Abstract: A towel is provided comprising a ground cloth having warp yarns and weft yarns in a flat weave and having first and second sides. Stripes are provided on the first and second sides of the ground cloth that are defined by alternating areas of pile loops and flat weave, the pile loops on the first side being opposed by flat weave on the second side and the flat weave on the first side being opposed by pile loops on the second side. The pile loops have a density of 60 loops per cm2. A method for manufacturing a terry towel is also provided in which the towel has a weight of less than 240 gsm using a combination of open structured 100% cotton pile yarn of finer counts with ground and weft yarns that have a proportion of synthetic fiber of from 10% to 100%; comprising: weaving a striped pattern of 100% of pile yarn on one side alternated with 100% of pile yarn on other side to create double density loop stripes, the stripes having width in the range of 2 mm to 25 mm.