06/01/2026
The Darkest Fabric 🖤
Sometimes a headline comes along and really catches your eye. It prompted me to read “the darkest fabric ever made” and I thought, what is the fuss? At Draper, we have been dying many different blacks for generations.
This new inky color was inspired by the Riflebird. The bird is so dark, they call it a black hole in the forest.
The production procedure sounds simple, the process, not so much. Start with a very white wool, dye it black with a synthetic form of melanin (a natural pigment that colors our hair, eyes and skin) and then etch it in a plasma chamber to create microscopic spikes that help trap light. This material has been measured to absorb as much as 99.87% of light. Black’s darkness comes from its near-total absorption of visible light, leaving little to no light for our eyes to detect. The more light absorbed, the less light that reaches the eye, and the darker the object appears. An average black t-shirt might absorb 90% of the light. This wool fabric is now part of a category of fabrics called “ultrablack”.
The scientists referred back to the bird noting that when the feathers were seen at an angle, they appeared shiny. They then figured out how to broaden the angles the deep black was seen at by manipulating the etching process to rough up the structure of the fibers. This keeps the light bouncing around the inside of the fabric rather than escaping. This allows the flat depth of the black to be seen from many angles, not just head on.
The group responsible for this study have published a paper about its findings and plans to seek patents on its use. High fashion is one option as well as clothing needed to warm or cool a body in the sun (the black would accelerate cooling due to increased sweat evaporation). There are also tech applications such as textiles in telescopes, cameras, solar panels and much more. It will also make an excellent camouflage…just ask the Riflebird.
