The hand of this French cotton is just lovely. It's exceptionally smooth with a bit of surface sheen. Lightweight, it's woven of black crosswise threads and alternating black and white lengthwise threads, so it looks like really tiny checks. The overall impression is of a steel or charcoal grey. It wrinkles, as all cottons do, but the wrinkles seem to smooth out better than typical cottons. Make shirts, shells, tops, blouses, unstructured vests, or dresses.