Cloth
Laminate
A cloth glued in layers, with the load-bearing fibres laid along the load.
A laminate is not woven. It is a sandwich: films, taffetas and an array of straight, unbent load-bearing fibres, bonded together. Because the fibres are laid dead straight — rather than crimped over and under each other as in a weave — they take load without first straightening out. So a laminate stretches far less than a woven cloth of the same weight, and holds its shape.
That is the whole appeal, and it is why laminates and radial cuts belong together: put the fibres along the load lines and the fanned panels along the fibres.
The costs are real and worth stating plainly: laminates are less tolerant of being flogged and folded, less friendly to UV, and their life is shorter. They are a performance choice, not a durability one.