Thread count belongs to cotton. Silk has momme — the single measure that reveals weight, durability and how a fabric will fall. Here is how to read it.
When a woman asks me how to judge a silk before she has even touched it, I tell her to ignore the marketing entirely and find one small word on the label: momme. It is the most honest number in textiles, and almost no one outside the trade knows how to read it.
What momme actually measures
Momme — pronounced like 'mummy' and written mm — is a weight measurement, not a thread count. It tells you how much a fixed area of silk weighs. The traditional definition: the weight in pounds of a piece of silk forty-five inches wide and one hundred yards long. So a 19 momme silk means that bolt weighs nineteen pounds. The higher the momme, the denser and heavier the cloth. It is the silk world's equivalent of carat or grade — one figure that quietly encodes durability, opacity and drape.
The ranges, and what they are for
Each weight has a purpose. A good wardrobe uses several, and knowing the ranges lets you spot when a garment is built from silk too thin for its promise:
- 8–12 momme — featherlight. Chiffon, georgette, fine scarves. Beautiful, but sheer and fragile; never the right choice for a garment meant to last decades.
- 12–16 momme — the classic charmeuse and habotai range. Blouses, linings, soft slips. Fluid and luminous, with enough body to hold a shape.
- 16–22 momme — the couture middle ground. Bias gowns, structured shirts, the silk most people mean when they say luxury. Opaque, weighty, and forgiving to the cut.
- 22–30 momme — heavyweight. Trousers, jackets, upholstered pieces and the most coveted bedding. This is silk that drapes like architecture and survives a lifetime.
“A higher momme is not always better — it is better for a purpose. A 30 momme chiffon would be a contradiction. The number must answer the garment.”
Yaya, Founder & Creative Director
Why brands hide the number
Here is the quiet test of a serious house: it tells you the momme. A label that boasts of being 'pure silk' but never states the weight is usually concealing a thin, low-momme cloth — often eight or ten momme — dressed up with a heavy price. Silk is sold by weight at the source, so a lighter momme is genuinely cheaper to make. When a price is high and the momme is missing, you are paying couture money for featherweight cloth.
How to feel momme without the label
With practice your hands learn to estimate it. Drape a length over two fingers and watch the fold: low-momme silk collapses into a thin, papery crease; high-momme silk falls into a rounded, sculptural curve that holds. Hold it to a window — under fourteen momme and you will see your hand through it; above eighteen it reads opaque. And listen, gently: heavier silks have a faint dry rustle, a whisper of substance, where the lightest ones make almost no sound at all.
For our ready-to-wear, the maison cuts gowns and shirts from 16 to 19 momme and trousers from 22 to 25. We print the number on every order card. It is the single fact that lets you compare us honestly with anyone — which is precisely why we volunteer it.
