Thanks for your replies Leif and Mark. I know that even if I can find the same fabric (unlikely) there will be some difference in shade due to age. Unfortunately the fabric on the back of the sofa is completely kaput so I will replace the whole section, While this isn't ideal it does mean that if I can get as close as possible I can get away with a slight difference. I've attached a sharper close-up in case anyone can help.
Cheers,
Rick
I've done a lot of upholstery of old Danish furniture and have hundreds of swatches from the major mills, including Kvadrat, who made and still makes a lot of classic Danish wools. I have never seen that particular fabric. It looks like a wool rep weave, mostly blue but with some black fibers in it for a heathered look. I'm pretty sure Kvadrat doesn't make anything like that right now but you could look through Maharam's stuff and see if they might have something. But it's very much a long shot.
The chances of even the exact same fabric---new--matching decades-old fabric is pretty much nil, as you are aware. Some mills don't even match the color very well from one dye lot to another! Are you planning to put the sofa out in the room so that the back will be on view? I would just plan to get the whole thing redone, but that's just me---not a stickler for all original condition when it includes worn, faded fabric.
You can take heart knowing that if you do decide it has to be redone, you at least have a choice of very high quality Danish wools from which to choose, and they're readily available from Maharam, the US distributor of Kvadrat fabrics. And modern-fabrics.com sells them at a deep discount though their selection is limited and you might have to wait months before the right fabric comes along. The good news is that your sofa won't require a lot of yards, which will keep costs down.
My grandfather's Papa Bear may have had that same fabric on it, but in solid black, so there was no heathering. It is a thick wool twill weave (the wales run diagonally). It was a couple years ago but I check everywhere for twill weaves in wool, and only found Knoll Cavalier, on Spanky's recommendation, and it seems to have been discontinued. Regardless, Cavalier was much, much too thin and tightly woven. So I doubt you are going to find any sort of matching fabric.
If you wanted to save some of the original fabric, maybe you could do everything but the seat cushion or back cusion in a contrasting new fabric?
You could well be right. It looks like the fibers go over the wales are at 45 degrees to the weft, which is what is making me thinking it is a twill (same weave as denim jeans). And if the welt was cut on the bias, as it usually is, then the wales could go around perpendicular to the welt, as they do (if you cut it on the other bias, the wales would go the length of the welt).
But it is very hard to tell considering the angle of the photo.
If it is not a twill, is there a kind of weave that would look like this, with twill-like wales but running down the length of the fabric?
I think this sofa would look wonderful in a nice red leather. It was originally offered in leather, as you can see from the catalog. (If you can find striped fabric, just like the catalog, it is fair to guess that was Grete Jalk's original design intent).
Paul Smith designed a large variety of striped fabrics for Maharam. They are a bit less simple than the catalog photo, but the same idea:
http://maharam.com/products/upholstery/search?all=true&color_family_id%5...
Rep, which I suggested above, has the same appearance as twill without being diagonal---but the ribbing isn't lengthwise, it's on the cross grain, or "railroaded". To do that sofa without a seam down the center of the inside back and in the middle of the seat, the fabric would be railroaded---which would make the rep "ribs" run from top to bottom. That's what it looks like to me, anyway.
Rep gets that look from fine textured warp threads woven over heavier weft threads. You can't see the weft threads at all because the fine threads completely cover them. There's a variation in this weave called "ottoman" which I think is just scaled up in texture---heavier threads both ways. (The first thing I ever upholstered was in some cheezy ottoman fabric that started shredding within two years. Wah!)
Mens' ties are often made of silk rep and described that way in ad copy--though the ribs will always present as diagonal because ties are always cut on the bias so that they hang nicely. I think that's about the only time I ever hear the word "rep" in reference to fabric anymore.
I had never heard of that fabric. Thank you! I know the fabric you mean though. I've seen a very thick version of rep somewhere. Place-settings in someone's house is the image that comes to mind.
If it is rep, it means they cut they welt "wrong" down the length of the fabric, like AP Stolen did on the Papa Bear.
Now I am even more curious. Can we get some more photos of the fabric?
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