A fabric finish is anything that changes the surface of a fabric beyond the plain knit: a raised pile, like velvet; a metallic yarn or foil, like a metallic or holographic print; or a coating, like wet-look. In polewear these finishes are mostly there for the look, and they are a big part of why polewear is fun to wear. But a finish is also the part of the garment your skin and the pole actually touch, so it changes how the garment feels, how it behaves near a grip point, and how carefully it has to be washed.
Dragonfly, a polewear brand with a velvet collection, makes the point in one line: when you compare styles, "velvet, mesh and lace introduce different textures and design details." Here is what each of the three common finishes actually is.
What is stretch velvet, and how does it behave?
Velvet is a pile fabric. The pattern-making site Fashion-Incubator explains that nap "usually refers to a raised pile or finish to a piece of fabric," and that in velvet there is "an obvious up and down direction to the pile" as you run your hand over it. That direction is why velvet changes shade with the light. The fabric supplier Stretch House tells sewists to "always cut velvet in one direction, following the pile nap," because cutting against it causes color variation across a garment.
Stretch velvet for dancewear is usually a pile on a stretch base. Stretch House's plain stretch velvet, for example, is listed as 90% polyester and 10% spandex, 380 GSM, with 2-way stretch. That is a heavier fabric than many activewear knits, and stretch in two directions rather than four. Not every velvet is built that way, but it is a useful reminder that velvet can behave quite differently from a thin four-way knit.
On the pole, velvet is still fabric. The pile is a soft layer between you and the steel, and nothing we found suggests velvet grips any better than an ordinary knit. That puts velvet in the same position as any other polewear fabric: fine where it covers, out of the way where your skin needs to grip. For comparison, the gymnastics leotard maker GK Elite lists velvet among its "Long Wearing Durable Fabrics," alongside nylon and spandex.
What makes a fabric metallic?
There are two very different ways, and they behave differently.
The first is a metallic yarn knitted into the fabric. Lurex, a brand of metallic yarn, describes itself as "the leading worldwide brand for metallic and special effect yarns" and says advances in "increasingly fine films and textured threads" have made its yarns soft enough for lingerie and hosiery. When the shine is in the yarn, it is part of the knit.
The second is a foil, a shiny layer attached to the surface of the fabric. This is the more fragile of the two. GK Elite groups "Nylon/spandex with Foil" with hologram and mesh fabrics under "Special Care Fragile Fabrics." It warns that "repeated wear and washing may cause the fabrics to fade or lose foil," that fabric softeners "negatively affect the adhesives" used in its garments, and that "Deodorants and perspiration may cause these fabrics to color bleed, fade or lose foil." Its care notes also say not to iron, because heat can melt or discolor delicate fabrics and weaken adhesives.
For polewear, perspiration and friction are part of every class, so a foil finish is worth treating as the delicate part of the garment. If a foil sits at a contact point, the inner thigh or the back of the knee, expect it to wear there first.
Does wet-look polewear grip the pole?
Sometimes, and you cannot tell by looking. Wet-look is a shiny, coated finish, and some coated fabrics grip a pole the way skin does, which is the whole idea behind sticky leggings. In a Studio Veena forum thread on sticky leggings, Veena, who runs the online pole school, wrote that anything that will actually grip the pole has to be a wet-look PVC fabric. The same thread is full of dancers comparing pairs that looked alike and gripped differently.
So wet-look describes the shine, not the coating underneath it. A wet-look pair of shorts is not necessarily a grip garment, and a wet-look pair of leggings is not necessarily sticky. Test any coated finish at low height before you rely on it, and expect coatings to wear at the contact points.
How should finished polewear be washed?
More gently than plain polewear, mostly because of what holds the finish on. The plain-knit advice still applies: cold water, no heat, no softener, which we covered in How to wash polewear. On top of that:
- Foils and prints: no softener and no iron, per GK Elite's notes on foil fabrics. Rinse sweat out promptly rather than leaving it in the bag.
- Velvet: follow the label. Velvet is a pile, and anything that flattens or crushes the pile changes how it looks.
- Coatings: follow the label, and check the coating for cracking or peeling at the contact points as part of your usual check, alongside the signs in How long polewear lasts.
Quick answers
Does velvet polewear grip the pole? Not that we could find. The pile is fabric between you and the pole, so velvet works where it covers and not at grip points.
Why does metallic polewear lose its shine? If the shine is a foil attached to the surface, wear, washing, sweat and fabric softener can all make it fade or come off.
Is wet-look the same as grip fabric? No. Wet-look describes the shine. Some coated fabrics grip the pole and some do not.
Can I iron foil or metallic polewear? GK Elite advises against ironing its foil fabrics, because heat can damage the fabric and the adhesives that hold the foil on.