Linen glossary

Dobby border (liteau)

The dobby border — "liteau" in French linen vocabulary — is the woven band that runs across a towel or bath sheet near each end: a flat, loop-free zone, often decorated with stripes or a jacquard. Inherited from service linen (it made pieces easy to identify and hang), it has become a marker of hotel bath linen.

Technically, the border stabilises the towel's ends: it limits widthways distortion and reinforces the zone most stressed during drying and spinning. A well-woven border is a clue to manufacturing quality — check it the way you would check the hems. On hotel white, the border usually stays tone-on-tone, for a uniform look once folded.