Cambric is a finely woven cloth with a plain weave and a smooth surface appearance, the result of the calendering process. It may be made of linen or cotton. The fabric may be dyed any of many colors. Batiste is a kind of cambric; it is "of similar texture, but differently finished, and made of cotton as well as of linen". Batiste also may be dyed or printed. "Batiste" is the French word for "cambric" and some sources consider them to be the same, but in English, they are two distinct fabrics. Chambray, though the same type of fabric as cambric, has a coloured warp and a white weft, though it may be "made from any colour as you may wish, in the warp, and also in the filling; only have them differ from each other." Chambray differs from denim in that "chambray’s warp and weft threads will alternate one over the other, while denim’s warp thread will go over two threads in the weft before going under one." As a result, the color of chambray cloth is similar front and back, while the reverse side of denim is lighter in color. The term "cambric cloth" also applies to a stiff, usually black, open-weave cloth typically used for a dust cover on the bottom of upholstered furniture.
History
Cambric was originally a kind of fine, white, plain-weave linen cloth made at or near Cambrai. The word comes from Kameryk or Kamerijk, the Flemish name of Cambrai, which became part of France in 1677. The word is attested since 1530. It is a synonym of the French word batiste, itself attested since 1590. Batiste itself comes from the Picardbatiche, attested since 1401 and derived from the old French battre for bowing wool. The modern form batiste, or baptiste, comes from a popular merge with the surname Baptiste, pronounced Batisse, as indicated by the use of the expressions thoile batiche and toile de baptiste for the same fabric. The alleged invention of the fabric, around 1300, by a weaver called Baptiste or Jean-Baptiste Cambray or Chambray, from the village of Castaing in the peerage of Marcoing, near Cambrai, has no historic ground. Cambric was a finer quality and more expensive than lawn. Denoting a geographic origin from the city of Cambrai or its surroundings, cambric is an exact equivalent of the French cambrésine, a very fine, almost sheer white linen plain-weave fabric, to be distinguished from cambrasine, a fabric comparable to the French lawn despite its foreign origin. Cambric is also close to chambray appears in North American English in the early 19th century. Though the term generally refers to a cotton plain weave with a colored warp and a white weft, close to gingham, "silk chambray" seems to have coexisted. Chambray was often produced during this period by the same weavers producing gingham. White linen cambric or batiste from Cambrai, noted for its weight and luster, was "preferred for ecclesiastical wear, fine shirts, underwear, shirt frills, cravats, collars and cuffs, handkerchiefs, and infant wear". Technical use sometime introduced a difference between cambric and batiste, the latter being of a lighter weight and a finer thread count. In the 18th century, after the prohibition of imports into England of French cambrics, with the development of the import of Indian cotton fabrics, similar cotton fabrics, such as nainsook, from the Hindi nainsukh, became popular. These fabrics, initially called Scotch cambrics to distinguish them from the original French cambrics, came to be referred to as cotton cambrics or batistes. Some authors increased the confusion with the assumption the word batiste could come from the Indian fabric bastas. In the 19th century, the terms cambric and batiste gradually lost their association with linen, implying only different kind of fine plain-weave fabrics with a glossy finish. In 1907, a fine cotton batiste had 100 ends per inch in the finished fabric, while a cheap-grade, less than 60. At the same time, with development of an interest in coloured shirts, cambric was also woven in colours, such as the pink fabric used by Charvet for a corsage, reducing the difference between cambric and chambray. Moreover, the development and rationalization of mechanical weaving led to the replacement, for chambray, of coloured warp and white weft by the opposite, white warp and coloured weft, which allowed for longer warps.
The English folk song ballad "Scarborough Fair" has the lyric in the second verse "Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, / Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme / Sewn without seams or fine needlework, / Then she'll be a true love of mine." It also appears in the David Bowie song, "Come And Buy My Toys" in the lyrics "You shall own a cambric shirt, you shall work your father's land." In the Andrzej Sapkowski Witcher novel, The Last Wish, Renfri described her privileged upbringing, referring to "...dresses, shoes. Cambric knickers. Jewels and trinkets..." as if suggesting that the cambric material was an indication of the fabric's high quality. In Agatha Christie's novel Murder on the Orient Express, a cambric handkerchief with an H monogram is one of the clues in the murder.
