Twist for Travel

Travel was relatively free of wrinkling when men could wear classic 15 ounce (or heavier) tweed like the green suit in the illustration. Unfortunately, tweed is too warm for the much of the year. And most of today's year-round worsteds wrinkle like crazy when sat upon, which means they don't travel well. But there's a twisted solution out there.

Most suit cloths, particularly the lighter worsteds, are woven of yarns combed flat, which means they will bend and stay bent. But when yarns are tightly twisted together before weaving, they bounce back into shape much more quickly, because each twist acts like a spring. The combination of twist yarns and a porous weave makes for cloth that wears cool and resists wrinkling.

Traditional fresco is perhaps the best known cloth that's made with twisted yarn. Fresco (a trademark of Hunt & Winterbotham), and its relations like CrispAire from Holland and Sherry, is made by twisting a double and a single yarn together, producing a thread that, when woven into cloth, retains its shape. Which is exactly what's required when a man faces one of those days that will begin with a flight that will be followed by a meeting that's followed in turn by another flight.

Though it's usually thought of as summer cloth, heavier weight fresco can do duty most of the year. A travelling man can be impeccable all day long with a half lined charcoal gray single breasted suit made from the 14 ounce version.

Solaro for Summer

The travelling English tailors will be visiting America again beginning next month, and I'm starting to think about queueing the next suit. One thing I know is that I want a bit of sheen in the cloth, as great summer suitings should gleam when the sun is shining. And to that end I'm pondering a Solaro suit for summer (our summer starts in September so it's the right time to be ordering clothing for that season).

A trademarked weave of Smith and Co (Woollens), Solaro is an open weave 11/12 ounce cloth that's actually heavier than most men's winter suits. It's the open weave that's important for summer wear in mild temperatures (I'm using the term summer in the English sense - Solaro would be too warm for truly scorching temperatures but that's OK as it never gets truly hot in the City) because it lets air flow through the cloth so it wears cool. Notice the red tinge to the weaves in the photo from The London Lounge)

That's because the underside of the weave is red to reflect the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Some unknown traveller first observed that natives in the tropics often used red and orange linings in their clothing to protect their skin and the idea eventually made it to Smith's, which turned it into a hard finished suiting that resists wrinkling. This photo is also from The London Lounge.


The final photo is one that I borrowed from the web site of Marc Guyot. His suit's styling is a bit extreme for my taste, but it illustrates how sunlight brings out the red threads in the cloth. It's a sophisticated look that's rooted in the past, just as I like it.


Of course, I won't be getting hacking pockets or cloth covered buttons, and I may be able to resist the lime green necktie. But I'll take the sunshine and the sea to show off my Solaro.

The Cloth of Kings

This time of year I give thanks for Saxony, a soft and elastic woolen with a smooth finish, once known as the cloth of the English kings after their predilection for suits from it.

Saxony was originally woven in the West of England from short staple wool sheared from Saxon sheep (it now comes from their Australian descendents); it's the polar opposite of the coarser but more lustrous Scottish Cheviot.

Saxony is used for trousers, suits, and overcoats. It is often woven as a glen check, which is how I came to know it. Those English kings seemed to me to have wardrobes full of beautiful glen check suits that were too casual for business dress but just right for a sporting event.

If I could have only one suit, it would be a vested three button in a 13 ounce black and white glen check Saxony with a rust overcheck. The bit of orange blends perfectly with a pair of chestnut colored shoes.

Much Ado About Cloth

It seems to me that there's a fundamental misunderstanding about Super-numbered cloth. People are worrying over it because they are concerned that it doesn't "wear." I have to ask, "Compared to what?"

Luxurious feel (known as the "hand") is what has made the Supers so popular and the suit is a luxury item for many men. They own a few that they wear on special occasions and aren't worried about them holding up for years under a once a week pounding. As more and more men indulge themselves in more expensive suits with a more luxurious feel, the wool industry has been encouraged to take greater care of Merino sheep that yield the finest fibre and to sort those fibres into separate lots. The finer the hair, the higher the Super number and the higher price for it when it becomes cloth.

Now walk into the nearest Nieman Marcus and look at the suits on the rack. Some may be cashmere, or cashmere blends. The rest, at least the ones worth discussing, are made of wool. And, until the invention of the Super grading system, "wool" was the only information the consumer was given. The supplier of the cloth doesn't matter at the point of sale because it is not specified, but the Super number does matter because the higher the number, the higher the price. At the high end, the Super 170s suit from a good source commands thousands more than the unlabelled one in the next rack. And if you don't care about Super numerology, the only other cloth-related considerations are color and pattern. The only thing a consumer can do to compare the expected life from one maker's Super 120 cloth from an anonymous mill with another maker's Super 140 from another anonymous mill is guess, and probably guess wrong.

He'll guess wrong because where there's money involved there's a lot of mis-labelling and mis-direction. The UK has a grading system but the Italians, Chinese and Indian mills often don't pay any attention to it. And the width of the fibre is but one consideration in durability. Weave, for example, is another. I'll take Barbera cloth of any Super number for durability over Loro Piana versions any day because Barbera uses a traditional 2x2 weave and Loro Piana sometimes compromises. I had one of those compromises split, unstressed, at the hip on the third wearing.

Leaving Nieman's, walk into the nearest bespoke tailor and look at the cloth selection. Every bunch is identified by source, weave and weight. Most men of my acquaintance spend more time considering the choice of cloth for their next bespoke suit than they do any other detail. They're not thinking just about color and pattern either, but weight, weave, surface interest, guts and the reputation of who made it in addition to the hand. If they want a Super they can have one (many tailors charge no more for most of them than they ask for non-Super cloth), or they can make their choice based on the other criteria. Most do.

I have to conclude that the Super number provides useful information for ready to wear suits, in that it's just about all the information that a buyer can get his hands on. And it's one of a portfolio of considerations that a man can take into account when he is choosing his own cloth. But in my opinion, questioning its durability is much ado about very little for the ready to wear buyer that represents 99% of the market for suits.