Choosing Between Upholstery Fabrics

In trying to research upholstery fabrics for reupholstering sofas I have found it very confusing. I need to make a selection in next day or so and really confused! Needing a neutral fabric which basically reads as a solid color, but yet isn't going to look too blah.
1) Many of the fabrics are 100% polyester with the "S" code. Are these fabrics going to show oily spots and be hard to keep clean? Some have a nice "hand" to them. Are todays polyesters going to pill much or stain much? What are the pros and cons of 100% polyester?
2) People say to get a blend - and suggest Poly-cotton. What would be acceptable percents of the polyester and the cotton? Will cleaning oil spots, arm rest soil, etc. be an issue?
3) Many upholsterers and cleaning professionals have said stay away from anything with Rayon and viscose which is a rayon product. What are your thoughts. Seems there are sooooo.... many rayon blends on the market. Your thoughts????? If rayon is in the blend, how much would be acceptable?
4) Acrylic I have heard is not that great and often causes pilling. Thoughts???
5) For what I need done Crypton gets a little too thick.
Whatever advice you can give me will be extremely appreciated. Seems I can't find a fabric that is a winner!

Cleaning Code "S" is 'dry cleaning fluids only' and very common in the fabrics, water-based cleaning (and never steam clean) can wrinkle fabrics and set stains, so they usually do specify 'S' to be safe. Any 100 % man-made fabric will pill over time. To avoid that, try to get a blend with some natural materials in the mix (cotton, wool, linen). The reason there are so many man-made fabrics out there is they're cheap - and folks like cheap, plain and simple. Your very best fabrics are blends of all natural materials and they usually come out of Europe, but now you are in the $ 100 a yard and up range, and that creates a lot of price resistance. There really is no percentage formula that i'm aware of as to what ratios of blends are ideal - if there is I've never seen it.

Selecting a fabric is never easy, because you are usually balancing performance/style vs overall cost of the build. Manufacturers of upholstery almost never put high quality fabrics in their offerings as it turns off the price sensitive consumer so your choices from most makers in fabrics range from mediocre to poor. That keeps the price down and limits your options to mostly man-made fabrics with perhaps some percentage of a cotton blend.

If you ever want 'the good stuff' for a special piece, you go to the Design Centers that are in most major US cities and look at F. Shumacher, Robert Allen, Scalamandre, Pindler & Pindler, etc. They have the natural blends and the $ 100 + per yard price tags, but there is a difference and you can see it, feel it, and they last a long time. In 1987 I covered a Chippendale Sofa in a costly Greeff Fabric made in Belgium that was a wool/cotton/linen blend in a red pattern on pattern. In 1987 that fabric was $ 85 a yard! It has been the best sofa for our home and now 27 years later it shows some sun fade on the upper back, but is otherwise solid and still handsome with no wear and no stains. Like most things, you do get what you pay for.

At least when reupholstering you can more readily get *some* relevant information about the likely performance of your fabrics. The swatches provided by the jobbers generally come with some data from the mills, such as double rubs.
Less information is provided when you buy from the furniture manufacturers. Usually. In my recent experience.

As for stain resistance, pilling, etc, I hope you have better luck finding out than I did. There is plenty of generic "rule of thumb" information printed about the characteristics of the "pure" materials. Usually produced many years ago, hence ignoring probably significant advances in materials science and fabrication.

Then there is the general situation in practice, where one type of material is relatively poor in some characteristic, but in the particular fabric being considered, that material is blended with something else specifically to alleviate this deficiency. And then, on top of that, it receives some coating/treatment at the mill. So then how does the specific fabric ultimately perform, given this specific blend? Who knows. No performance data (other than double rubs) is provided, usually. And such data would necessarily be fabric-specific, since so many are different blends of different materials in different proportions. Aside from other differences: eg weave density.

I guess one thing you could do is order a big swatch of a particular fabric of interest and then torture it yourself, at home. To the limited extent you can. But you could spend the rest of your life trying to get your furniture reupholstered if you have to go through a lot of swatches this way.

These days, there are plenty of synthetic blends that are very expensive, and purported to perform very well, not just natural materials it seems. ( I almost bought a Kravet synthetic blend, till I determined that, at $150 per yard, the resulting reupholstery job would be as costly as buying a new couch, with uncertain results.) Moreover, IIRC some of the very expensive natural materials actually are relatively delicate, on one measure or another. I didnt come away with any general notion that some materials were necessarily always "better" than some others, on all relevant parameters. It's more of a balancing act, it seemed to me.

There are discounters of expensive fabrics of the major jobbers on the 'net. Their websites can give you an overview of what's available and their prices. While still not answering all your questions. Because only the mills or the fabricators know all the actual answers for real, if they even tested all these features in each case. And they don't provide the information.
As far as I could find.

drcollie and needstuff thank you for your comments. I am going to add more for you and others to respond to!!
The fabric I need is for 2 tight back Hickory Chair camel back sofas. I need a total of 30 yds fabric if it doesn't need to be matched. There is only one cushion and it is 59" long. I would like fabric that can be railroaded to eliminate seams. I want a fabric that will not stretch and leave the look of wrinkles and excess fabric on the cushion. The cushions are down wrapped and fairly firm. Will railroading the fabric be likely to get that "excess fabric, not tight look" on the cushions? With several $$$$ into this I don 't want to make a mistake.
So what do you suggest for upholstery fabric? and/or want to caution about. I will have these til I go to my grave!
I appreciate any advice.

Most fabrics, especially better ones, are designed to go 'up the bolt'. Usually its the cheaper ones that are made to go railroaded or else a dead plain - patternless material. I'd not get hung up on seams on the long cushion, its not a fault, just a characteristic of a 54" wide bolt of material. I expect to see then in a camel back sofa in particular, actually. Better materials tend to have less stretch in them - you can usually pull hard on the swatch and see if its going to stretch. Good luck.

Sensuede is a fabric I heard Calico Corners sells. The employee I visited with said it runs about $99 a yard. At $99 a yard is that fabric worthy of that price? Is it a really great fabric as far as quality, appearance, touch, and upkeep? Can it be railroaded? Anyone have Sensuede??? What are your thoughts?