I was leafing through Bernhard Roetzel's book Gentleman last week and stopped to admire the corduroy suit in the cover photo. Now, I've been admiring that suit for years but I've always been of two minds about it, and corduroy suits generally.
First, of course, they can be pretty good looking on a cool weather weekend or holiday paired with bluchers, a checked shirt and a country necktie, though anything less than 15 ounce corduroy is going to wrinkle relatively easily. Rumples aside, the late Duke of Windsor was photographed many times wearing lightweight needlecord corduroy suits in Florida's winters for example and he was by no means the only one.
No, the knock I've always had about corduroy is purely economic. As my tailor said to me years ago, it costs just as much to make a corduroy jacket as a wool one, but the corduroy will last less than half as long. But that argument applies equally well to seersucker suits so I guess I'm going to drop my objection.
Maybe next year.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The Corduroy Suit
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9 comments:
The same applies to linen, cotton, seersucker and lots of other less hardy cloths.
Maybe a good reason to buy off the peg, or to go with MTM or a Hong Kong tailor instead of high end bespoke.
I’ve always loved corduroy and corduroy jackets and suits. Quite a few years back, I had my CMT make an olive corduroy suit from mid-wale corduroy with common details like patch-flapped pockets and leather buttons. SB 3 button, just two pieces. I don’t recall the weight, but it came from a good house, perhaps Scabal. This is a dense cotton corduroy with a substantial percentage of wool added. The wool does wonders for wrinkles and wear.
Not to gainsay your tailor, but it has worn like iron. I certainly don’t ever expect to wear it out, and excepting heavy and continual wear, I doubt anyone else could. I suspect tha a man who has an ample wardrobe and rotates his wearings would give his away before throwing it out.
A linen suit will live about as long as a wool one IMO, as will silk. And I would use MTM for any cotton suit, overlarge armholes or not.
What about a wool corduroy?
There is only one weaver of wool corduroy to the best of my knowledge and Southwick or some similar entity has the exclusive. I couldn't find a way to buy a suit length of it when I looked half-heartedly some months ago.
If you can find it, it should perform like any wool.
So just to clarify, all y'all think a seersucker should be bought off the peg?
Don't know if you can tell, but I'm from the South and now seems like the time to buy such a suit as it would likely be on sale.
Scabal sells a cotton/cashmere blend that I'm eager to give a sniff test on. It's enough off the beaten path that traveling tailors tend not to bring it with them, but I'm sure it could be found in London.
The issue of wear is not a very serious one, IMO. First of all, some fraying is part of the charm.
Second, if you wear it only on weekends, and perhaps only during the day every other weekend in cool weather, you're looking at maybe a dozen wearings/year and one or two cleanings and pressings. That can go on for a while: you'll likely get bored of the color or change your waist size before you get any meaningful decay.
The real question is what weight-- I've been experimenting with 22oz trousers which look great and really don't wrinkle a lot. They are immensely heavy, however, especially in the slightly larger size dictated by the material's thickness. Waist needs to be as tight as possible, and even then it's an adventure getting your belt on before they slip around your ankles. Such fabric could end up making a pretty bulky jacket, and not at all helpful in >70F weather.
For cotton and corduroy, I've stuck to off the peg in a slim cut and had it altered within an inch of it's life. It works well enough given the lifespan of the thing. But you can feel the difference.
I think that you are wrong - I don't think it's a corduroy suit at all. I think it's an odd jacket and cord trousers.
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