Fabric or leather

This is the first real decision of a sofa purchase and it is usually made on a photograph, which is the one input that tells you nothing useful. Both look good in a picture. They behave completely differently in a house with a toddler, a dog, or a radiator under the window.

So this is organised by household rather than by material. Find the paragraph that sounds like yours.

First, what we actually sell

Worth being precise, because the trade often is not.

Our fabric sofas are made to order in any of 70 colours across six materials — chenille, plush velvet, crushed velvet, naple, marble and PVC leather — all at the same price. The fabric guide covers what each one does.

Our leather sofas are two ranges and they are genuinely different materials, which almost nobody tells you. The Roma range is real leather, blended with fabric panels — a hide, with everything that follows from that. The Nova range is tech leather: a coated synthetic that is breathable, scratch-resistant and wipes clean.

They look similar in a photograph and they behave differently in a house, so it is worth knowing which one you are looking at. It changes how the sofa ages, and it changes how you are meant to look after it.

If you have young children

Leather, comfortably. This is the least close call on the page.

The deciding factor is not spills in general, it is time. On a wipe-clean surface a spilled drink is a cloth and ten seconds and it is over. On an untreated woven fabric the outcome is decided in the first thirty seconds and sometimes it is permanent — which is why the care guide opens with what to do in that half minute.

The same goes for the things nobody warns you about: felt-tip, sticky hands, the yoghurt that goes down the side of the seat cushion and is discovered later. Tech leather in particular is scratch-resistant and takes a damp cloth without argument.

If you want fabric anyway — and plenty of people do — the honest compromise is PVC leather from the fabric library, which is a made-to-order fabric that wipes clean, or a darker chenille, which hides a great deal more than a pale velvet.

If you have a dog or a cat

More nuanced, and it depends which animal.

Dogs: leather. Hair sits on the surface and comes off with a cloth instead of working into a weave. Muddy paws wipe rather than soak. And a wet dog on fabric is a smell that lives in the filling, not on the cover, which is the part you cannot wash.

Cats: the Nova, if anything. Claws catch and pull loops in a woven fabric — a chenille or a velvet can be ruined by one determined cat in a fortnight. Real hide, so the Roma, punctures and scars and does not recover. Tech leather sits between the two: the Nova is scratch-resistant, and a smooth coated surface offers a cat far less to hook into than a pile does. It is not claw-proof, because nothing is. Give the cat something it prefers regardless.

If somebody in the house has allergies

Leather, clearly. Upholstery fabric is a textile and textiles hold dust, dander and mites in the weave; a sealed surface holds almost none, and what settles on it is wiped off rather than vacuumed out.

If it has to be fabric, vacuum weekly with the soft brush attachment and mean it. Grit and dust work into a weave whether you can see them or not.

How they feel to sit on

The point in fabric’s favour, and it is not a small one.

Fabric is warm to the touch straight away and stays a comfortable temperature. A coated surface takes the temperature of the room, so in an unheated lounge in January it is cold for the first minute, and in a conservatory in July bare legs stick to it. Tech leather is better than hide on the second of those because it is made to breathe, but it is not fabric.

Fabric also absorbs sound and softens a room. A hard floor, a large window and a coated sofa together make a living room that echoes.

How they age, honestly

This is where the tech leather distinction actually matters, and where a lot of sofa copy gets written about a material the shop is not selling.

Fabric fades in sunlight — unevenly, so the arm nearest the window goes first — and the pile flattens where people sit. Both are slow, both are gradual, and both can be pushed back a long way by rotating the cushions and keeping it out of direct sun.

Real leather — the Roma — ages the way people hope leather will. It takes marks where you actually sit and gets darker and softer there, so it does not wear evenly; it develops character in the places you use. Whether that is the point or the problem is personal, and it is the one thing tech leather cannot give you. It asks for conditioning every six to twelve months in return, which is what stops the seat creases turning into cracks.

Tech leather — the Nova — holds its colour and its finish instead. It will not darken, will not soften where you sit, and will not look better at year five than at year one; it looks consistent for a long time and then eventually shows wear at the seams and the front edge of the seat. In exchange it needs nothing but a damp cloth, ever. If “it will age beautifully” is why you were leaning towards leather, the Roma is the one you mean.

The difference that has nothing to do with the surface

Two practical consequences that catch people out, and for some households they decide it outright:

• Fabric is made to order, so the size is yours. If the alcove is 214cm, that is a solvable problem. See made to order, explained.
• Leather is stocked in set sizes, so it comes with the full 14 days. A made-to-measure fabric sofa is the standard exemption from the right to change your mind, because it is built to your specification. A stocked leather one is not.
• Only fabric can be sampled. We post three fabric swatches free, anywhere in the UK. There is no equivalent for the leather ranges, so if you want to feel those, the Blackburn showroom is the way.

Read together: fabric gives you control over the object and less room to change your mind; leather gives you less control and more room. Which of those you want depends less on the material than on how certain you are.

The short version

• Young children, a dog, or allergies — leather, or PVC leather from the fabric library if you want made-to-order sizing with a wipe-clean surface.
• A cat — tech leather over a pile fabric, but expect no material to be claw-proof.
• A cold room, a hard floor, or a specific colour in mind — fabric, and use the free samples.
• A room with an awkward measurement — fabric, because it can be built to fit.
• Not fully decided yet — leather, because it keeps your 14 days.
• Between the two leathers — Roma if you want a hide that ages into something and you will condition it twice a year; Nova if you want to wipe it and forget it. The care guide has the routine for each.

And if your house is two of these at once, which most are, tell us which two and we will give you a straight answer rather than the expensive one. Ask us.