The shear strength enhancement under moderate out-of-plane respectively through-thickness compression is experimentally affirmed in biaxial testings (τ31/σ3−-testing). This phenomenological evidence can reliably be described either by maximum strain failure criteria or by an invariant based failure criterion. Nevertheless their scale is macroscopic and they all neglect the influence of the fabric architecture and stress interactions on the failure behaviour. Thus a representative volume element (RVE) analysis on meso scale of three different plain weave fabrics has been conducted to investigate the influence of higher ondulation and nesting on the failure occurrence.