• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Summer business suit materials

Concordia

Distinguished Member
Dubiously Honored
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
7,694
Reaction score
1,657
cool. I honestly do not remember having ever noticed a suit in that kind of fabric. I have seen sports coats, though.

what cut of suit would be appropriate in that fabric, please?
Tailors on the board and more knowledgeable folk should feel free to sound off.

My current effort is a standard DB suit from A&S-- very soft and light. That fabric is also much finer and less "sport-jackety" than the Holland & Sherry bunch.

I have another in the works that is 2-ply and therefore a little fuzzier and heavier, albeit with a lot of holes in it. Solid grey DB. We'll see if the coolness/wrinkle-free tradeoff continues to be satisfactory.

One that really intrigued me, and may be on the next round of summer suits, was a 12-ounce chalk stripe (navy or medium grey-- not pictured). For some reason, the chalk stripes mitigated the fuzziness of the surface, evoking the look of flannel even though it was obviously quite a different animal. Could do that one in DB, but in the interests of ventilation might go for a 2.5-button with rather soft shoulders and no lining.
 

Horace

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2004
Messages
1,437
Reaction score
1
We've had a few threads lately about summer suits.  I'm curious what materials people favor.  I currently have only one suit that I consider business-appropriate, which is a dark tan tropical weight wool.  I've been thinking of getting one or two more suits for wear on very hot days.  While I've always been intrigued by cotton summer suits, they don't seem like a practical choice for a business suit.  Anyone have a favorite wrinkle-resistant material for the summer?
I don't favor the wrinkle-free stuff. I mean, I'd rather just let it wrinkle. Same with "stain-resistant" fabrics.

For summer suitings, I've taken tropical weight wool -- I've gone bespoke in Hong Kong and really have been pleased.

You can also get good summer suits at the Andover shop.

I've gone poplin -- but beware of a poplin blend -- I have a Brooks poplin blend and it doesn't breathe well. Or I don't breathe within it, rather.

I also like linen. I know it's informal but so was the idea of working in the city during summer months.



(I was talking to an old school friend who remarked to me, rather naively, last summer, "everyone's left New York for the summer". Poor idiot).
 

Horace

Distinguished Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2004
Messages
1,437
Reaction score
1
Eeenteresting.

I have a very lightly constructed jacket in a silk/linen/wool blend.  Not sure how it would look at the end of a business day, though.

What ever happend to Palm Beach Cloth?
Is there even anything like Palm Beach cloth still being made in the US?

Or even overseas? The London Lounge Cloth Club might do something interesting with lightweight fabrics soon.
 

retronotmetro

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 5, 2004
Messages
1,586
Reaction score
24
The wool fresco seems like an intriguing choice. I also wonder how much difference a quarter-lined or half-lined coat would make on the lighter weight wools that I typically get.

Seersucker has no appeal to me because the commonly available seersucker is always in light color combinations that look like crap on me (too low contrast). It would also draw entirely too much attention to me in my particular business and location (LA, litigator at large firm).

I think wrinkle tolerance is pretty much an individual thing--I don't have it. I have a couple of linen shirts and one linen sport coat, and can't ever get over the "damn this is wrinkled" hurdle, so I can't picture myself splurging on a linen suit. I'm kind of ambivalent on whether I'd want to walk into court or important meetings wearing linen.
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 35.5%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 60 38.7%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.0%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 27 17.4%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 28 18.1%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,162
Messages
10,579,087
Members
223,884
Latest member
mickspilloto
Top