Fabric is all around us. It has six different applications such as: window treatments, wall coverings, flooring and fiber-based artwork, seating, window treatments, and panel application. The application that most people see on a day-to-day basis would most likely be seating.

            There are all sorts of fabric applications across the Tech Campus but to find one that might have the most use you would need to go to the Student Union Building. There are only a few variations in fabric choices that are used for booths, chairs, couches, benches, etc. Most of the fabrics are some sort of a polyester blend with a semi modern print in mainly low intensity colors. The other material used quite often is leather. Although the polyester blend may look nice it won’t stay looking like that for very long after thousands of students take their lunch break. Polyester is good at repelling stains but some things will stain no matter what. There were also a large number of chairs with both polyester and leather. Some had polyester seats with leather back and vice versa. Of the chairs that had a foot stool you could notice a major difference in the appearance of the fabrics. The polyester chairs had started to look brown, dirty, and grimy while the leather ones looked to be in fairly good condition with much less wear and tear.  The leather would have been more suitable all around mainly because it has a better durability and resistance to stains and the dirty look. Some of the polyester chairs showed signs of thinning and the fabric coming apart in high use areas such as the arm rests, footstools, and seat.

            All in all the polyester blend cover is not quite a suitable choice for very highly used seating but the leather on the other hand is a very acceptable choice based upon its durability and ability to stay looking clean for longer.