Sofa Fabric Selection Guide

Homes With Children

For homes with children, consider how you would prefer to deal with food, drinks and other everyday mess. Washable fabrics, easy clean fabrics and water and stain resistance treatments each help in different ways.

Homes With Pets

For homes with cats or dogs, we recommend choosing a pet-friendly fabric. These fabrics have a tighter weave and smoother surface, making claws less likely to get caught in the individual fibres and helping to reduce snagging and visible damage.

Pet-friendly fabrics are more resistant to scratching, but they are not scratch-proof. Repeated scratching in the same area can still cause visible damage over time.

Sitting on the Sofa for Long Hours

If you plan to sit on your sofa for long hours without turning on the air conditioning, consider our natural fabric series. These fabrics have high cotton and linen content, and a more open weave structure, making them more breathable and helping them feel less warm after prolonged sitting.

Woven Polyester fabric

Woven polyester fabric is our most common sofa fabric and is a good starting point if you want something versatile and easy to live with. The visible weave gives the sofa a familiar fabric look without being overly textured.

Polyester fibres are less moisture wicking than natural fibres such as cotton and linen, so everyday spills generally stay closer to the surface and are easier to spot clean.

Polyester is also generally more resistant to abrasion and everyday wear, making it a practical choice for sofas that are used frequently.

Woven Natural Fabric

Woven natural fabrics contain higher composition of cotton and linen fibres. They're our more premium option, offering a softer feel, better breathability and a relaxed, natural appearance.

Cotton generally feels softer and more comfortable against the skin, while linen has a slightly drier and rougher hand feel. When blended together, they create a fabric with visible natural texture and variation that gives the sofa a more casual, lived-in character.

Natural fibres are also more breathable than tightly woven synthetic fabrics. Cotton and linen can absorb moisture from the skin and allow it to evaporate more readily, helping the fabric feel cooler and more comfortable during prolonged sitting. However, this same absorbency means spills can soak into the fibres more quickly, making stains harder to remove if they are not cleaned promptly.

Suede Fabric

Suede fabric has a soft, brushed surface with a smooth and slightly velvety hand feel. Compared with woven fabrics, the surface appears more uniform because the individual yarns are less visually prominent.

Its matte finish absorbs more light rather than reflecting it strongly, giving colours a softer and more muted appearance. This creates a warm, understated look that works particularly well with neutral and earthy colours.

The brushed surface also makes suede fabric feel soft against the skin, making it suitable if comfort and a cosy hand feel are important considerations.

Velvet Fabric

Velvet fabric has a dense, short pile that creates a very soft and smooth surface. The pile reflects light differently depending on the light source's direction, giving velvet greater colour depth and a richer appearance than most conventional woven fabrics.

When the pile is brushed in different directions, the same fabric can appear slightly lighter or darker. This natural variation creates the distinctive dual-tone effect commonly associated with velvet.

Together with its soft hand feel, this makes velvet fabric particularly suitable if you want the sofa to have a more luxurious and visually rich appearance.

Bouclé Fabric

Bouclé fabric is made using curled and looped yarns that create a highly textured surface. The irregular texture gives the fabric greater visual depth and creates the soft, cosy appearance that bouclé is known for.

Its rounded texture works particularly well with curved sofas, where the fabric complements the softer shape of the frame rather than creating a flat or overly structured appearance.

The trade-off is that the loops are more likely to catch on sharp or rough objects. Velcro in particular can pull on the curled yarns and gradually create a fuzzier surface. For this reason, we do not use bouclé for our removable-cover sofa series, where the covers regularly come into contact with Velcro during removal and refitting.

White

White gives a sofa a clean, light and airy appearance. It reflects more light than darker colours, which can make a large sofa feel visually lighter and help smaller living spaces feel more open.

White also provides a neutral base that works with almost any surrounding colour palette, allowing cushions, rugs and other furniture to provide the stronger accents in the room.

The trade-off is that dust, stains and colour transfer are generally easier to notice, so white tends to suit households that are comfortable with more regular upkeep.

Beige

Beige offers many of the same benefits as white but with a warmer and softer appearance. It works particularly well with timber furniture, cream walls and other natural materials.

Lighter beige shades keep the sofa visually subtle, while deeper beige and taupe tones add more warmth without becoming as dominant as brown.

This makes beige one of the easiest choices if you want a neutral sofa that feels warm rather than stark or cool.

Orange

Orange introduces warmth and gives the sofa a much stronger visual presence. Muted terracotta and burnt-orange shades can still feel earthy and natural, while brighter oranges create a more expressive statement.

It works especially well when the rest of the room uses neutral colours, allowing the sofa to become the main focal point without competing with too many other strong elements.

Orange also pairs naturally with timber, beige, cream and selected green tones, making it particularly suitable for warm and earthy interiors.

Brown

Brown creates a warm and grounded appearance and works particularly well with timber, beige, cream and other earthy colours.

Lighter browns can create a relaxed natural look, while deeper chocolate or coffee shades give the sofa a richer and more substantial appearance.

Because brown already exists naturally in many timber and leather finishes, it is particularly easy to integrate into warmer interior styles.

Green

Green introduces colour while still feeling closely connected to natural materials. Muted olive and sage shades work almost like neutrals and pair easily with timber, beige and cream.

Deeper forest greens create a stronger statement and can give the sofa a richer, more sophisticated appearance.

Green is a good choice when you want more character than a conventional neutral but still want the sofa to feel calm and easy to coordinate.

Blue

Blue creates a cooler and more relaxed appearance than warmer colours such as brown or orange. Lighter blue shades can make a room feel softer and more casual, while navy and deeper blues add stronger contrast.

Because blue is less neutral than grey but still relatively easy to pair, it works well if you want the sofa to introduce colour without becoming overly bold.

Blue pairs particularly well with white, grey, light timber and other cooler-toned interiors.

Grey

Grey is one of the most versatile sofa colours because it can work with both warm and cool interiors. Light greys create a softer, more neutral appearance, while darker charcoal shades give the sofa greater visual weight.

Compared with white or beige, mid-grey shades can also be more forgiving of everyday marks while remaining easy to coordinate with different rugs, tables and wall colours.

Choose grey if you want a neutral colour that can remain flexible even if you change the rest of your interior over time.

Black

Black gives the sofa a strong and defined presence within the room. It creates more contrast against light walls and flooring, making the shape of the sofa more visually prominent.

It works particularly well with contemporary interiors or spaces that use a more monochromatic colour palette.

On very large sofas, black can make the furniture feel visually heavier, so consider the size of the room and the amount of natural light available.