretched and hung side by side and the difference settles the argument, because drape breaks the light across the folds.

Set the rail at around two metres. Leave the lower edge a hand’s width clear of the floor: the drape completes itself and the hem stays clean across four days. Keep at least five centimetres between rolls, or the colours blend into each other and none of them gets chosen. Where one rail carries many tones, running them dark to light gives the eye a direction to read in.

With heavy cloth the hanging load becomes a real figure. A rail carrying twenty rolls puts a calculated load into the structure, and that load belongs to the frame rather than the wall cladding. Add an intermediate support so the tube does not sag. Among the stand types, aluminium profile structures offer ready fixing points for exactly this.

Colour consistency under light

The most common argument at a textile fair is about colour: the shade seen on the stand differs from the sample when it arrives. Usually the cause is not the dye but the light. Hall lighting, spotlights and any daylight from the roof produce three separate colour temperatures, and where all three land on the same cloth the result is a tone that exists nowhere outside the stand.

The way to manage it is to make one decision. Use a single colour temperature across the whole stand, preferably from the neutral band, and specify fittings with a high colour rendering index. In a hall with roof daylight, bring it under control with a top covering, because the difference between morning and afternoon is enough on its own to generate a complaint.

Setting aside a small area for critical colour selection is good practice: a neutral grey backdrop, one type of fitting, a table without glass. The buyer decides there, and the decision holds in production. How we build the lighting layers is set out on the stand design page.

Inviting touch, and the swatch table

A fabric buyer decides with their hands. If nothing on the front line can be touched, the visitor keeps walking. Leave a metre of loose cloth at the point closest to the aisle, at chest height; that single move visibly lengthens dwell time. It will get grubby, which is normal, so keep a replacement to swap in each morning.

The real work happens at the swatch table. The buyer sits, opens a hanger book, lays two cloths side by side and photographs them. So the table is generous, its top matt and neutral; bright white laminate throws reflections into the photograph and distorts the colour. The fitting above should also fall at a slight angle rather than straight down onto the table.

Be generous with the space each table gets. These meetings run to forty minutes and three or four rolls end up open at once. A conversation squeezed onto a narrow table ends after the second comparison. Set the number of tables against the appointment list before the show: a stand with two tables leaves the third buyer standing, and that buyer does not wait.

Should fabric be shown behind glass?

Only for a new collection that must stay confidential. Glass prevents touch, and in textiles a buyer who cannot touch does not decide.

How many rolls should we hang?

As many as the spacing allows. Narrowing the collection rather than crowding the rail keeps both colour and drape visible.