A loom for weaving pile fabric is disclosed, including a plurality of healds for shedding warp yarns, a pile-forming reed through which said warp yarns are guided and a plurality of pile loop forming lances extending in the warp direction so that each pile-forming lance passes through an associated dent in the read, each dent being defined between a pair of spaced apart dent fingers. Each loop forming lance and at least one dent finger of said pair of dent fingers cooperate to guide lateral displacement of the loop forming lance relative to said associated dent. A first group of healds are threaded with ground forming warp yarns and the first group of healds and the loop forming lances are arranged such that the upper and lower shedding positions of said ground forming warp yarns are located below the loop forming lances. A second group of healds are threaded with loop forming pile yarns, the second group of healds and said loop forming glances being arranged such that each loop forming yarn may be moved from a lower position located beneath an associated loop forming lance to an upper position located above said associated loop forming lance. A guide system is provided for guiding movement of each loop forming warp yarn such that during movement from its lower position to its upper position it passes by one side of said associated lance and during movement from its upper position to its lower position it passes by the opposite side of said associated lance to form a loop held upon said associated lance.