French Terry vs Fleece vs Waffle Knit: What's the Difference?

October 22, 2026 C.B. Shaw

What's the difference between French terry, fleece and waffle knit? French terry is a knit with a smooth face and small loops on the back, usually cotton or a cotton blend. Fleece is a fuzzy, napped fabric, most often polyester. Waffle knit has a raised grid texture, like a waffle, created by how the loops are knitted. All three show up in hoodies, sweatshirts and loungewear, and they feel nothing alike. This guide explains each one and gives you the history other pages leave out, including the fabric nobody patented and the forgotten inventor behind your bath towel.

Straight talk up front: the weights and warmth rankings you see online are mostly marketing. Where we found a trustworthy number, we use it. Where we didn't, we tell you instead of dressing a guess up in a lab coat.

The three fabrics

	French terry	Fleece	Waffle knit
Construction	Smooth outside, loops inside	Napped (brushed) surface	Knit with tucked loops that form a grid of raised squares
Typical fiber	Cotton or cotton blend, sometimes with 3 to 10 percent elastane	Polyester (polar fleece)	Cotton or a cotton blend are common
Typical use	Hoodies, sweatshirts, joggers, loungewear	Jackets, pullovers, blankets	Thermal tops, henleys, loungewear

French terry details come from a fabric supplier's wiki (not a lab, so grain of salt). It lists approximate weights: light 180 to 220 gsm (about 5.3 to 6.5 oz), standard 220 to 300 gsm (6.5 to 8.8 oz) and heavy 300 to 450 gsm (8.8 to 13.3 oz). For fleece and waffle, no reputable weight chart turned up, so we won't invent one. If gsm is new to you, read what GSM means. Waffle knit, per Wikipedia, is knitted on a double-jersey machine by tucking loops, and is also called thermal fabric in “big” and “mini” waffle sizes. Woven waffle is a different animal, made with warp and weft floats.

Which is warmest?

Nobody has run a fair head-to-head, so anyone who hands you a ranking is guessing. The popular line that waffle's honeycomb “traps air” is unproven: the one source we read points to absorbency and quick drying, not insulation. Fleece is sold as the insulator, and it earns the reputation, but there's no test pitting it against the others. Pilling is better documented: Wikipedia notes lower-quality polyester fleece is prone to pilling (see why shirts pill).

Fleece: the fabric nobody patented

Polar fleece was developed by Malden Mills and Patagonia in Massachusetts, initially under the name Synchilla, according to Wikipedia, which dates it to 1979. Polartec, the company that inherited the Malden Mills fabric, dates the invention of synthetic fleece to 1981. The sources disagree, so call it the late 1970s to early 1980s. Polartec says the Patagonia Synchilla Snap-T pullover debuted in 1985.

Here's the under-told part: Wikipedia says Malden Mills CEO Aaron Feuerstein intentionally declined to patent fleece, which is why every brand could sell it. Imagine skipping the patent on a fabric the whole world ends up wearing. That's either the worst business call in textile history or the most generous one. (We didn't open the references behind that line, so treat it as likely rather than carved in stone.)

Was fleece invented from soda bottles?

No. Polyester fleece came first. Recycled content came later: the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1995 that Wellman began making higher-quality recycled polyester from PET soda bottles in 1993, and that Patagonia converted most of its Synchilla line to recycled fiber, keeping 8 million bottles out of landfills that year. Polartec says the first fleece with recycled content launched in 1993, but that's the company's own claim. The popular “about 25 bottles per jacket” number never held up in our sources, so it stays out. For polyester basics, see what PET, PTT and PBT mean.

Terry cloth: a forgotten inventor

Looped-pile weaving is ancient. The claim that linen terry dates to 4000 BCE is tagged “citation needed” on Wikipedia, so it's a nice story, not a fact. What we can source is the industrial story. Wikipedia's article on weaver Samuel Holt says Henry Christy of W M Christy & Co saw hand-woven Turkish towels in Ottoman Turkey in the 1840s and brought home a swatch. Holt's first machine ran in 1848, and a two-warp design followed in 1851 (UK Patent 13572, March 24, 1851). Queen Victoria ordered six dozen towels on April 14, 1851 and endorsed them as “Royal Turkish Towels.” Holt assigned his patents to the firm in 1860 for an annual payment of 30 pounds. Sources differ on the exact start (one says industrial production began in 1850), so say “late 1840s to 1851.” The knit form, loopwheel terry, was invented in the 1920s, and terry became popular in the US after World War I, per Wikipedia.

Waffle thermals: who made them first?

The trail goes cold. We found nothing reputable on who invented waffle-knit thermals, and we won't repeat the brand origin stories that couldn't be backed up. What is sourced: Stanfield's Unshrinkable Underwear began in Truro, Nova Scotia in 1898, and union suits were the most-purchased military underwear from 1914 to mid-1918.

Care

Care advice here comes from a supplier wiki: wash cold or gentle, avoid bleach and softener (softener can flatten loops), tumble low or line dry, and expect some shrinkage on cotton unless it was preshrunk. For heat and temperature basics, see which wash temperature to use.

Fabric myths, graded

“Fleece was invented from bottles.” False. Polyester fleece came first.
“Waffle's honeycomb traps air so it's warmer.” Unproven.
“Terry cloth is 6,000 years old.” Unproven.
“Patagonia patented fleece.” False per Wikipedia, which says Malden Mills declined to patent it.