What Is Damask?

Damask shows its pattern through shine, not color. The motif sits as a lustrous figure against a matte ground in the very same shade, so you read the design by the way light catches the two finishes rather than by any change of dye. It goes back to the Middle East and East Asia and reached Europe through trade with Damascus, the Syrian city that gave damask its name, in the medieval period. People have made it for over a thousand years, and in 2026 it is still a leading category in both wallpaper and textiles.

Below we cover why it carries that name, how it differs from jacquard, whether it is linen or cotton, what it feels like, what it is used for, and how it is made.

What is damask fabric?

It is a patterned woven cloth where the design shows up through a contrast of weave structures, not a contrast of color. The motif is usually satin, which has a glossy face. The ground around it is sateen, and sateen comes out matte. Same yarn, same dye. Only the way the threads cross is different, and since each finish sends light back at a slightly different strength, your eye reads the gap between them as a pattern. Walk past a damask curtain late in the afternoon and you'll see it happen: the figure catches the sun and the ground doesn't.

A white linen napkin from a formal table shows the rest. Flip it over. The pattern hasn't gone anywhere; it's on the back as well, reversed, because nothing was ever printed on top and the design lives in the weave itself. Up front you get a lustrous figure on a matte ground, and underneath it's a matte figure on a glossy one. There's one yarn color in the whole piece. Usually that's white or cream (ivory and gold are traditional too), though any one solid tone will do. You're reading structure, not pigment, and technically that's the point that separates damask from most other patterned cloth.

Then pick it up. It's heavier than it looks, and denser than most printed material, because the figured weave packs more yarn into each square inch. We'd say that body is what put damask to work. Upholsterers wanted it. Anyone hanging drapery at a window wanted it too, and it settled onto the dining table and the bed for the same reason: those are the places where weight and durability earn their keep.

Why is damask called damask?

The name comes from Damascus, the ancient city in present-day Syria. For most of the medieval period, roughly 700 to 1500 CE, it was one of the great textile and trading towns, and figured silk left it for European markets in huge quantities. The European merchants unrolling those bolts named the cloth after the place it arrived from, calling it "damasco" in Italian and "damask" in English.

Damascus didn't invent it, though, and it never had the craft to itself. The technique started in China, where weavers worked out the basics more than two thousand years ago. Over the centuries that followed it moved west through Persia and on into the wider Middle East, and by medieval times it was coming off looms in Cairo and in Constantinople. Aleppo wove it as well. So did several Persian centers, and so, naturally, did Damascus. Why does the cloth carry this one city's name, then, and not Aleppo's? Position. Damascus was the main export gateway to Europe. Silk Road and Mediterranean traffic funneled figured silk through it toward European buyers, and they came to link the cloth with the city itself. (Aleppo, you could argue, got a raw deal.)

Europe was slow to weave its own. Late in the medieval period, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, workshops opened in Genoa and in Venice, and Lucca started one too. By the seventeenth century home-grown cloth had largely pushed the imported kind out of Europe's luxury markets, and the Syrian city's name was stuck to it for good. We're glad nobody tried to change it. The word still carries a whole trade route inside it.

What is the difference between damask and jacquard?

Jacquard is a weaving technology; this is a type of cloth. People mix the two up all the time, but they name different things, and damask is only one of many fabrics woven on jacquard equipment.

Joseph Marie Jacquard built his loom in Lyon, France, in 1804. It uses punched cards to control which warp threads lift on each pass of the weft, so a complex design more or less weaves itself. Before it came along, a figured weave like damask needed a skilled draw weaver shifting threads by hand. Slow work. Costly, too. Once the jacquard arrived, damask got far quicker and cheaper to make, and most of it woven since 1810 has come off one. Modern mills run computerized jacquard looms now, fed by digital pattern files.

Part of the mix-up is just about words. Strict usage keeps the older word for the specific structure, a lustrous figure on a matte ground, and saves "jacquard" for the broad family of complex woven patterns. Brocade and lampas belong to that family. So does tapestry. Shops and decor catalogs don't bother with the line, though, and they throw the two around interchangeably, so a "jacquard tablecloth" and a "damask tablecloth" may well be the same item. If you want to be careful about it, use one word for the cloth structure and the other for the loom technology. We'd say damask for the cloth, jacquard for the machine.

What is the difference between damask and brocade?

Damask makes its pattern from the weave alone, usually in a single color, so the figure lies flat and shows on both sides of the cloth, while brocade adds a raised design during weaving that appears only on the face of the fabric.

Turn both over and you'll know in a second. That linen napkin from earlier just shows its pattern in reverse, matte figure on a shiny ground. The back of a brocade is a different story, often a tangle of loose threads skipping between the spots where the design needed them. Those extra threads are the trick. Brocade weavers ran colored yarn (and gold or silver thread, in the grandest silks) only where a flower or a leaf had to appear, so the design stands slightly proud of the ground and can carry several colors where damask carries one.

It handles differently, too. Brocade is stiffer and heavier, made for court dress and church vestments and chairs meant to impress, and it won't hang the way a damask tablecloth does. On a wall the line blurs, since printed wallpaper can't float a thread at all. A damask paper keeps to one or two tones and plays shine against matte. Gold flowers on a colored ground are borrowing from brocade instead (usually the busier of the two, if you ask us).

Is damask linen or cotton?

It can be woven from any fiber. The historical version was almost always silk. Silk throws the most dramatic glossy-to-matte contrast between figure and ground, because the shiny filament catches light one way in the satin and another way in the sateen. Linen is the second great tradition. Weavers in Flanders and across the Low Countries turned out linen damask from medieval times onward, and Ireland became a major center later. Into the nineteenth century, it was the standard for fine table and bed linen in European households.

Cotton came in during the eighteenth century as the fiber got cheaper. Most affordable modern damask is cotton or a cotton-polyester blend, and the contrast is slightly softer, since cotton has less natural sheen. Wool turns up in upholstery, where its weight and grip stand up to heavy use. Polyester and rayon sit at the mass-market end; they're durable and inexpensive, if a little flatter in the pattern. Damask wallpaper is another story. The substrate there is non-woven or paper rather than cloth, with printed metallic and matte treatments imitating the woven look. Our What Is Non-Woven Wallpaper guide covers that standard substrate.

What does damask fabric feel like?

Substantial and quietly textured. Run your fingertips across it and you can feel where the figure ends and the ground begins, because one sits very slightly raised against the other. The contrast is subtle. It's real, though, and it changes with the fiber. Silk is smooth and a little cool under your hand. It's almost slippery, with the pattern just catching your skin as it passes. Linen is crisper. It's more structured and a touch stiffer, and the heavier yarn makes the figure a little more obvious to the touch, which is exactly why linen damask suits table and bed linen (drapery too). Cotton is softer and rounder, the least pronounced underhand, so it's the most comfortable choice for bedding and our pick for sheets. And wool? Warm and weighty, with the most raised figure of the lot. It's at home in cooler rooms.

What is damask fabric used for?

Table linen is the most traditional use of all. Cloths and napkins (runners as well) have dressed formal tables for centuries. The reversible figure helped, and so did the weight of the cloth; the fact that it washes easily didn't hurt either. White and cream linen are still the leading choice for formal dining. In the bedroom it shows up on higher-end sheets and pillowcases. Duvet covers get it too, and there the subtle figure adds richness without shouting the way a colored print would. Cotton dominates here. Silk is rare, and pricey.

Then there's upholstery. Chairs and sofas get it, so do ottomans and pillows, mostly in wool or cotton for durability. Polyester shows up sometimes, and silk is saved for formal furniture that sees light use. Drapery leans on heavy silk or wool for dining rooms and formal sitting rooms and on lighter cotton for easier settings, and either way the figure gives a window a depth that plain cloth can't. Printed wallpaper carries the same look into any room at lower cost. If blue is your color, our blue wallpaper collection includes figured options. Last come the liturgical and ceremonial textiles. Vestments and altar cloths have been woven in silk across European and Asian religious traditions, and so have ritual linens.

How is damask fabric made?

Today it is woven on a jacquard loom whose punched cards, or digital files, decide which warp threads lift on each pass. Where the threads ride on the face in a glossy satin weave, you get the figure. The ground forms wherever the weft floats on top instead, in a matte sateen weave.

Before Jacquard, the same cloth came off a draw loom, and it was slow going. A draw weaver sat perched above the frame and pulled cords by hand, lifting the right threads for every single pick. Perhaps a yard a day, on a complex design. And that was after years of training just to do it at all, which is why the old cloth cost so much.

Old loom or new, damask is built from the same two weaves. Satin usually takes the figure: the warp passes over several wefts before tucking under one, and that's where the face gets its luster. The ground is usually sateen. It's the same structure turned the other way, with the weft floating on the face, so the finish comes out flatter. Five-shaft or eight-shaft satin? That's the weaver's call, and it comes down to how glossy the result needs to be and how hard the cloth will have to wear. Upholstery gets the heavier setups. Table linen and bedding get lighter ones. The yarn needs its own care, too. If warp and weft aren't evenly spun and evenly tensioned, the contrast loses its edge (careful preparation is what keeps it crisp).

Damask questions

What is damask?

It is a woven cloth, or printed wallpaper, whose pattern shows through a contrast of weave structures rather than color. Tilt a white linen damask napkin under a lamp and the satin figure glows, while the sateen ground around it, in exactly the same white, stays matte.

What is the difference between damask and jacquard?

Jacquard is the loom technology, invented in 1804; damask is one type of cloth woven on it. Shops don't always keep the two apart, so the same piece may be sold under either name.

Is damask cotton or linen?

Either, and more. Linen's the classic for the dining table, but most of the new damask you'll come across is cotton or a cotton blend.

Where can I buy damask wallpaper?

You can browse the figured designs in our damask wallpaper collection, or see the wider range at William Morris Wallpaper Co. (Wallpaper damask is printed on a non-woven or paper base, by the way, so its sheen comes from metallic and matte treatments instead of a satin weave.)