Polyester vies with cotton

Dining out continues to be a boom market, encouraged by the rise of television chefs such as Antony Worral Thompson, Ainsley Harriott, and others.

“There’s a feelgood atmosphere in central London,” says John Lancashire of Milliken’s napery fabrics business.

This is no doubt encouraged by development of the new high-speed Channel Tunnel link to London’s Kings Cross, and the hotels and restaurants that are opening up on the East side of London as that area prepares for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Vikas Shah, director of Linen Connect, one of the trading brands of Swiscot Textiles Group, confirms that the market for hotel and restaurant table linen is buoyant.

Decor, and therefore the look of the linen, is an important part of that buoyant market. Shah says that Asian themes are now in vogue in interior design so restaurants are choosing strong dark colours, even black, as well as the traditional white.

Asked about the choice of fabrics, Shah estimates that pure cotton might account for 30% of the market.

Luxury hotels that need to create added value with the ambience of the restaurant will, he concedes, choose 100% cotton.

But while there is and will always be a place for pure cotton table linen in the high ambience, high price restaurants, most of the market now looks to suppliers to give them materials with better handling properties – in particular stain resistance, wear resistance and crease resistance. This is obtained from 100% synthetic materials, or a blend of natural and synthetic fibres.

Vikas Shah says that the Swiscot group is working on developing high resilience materials, which are increasingly in demand from the hospitality sector.

Details are still under wraps but he reveals that these will be polycottons and cotton materials with yarns woven into them to make them stain-, crease- and fire-resistant. The harder textiles are a by-product of research done in the United States and Japan, developing materials to be used in defence and performance applications, says Shah.

“The aim of the research and development is to produce a product that doesn’t require any special handling either by the customer or by the laundry.”

He adds that some high-performance products need special handling. Certain detergents have to be avoided. Most technologies are based on adding a chemical to the fabric, and this could be washed out. “Our technology is integral to the fabric,” he adds.

Milliken’s Signature Plus is designed to have good handling properties. The material is made by Milliken in the USA and distributed to the UK hospitality industry by Richard Haworth.

Made from 100% polyester spun filament, Signature Plus offers a “cotton-like feel” while having the durability and handling qualities of man-made fibre. Stains are removed in a 50C wash, for example, without loss of colour fastness.

Chef Gary Rhodes chose Signature Plus table skirtings for the Rhodes W1 Restaurant, his latest collaboration with the Restaurant Associates group.

This 45-seat luxury establishment operated by RA Hotels opened in May at the Cumberland Hotel, at London’s Marble Arch, alongside the existing Rhodes W1 Brasserie – but it has its own separate entrance in Great Cumberland Place.

At the time the Rhodes W1 opened, Gary Rhodes said: “I want to take this to a level I haven’t done before. Absolutely everything will be cooked from scratch every day. This restaurant is about maximising the flavours of everything and achieving real refinement. We’re still buying British produce where possible but there are strong elements of French cooking in what we’re doing.”

Designer Kelly Hoppen, whose work includes the interiors of British Airways’ first class cabins, designed the new Rhodes interior. This is her first restaurant project, which she sees as a “glamorous, chic and yet eclectic interior”. It features glittering Swarovski chandeliers, antique French chairs and mirrors covered in lush deep purple and black velvet.

The tablecloths and napkins for Rhodes W1 Restaurant are in a part-cotton mixture, but Richard Haworth was asked to produce made-to-measure skirtings for each table, in the Signature Plus fabric.

“Normally, you would have a skirting which hangs half-way down to the floor, and the tablecloth on top of that,” says Chris Moore of Richard Haworth. “The W1 Restaurant wanted a cover made to measure for each table, all the way down to the floor, but with a split cut into it at each place, letting the diner’s legs pass through. The cloth goes over all of that.”

The table skirtings are drycleaned and the matching chair covers are washed. So far the laundry hasn’t reported any handling problems.

One supplier that encourages restaurants to mix and match fabrics is Textile Town, which distributes table linen both in 100% Egyptian cotton and in a mix of 66% polyester with 34% cotton.

Growing conditions in the Nile Delta produce longer staple cotton fibres than other areas, allowing them to be spun into yarns which combine strength with fineness and softness of texture. Once woven, they produce a luxury texture and relatively high resilience.

The resilience of a fabric is relative, though.

As Chris Moore of Richard Haworth points out, a polyester can last for up to 300 washes. However, to achieve more than 100 washes with pure cotton would be exceptional.

Mix and match

Textile Town suggests that, as the customer comes into close contact with a napkin, these could be 100% Egyptian cotton – but they could be placed in a setting with polycotton tablecloths which have a contemporary design and are available in striking colours.

The Hilden Group, which has moved its production from south Lancashire to Egypt, is also adding new colours to its table linens, whether pure cotton, polyester or spun polyester. A dozen new colours have been added to its Apollo range, the latest being cocoa and slate. These bring the range to a choice of 60 colours, which are offered as plain or with a rose or ivy leaf pattern.

Hilden’s Hopsack range combines the natural sensation of Irish linen with the durability and handling of spun polyester.

Hilden’s table linen business in the hospitality sector mirrors the market as a whole – roughly 70% polyester and 30% cotton.

Sales and production director Craig Hargreaves recognises that good spun polyester scores highly with the laundries because of its handling properties and durability, but he is confident that high quality cotton has a future.

“People at the five-star end of the business will stay with top quality cotton, especially for napkins, even though they may put a polyester product on the table,” he says.

George Miljanic, director of Esteco, is a champion of spun polyester table linen, though he recognises that there will always be a place for cotton in the luxury market segment.

“Put two napkins in front of the customer – one cotton and one spun polyester – and they won’t be able to say which is which,” he says.

While there is no particular advantage in using spun polyester from the customer’s viewpoint, its advantages for the laundry service are numerous.

• Shrinkage is eliminated (even mercerised cotton will shrink up to 5%);

• Colour retention is good, especially for black, burgundy and other dark shades;

• Absorption of starch, detergents and other agents is lower than for cotton, yielding savings on cleaning agents;

• It can be washed and pressed at lower temperatures, leading to energy savings.

Andy Jamshidzadeh, director of DG (UK) Textiles, on the other hand, is a strong believer in the value of cotton. He reports that the UK hospitality sector continues to demand two main pure cottons: first, cotton damask in ivy leaf design and, secondly, satin band.

According to Jamshidzadeh, mercerisation of the cotton fibre with caustic soda improves the strength of the fabric by 10–20%; shrinkage is reduced to as little as 3–4%; colour penetration and retention is up to 20%; it has a lustrous appearance; stain removal is easy; and the effects of mercerisation are permanent, not subject to change in the laundry.

Cotton is here to stay, it seems, but innovation in man-made fibres continues, which must benefit the hospitality sector and the linen suppliers.