Fabrics and Construction — What You Are Actually Paying For
Two suits can look identical on a hanger and differ tenfold in price. In Bangkok, they frequently do. Almost nobody explains why, so here it is.
There are only two things that matter: what the cloth is made of, and how the jacket is built underneath. Everything else — the lining, the buttons, the shop’s carpet — is mostly decoration.
Part one — the cloth
What we don’t use
We don’t make suits from pure synthetics. That’s the polyester and polyester-viscose cloth often behind the cheapest suits you can buy. It’s inexpensive and it typically experiences very little creasing, and those are the only two things it has going for it. It doesn’t breathe, which in this climate is not a small point. It shines at the elbow and seat under wear. And once the shape has gone, it can’t really be pressed back. Essentially, it doesn’t age, it just wears out.
Wool blends – $$
Mostly wool, with a proportion of something else woven in for resilience. A lot of good, sensible suits sit here, and there’s a reason for that.
Blends have a bad name because the word gets used to hide cheap cloth behind a wool label. But a high-wool blend from a mill that knows its business is a genuinely practical suit – it breathes most of the way a pure wool does, it holds a crease harder, and it survives being worn five days a week better than fine wool will.
If you need one suit that works every day and you’d rather not think about it, this is often the right answer, and we’ll tell you so rather than talk you upwards.
What matters is the wool content and the mill. That’s a question worth asking anywhere you shop – and if you don’t get a straight number back, that’s your answer.
Pure wool – $$
100% wool, typically Super 110’s to 120’s. Breathes better than any blend, recovers its shape overnight on a hanger, takes a press, lasts years rather than seasons. For most people buying a suit they’ll care about, this is the correct answer.
Fine wool – $$$
Super 130’s to 150’s, European mills. The higher the Super count, the finer the individual fibre. A lighter cloth with more drape and a softer hand. It also means a more delicate cloth. A Super 150’s suit hangs beautifully but will not survive being worn five days a week. If someone tells you a higher number is simply better, they are selling and not advising.
Linen – $$ to $$$
Linen is the most breathable cloth you can wear in Thailand and for hot summers abroad. It’s also one of the most misunderstood fabrics.
Linen creases because the fibre is stiff and hollow. This is the same property that lets it breathe, and it’s important to understand that the creasing isn’t a defect. If it bothers you, a wool-linen or cotton-linen blend gives you much of the airflow with less of the creasing.
Part two – the construction
This is the part nobody sees, nobody asks about, and it matters just as much as the cloth – sometimes even more so.
Half-canvassed – $$
A layer of canvas is stitched, not glued, through the chest and lapel. The lapel rolls properly instead of folding flat. The chest moves with you and keeps moving with you in five years’ time.
This is what we build for most of our clients.
Fully-canvassed – $$$
Canvas stitched through the entire front of the jacket, floating between cloth and lining. It takes considerably longer to make, and that time is the only real cost of it.
What you get is a jacket that moulds to your chest over the first year of wearing it and then stays that way. It becomes yours in a way nothing else does. If you’re having one suit made properly and you have the time, this is what to do with it.
Read more about canvassed construction.
If you’re in a hurry
A fused jacket – the front glued to an interlining rather than stitched – is typically the only way anyone makes a suit in twenty-four hours. It’s how most inexpensive suits are made anywhere in the world.
If you fly tomorrow and there’s genuinely no other option, tell us and we’ll be straight with you about what you’re getting and how it will behave over time. But it isn’t what we build, and if you have five or six days, we’d much rather use them carefully.
So what should you choose?
If you’re buying one custom suit and you’ll wear it regularly: a good wool blend or pure wool, half-canvassed. It will outlast anything finer that you wear too often.
If you’re building a wardrobe: start there, then go finer for the pieces you’ll be rotating.
If you already own good suits and know what you like: come in and bring your favourite jacket. We’ll read it and tell you what it is and what you may wish to get next.
We invite you to come in, tell us what the suit is for, handle the cloth, and we’ll quote you honestly for exactly the thing you want. If your budget suits a different tier than the one you asked about, we’ll say that too.