Some Materials Used In Mens Suits
Here is a comprehensive list of all materials and accessories used in making and building mens and womens custom made business suits -
There are basically 2 types of canvass used, each type has a like medium & hard grade. Depending on the original consultation & the cloth, this would depend on what canvass would be used & what grade. The basic 2 grades used are woolen canvass & linning canvass
Hair Cloth
There are several different types of hair cloth used of numerous grades. I personaly use about 10 different grades depending on the construction of the coat & the weight of the cloth, shall we say for simplicity number 1 grade is very lightweight number 2 is slightly heavier & number 10 is obviously the heaviest. Again, taking the cloth & the customers original consultation into account I would chose the most appropriate hair cloth.
This is a fine cloth used to cover the hair cloth over the canvass stopping the hair cloth coming through the canvass & cloth. Some of the older tailors still do not use Domette but prefer using felt (please advise these tailors that it is now 2004 & cloth has changed in the last decade. Customer don’t just want to look good but also feel good in what they are wearing).
There are dozens of types of body lining to chose from, again depending on the original consultation you may chose to have a pure silk lining or
Acetate Poult - Black, White, Ivory and Greige
Acetate Microfibre Lining
Acetate/Bemberg Lining
Acetate/Viscose Satin Lining
Bemberg 100% Ponginette Lining
Bemberg Taffeta Shot Lining
Bemberg Twill Lining
Silk/Viscose Linings
Viscose/Acetate Shot Twill Lining
Viscose Rayon Heavy Twill - Military Cols.
Viscose S/L Regency Stripes
Viscose Satin Lining - Tailoring shades
Viscose Twill Lining
Ermazine Lining – Viscose
Coloured Linnings
There are several types of linen, again this would depend on the cloth. The linen is commonly used on the backing of the pockets for strength & in the cuffs where the button holes & the buttons are sewn. It can also be used at the bottom of the jacket, on the back neck & on the back syes.
Yes…. You’ve guessed it, there are several different types & grades & also colours. We prefer to generally use a medium weight pocketing with matching colour to the garment. More information on request as I have a personal fettish on pocketing
Collar Melton
This can be found under your collar, it is the felt like cloth which is one of 2 pieces to complete the under collar (Collar Canvass being the second part). This should always be cut on the bias & generally be of similar colour to the cloth. This is not to say you could not use a red colour melton on a blue or black jacket & create a feature of it.
There are basically 3 types of collar canvass, type 1 is a linen canvass cut on the bias generally used by Anderson & Sheppard (Savile Row). This creates a very soft collar, unfortunately it can also look a little messy in my opinion if done wrong. Type 2 is a medium grade canvass which is much stiffer & type 3 is a slightly harder canvass from type 2.
When trying a garment on for the first time, generally it will look brownish in colour on your fitting, this is the collar canvass.
Stay tape is used on the front edges of the coat, generally it would be made from linen. It is to help the front edges not to stretch or twist & should always be sewn on by hand. You will probably never see this as the facings would be sewn on for your next fitting.
This is a pre-made wadding specifically used to go around the sleeve head when finished. It is sleeve head wadding that gives the roundness to a sleeve around your shoulders. In 22 years of tailoring, only 1 company does not use this method – Anderson & Sheppard who uses a small piece of domette cut on the bias with a small strip of wadding inside & folded thus giving the soft round shoulders & sleeve head which have made Anderson & Sheppard famous.
As a company I have a choice of over 5000 shoulder pads, we have chosen to use 3 pads that are made exclusively for us & re modeled by each of our tailor to our individual requirements. Again, Anderson & Sheppard do not use (well they didn’t use, not saying they don’t now use….. but not saying they don’t use shoulder pads) to simply say they use wadding covered by a piece of lining which they call a ‘shoulder pad’ giving that soft shoulder look.
Button twist is used to make button holes, there a thousands of colours, but generally most tailors will only use 1 or 2 makes for the simple reason of quality of twist.
This is used when making button holes. The gimp is placed along the button hole & the button twist is sewn around the gimp giving the button hole a slightly stiffer finish. There are several different grades of gimp.
Sewing silk is used on hand sewing, your linings will be sewn with sewing silk, the under collar where the melton attaches itself to the cloth is also sewn with sewing silk, but can also be used to sew shoulders & sleeves by hand.
By Darren - the Saville Row Custom Tailor
