The Cloth Club

About two years ago, Michael Alden of The London Lounge web site wanted a flannel suit in a large format Prince of Wales check and couldn't find suitable cloth anywhere. He solicited a dozen other London Lounge members to join him and have a length of the cloth woven to his specification. The success of that first project was the stimulus for The Cloth Club, perhaps the world's only informal organization commissioning custom weaving of cloth for classic men's clothing.

Fifty years ago, tailors accounted for much of the consumption of suiting cloth, and the cloth merchants offered them a wide variety of patterns and weaves. Today, the cloth suppliers focus on the ready to wear market, whose long production runs are incompatible with unique fabrics. They weave plenty of blues and grays but fewer of the patterned suitings of the past.

By commissioning its own cloth, The Cloth Club is doing what some of the large tailoring houses have done for years. Savile Row's Anderson & Sheppard usually offers several specially commissioned worsteds and Huntsman is famed for its house tweeds while Mariano Rubinacci of Naples is known for his house hopsacks. The difference of course is that Cloth Club members can take their fabric to the tailor of their choice for a "cut, make, & trim, " the tailoring term for the process of making a garment from customer-provided cloth.

Since the first commission, The Cloth Club has delivered a large scale black and white glen check tweed, and a gray flannel with a large blue overcheck, pictured in the drawing at the upper left. Current projects include a gray flannel with a blue windowpane called 'Eden in Paris' after the drawing to the lower left, a gun club tweed for odd jackets, an off-white flannel trouser cloth with blue and gray accents, and a striped worsted suiting.

To inquire about participation in The Cloth Club, contact Michael Alden through the web site.