Seersucker
summer shirts, suits, dresses, pajamas, curtains
Seersucker gets its texture from the loom, not from a finish. Some warp yarns are held at normal tension and others are woven slack, so once the cloth comes off the loom, the slack threads bunch into a permanent pucker while the taut ones stay flat, producing the characteristic striped ridges. Because the puckering is structural, it doesn't wash or iron out, which is the fabric's main selling point.
The puckered surface holds the cloth away from the skin in tiny air pockets, so it feels cooler and dries faster than a flat cotton of similar weight, and it needs little to no pressing since the texture disguises wrinkles anyway. It has no stretch and a dry, slightly nubby hand. It's an easy fabric to sew, behaving like a mid-weight cotton with a bit more bulk at the puckered ridges.
Seersucker is built for hot-weather clothing, classic summer suits, shirts, sundresses, and pajamas, plus lightweight curtains and bedding where the texture reads as casual rather than fussy. Striped seersucker is the traditional form, though solid and printed versions exist using the same slack-tension weave.