Unfunded Liabilities: a/k/a The Cloth Thread

[tim_horton]

Thanks. If I took donegal out of the equation, are there any other tweed bunches you could recommend? I know tweed more from jacketing.

 

[sprout2]

If you take wool out of the equation there is a universe of fantastic moleskins and brushed cottons in that shade. Brown tweed in that color seems better for historical reenactment. Obviously if you are a groundskeeper then these comments do not apply.

 

[jerrybrowne]



Donegal might be a little too squishy for trouser wear. Consider Porter & Harding Thornprooffor most of the look with a bit more firmness.

I have two pair that wear like sweatpants. Very comfortable.

 

[tim_horton]

Thanks. Thornproof 62028 looks promising.

 

[bespokenfor]

Does anybody have any experience with guabello's 130 or 150 range. Appreciate any insight.

 

[mactire]

Looking to make up some bespoke donegal tweed trousers. Something brown, similar in color to this:



Any suggestions?

For Donegal tweed trousers it'd have to be Molloy & Sons. It's tightly woven stuff that will last as trousers.

 

[TRINI]

I'm wearing P&H Thornproof trousers right now - would recommend.

 

[dopey]

Thanks all for your suggestions in finding a black and white glencheck or other grayscale sportcoating. It was very helpful. True to form, I ignored my own intentions, the helpful advice I received, and my backup plan (the LL coops tweed). Instead, I chose a Hunters of Brora heavyweight brown and tan nailhead-like tweed that has lots of small colored flecks woven in. It wasn't my plan, but I liked it immediately, and it has the quiet look I wanted for a "city" sportcoat. I am getting it simple. 2b and flap pockets. I might reconsider and go 3 roll 2, but that's where it is, for now.

 

[mktitsworth]

Swatch pic?

Continuing with my previous post, I found a length of the 26070 and grabbed it (thanks also to those who contacted me and were generous enough to consider parting with theirs). It's not the 26072, but I don't imagine I'll be disappointed if it's what I end up having made. The more I think on things though the more I think I want to go with the Navy. I was short on time when I got to look at books, but here are some pics I grabbed (which I've put under spoiler since there are many. Thoughts?

Spoiler

Finally, (I'm sure it may have been mentioned here already in some form but) Huddersfield has been posting clearances of fabrics (between 15 and 25 GBP/Meter) on their twitter recently. There's (what looks to be) a cool 10z 60 Mohair/40 wool Navy for 20/M in the batch that was announced today.

 

[patrickBOOTH]

To me, if I was getting something in Navy I would stick to the English books. The classic stuff is what they do well. What's the point in getting Ariston, who excels in louder stuff?

 

[mktitsworth]



To me, if I was getting something in Navy I would stick to the English books. The classic stuff is what they do well. What's the point in getting Ariston, who excels in louder stuff?

Because I'm naive and I generally like the stuff I see in the Ariston books? Some of it's really loud and not my taste, but there's definitely some cool stuff in there. That's the really simple answer. Most of the books there are either Harrisson's, H&S, or Lesser.

I liked that particular Ariston because of the color (which is captured I think about as well as my photography skills allow) and the weight of it. The color is sort of midway between a navy and an air force and was very vibrant, though not shiny. My first suit from Chris is ~10oz and it's too hot to wear during the heat of high summer. Since our summers here continue to count new records of 100+ and 90+ days, this isn't totally unexpected, but given that our winters have also been milder for longer, something lighter weight seems desirable.

I also remember this in which Manton and Chris discuss their preferences and different qualities of fabric. Manton mentions that he thinks the lesser 8-9oz book is unrivaled. I believe it's also been noted that Lesser is a distributor rather than/as well as a maker of cloth, and specifically that they bought from Carlo Barbera, who made the fabric for my first suit. Ariston (supposedly) still buys from and distributes CB, whose cloth I have experience and was very satisfied with. It's expensive, and may not be what I go with, but Lesser is also expensive and at the moment I'm trying to narrow things down from a shotgun blast to a sniper shot.

 

[poorsod]

BTW **** I prefer to take a picture of the swatches I'm interested in the same frame to normalize the exposure. I find it particularly useful when comparing different shades of the same color.

 

[marcodalondra]

People keep mentioning Lesser as expensive, but to me, at least in England, it works out to be much less then Smith and Minnis etc... What is the going rate in the US?

 

[mktitsworth]

Thanks. That's an excellent suggestion. That the differences in color are skewed was something I had noticed. I was hoping though that things were still sufficient to provide the idea I'm working with to promote comment and suggestion. For example, I've been checking the Harrison's website and the picture for 31458 from the Lesser 306 book looks like the kind of thing, but I haven't seen it in person yet.

 

[Mr. Pink]

I stopped at my tailor yesterday saw this swatch sitting on his workbench. He told me one of his wealthier customers had sent a 40 year old jacket into W. Bill and asked them to duplicate it in cashmere. He had two identical jackets made of the material. Of course, he was required to pay for 20 or 30 meters, but is being reimbursed as the remainder of the run is sold. Fabric was quite beautiful in real life. Sorry for the crappy iphone pics.

Mktitsworth, I'm looking for the same sort of thing for a summer suit. I saw similar colors in both the Harrison's Cape Kid and Lesser's Golden Bale in a 240g.