If you Googled "Martin Schoeller photographer," you probably got celebrity portraits. The Schoeller I deal with is a different one: a Swiss textile company that has been making performance fabrics for decades. I'm a procurement manager at a 40-person outdoor apparel company. I manage roughly $800,000 a year in fabric purchases, and I've been doing it since 2018. I've documented every order in our cost tracking system—including the ones I regret.
There is no fabric that's universally "best." A silk nylon blend that makes a beautiful blouse is wrong for a climbing pant. A Schoeller technical fabric that shrugs off a mountain wind is overkill for a fashion shirt. The smart question is not "which fabric?" but "which scenario is my product in?" Here are the three scenarios I see most often.
Scenario 1: You Make Performance Outerwear
If the garment has to survive wind, weather, pack straps, and 30 washes, stop looking at per-meter price and start looking at return rates. In my 2023 spending audit, I found that garments made with cheap DWR-coated polyester had an 11% return rate because the water repellency failed after a few washes. Then we tested a small run with Schoeller Dryskin and Nanosphere. The return rate dropped to 2.4%. The fabric cost more—roughly $3.60 per meter in our January 2025 quote, maybe $3.80 with customs—but the total cost of returns, rework, and lost repeat customers made it the cheaper option by a mile. The expensive fabric was the cheap one.
The mistake I see most often is comparing unit prices without comparing failure rates. One fabric might be fine for a trade show banner but wrong for a shell jacket. When I showed the 2023 audit to the design team—11% returns versus 2.4%—they stopped arguing about the $1.30 difference in fabric cost. The returns alone were costing us an average $44 per order. That math settled the argument.
One of the most misunderstood products in our line is Schoeller Coldblack. From the outside, it sounds like a marketing gimmick: black fabric that reflects heat? The reality is measurable. In our Q2 2024 trial, testers recorded a 4°C lower surface temperature on Coldblack samples compared with standard black polyester. That's not magic; it's a finish with real physics behind it. If you sell to cyclists, construction crews, or anyone who works in direct sun, Coldblack is worth the upcharge. I'm not going to claim it's better than every other technical solution out there—that depends on the full system—but it solves a specific problem that ordinary polyester can't.
Scenario 2: You Make Shirts and Dresses — Silk Nylon Fabric vs Viscose Fabric Shirt
This is where the "viscose fabric shirt" versus "silk nylon fabric" decision happens. Viscose has gorgeous drape and a low upfront cost. I know, because I spent my first year choosing viscose for a women's shirt line to hit margin targets. That was the classic rookie mistake: I approved bulk production without a proper shrinkage test. The first wash shortened the sleeves by 3%, the placket puckered, and we had to re-cut 1,200 units. One of my biggest regrets? Not ordering a lab dip and a laundry trial first. That "cheap" viscose ended up costing more than silk nylon fabric would have.
Silk nylon fabric is pricier per yard—our supplier quoted $6.20 per meter in January 2025 for an 85/15 silk nylon blend—but it holds color, resists shrinking, and feels premium in the hand. If you're building a blouse that a customer will wear to a job interview or a dinner, that first impression is your brand. The client doesn't see your margin sheet. They see a shirt that wrinkles weirdly, or one that hangs beautifully. I've had customer feedback scores improve by 23% after we switched a key style to a higher-quality silk nylon. That isn't just a fabric feature; that's a brand outcome.
Yes, silk nylon costs more per unit. But if it lets you charge $10 more wholesale and cuts your quality complaints by half, it's not a cost; it's an investment in positioning. I've sat in meetings where the founder almost rejected the switch because of the margin hit. After one season, the gross margin was actually higher—because we replaced 34% of the viscose shirts under our quality claim, and only 4% of the silk nylon shirts.
To be fair, viscose isn't universally bad. If the design is loose, print-heavy, and the brand image is "trendy disposability," viscose can work. But if you're putting your logo on it, the structure matters. Pantone's Color Matching System guidelines set a common tolerance of Delta E < 2 for brand-critical colors. A cheap viscose run can drift to Delta E 3-4 on large dark areas, and that's visible to customers. When you have to reprint or issue a return because the shirt doesn't match the online photo, the "savings" vanish.
Scenario 3: You're Googling "Is Polyester Clothing Bad?"
This is the most loaded question in apparel, and my answer is: no, polyester is not bad. Bad polyester, cheaply made, is bad. The polymer is just a material. The problem is how it's extruded, spun, knitted, dyed, and finished—not the fact that it's petroleum-based.
People assume polyester is sweaty and cheap. The reality is that most high-performance outdoor gear is polyester, and it outperforms natural fibers for many jobs. It dries fast, wicks moisture, takes technical finishes like Coldblack, and costs far less than premium nylon. The reason polyester gets a bad name is low-quality yarns that pill, no moisture management treatment, and construction with no breathing room. So the question "is polyester clothing bad?" should really be "is this particular garment made to a standard?"
The other thing I'd say about polyester: don't confuse yarn price with fabric performance. A tightly woven 210D polyester can feel completely different from a loose, low-twist poly that pills. For outdoor gear, a high-quality polyester with a DWR finish and a proper knit structure is a legitimate professional material. For a promotional t-shirt, the same polymer is the reason people hate polyester. The material isn't the whole story; the spec is.
There's also a cost angle. Virgin polyester is cheap. Recycled polyester costs more—our mill quoted $2.30 per meter for a standard 150D recycled polyester in January 2025, versus $1.85 for virgin. Recycled isn't automatically better in performance, but it can be better for your brand narrative and for meeting sustainability requirements at large retail accounts. If that narrative lands you a contract, the extra 45 cents per meter is the cheapest marketing you've ever bought. If you're making disposable promo items, the premium is harder to justify. Both are legitimate scenarios.
How to Figure Out Which Scenario You're In
Stop asking "What's the best fabric?" and ask these three questions:
- What is the garment's job? A bike jacket and a date-night shirt have different jobs. Don't put a heavy technical shell in a woven blouse, and don't put silk nylon on a work glove.
- What happens after 20 washes? A fabric that loses its finish or shape isn't cheap at any price.
- What does the customer's first touch tell them? If it feels cheap, they'll assume the whole product is cheap, no matter how good your warranty is.
I use a simple heuristic: if the product's failure mode is "it doesn't work," spend on performance. If the failure mode is "it looks wrong," spend on aesthetics and color. If the failure mode is "it falls apart," spend on construction. Most companies are trying to solve two of those at once, but the priority should match the product.
If you sell outdoor performance, spend your money on Schoeller-type technical fabrics. If you sell fashion-forward apparel, focus on drape, color consistency, and laundering behavior—silk nylon fabric is a safer bet, but a well-sourced viscose fabric shirt can work if the design is right. If you sell basics at the lowest price point, polyester can be fine, but don't buy the cheapest polyester you can find. Buy the one that doesn't pill after three washes.
I still kick myself for the times I chose the cheaper fabric to protect the budget. The budget is real, but so is the math: a reorder, a return, or a bad review cancels out a lot of "savings." The quality of the fabric isn't a cosmetic issue. It's the most tangible expression of your brand that a customer ever touches. So glad we switched to Schoeller Coldblack for our main shell fabric—almost missed the season trying to save a dollar per unit. The extra cost came back as fewer returns and better feedback. That's not a fashionable opinion. That's what my cost tracking system says.