The best Crate & Barrel sofa fabrics are not always the prettiest ones. Mr Call ranks the fabrics by real-room usefulness, starting with Crypton, then the wider performance tier, then the options to use carefully.

A sofa is not one object. It is a stack of decisions: frame, joints, springs, webbing, foam, fill, fabric, seams, and labor. This guide explains what each part does, what to look for, and where cheap construction usually hides.