Cloth – Permanent Style

I was up in Yorkshire last week, based in Huddersfield and seeing a few of the mills and merchants, including Pennine, Johnsons and Dugdale.

What struck me hardest when I got back was the lack of understanding among bespoke customers, and even Savile Row tailors, about how the mills, the merchants and the various brands on the cloth books relate to each other. The front of house at one Row tailor thought Dugdale wove their own cloth, while most admitted they had never been up to see any of the processes – which leads to myths about the finishing, among other things.

This first post, then, will set out the various players in Yorkshire and their relationships.

Mills and cloth merchants are largely separate. The mill weaves the cloth, often for many different merchants and to their designs and specifications. So going around Pennine, for example, which is probably the highest quality mill in Yorkshire, you will see Dormeuil and Dugdale cloth being woven on the same looms. There is no difference in the weaving process, just the yarn that goes into it and the set of the weave.

There is then the finishing, which I will go into in a separate post. WT Johnson’s (below) and Holmfirth are the most significant fine worsted finishers remaining, though a re-vitalised Herbert Roberts is also improving.

The merchants perform a very important role. They come up with the designs, they hold the stock and they sell to the tailors (or indeed made-to-measure and RTW brands). They make big investments for gradual returns – it usually costs between £100,000 and £200,000 to lay down a bunch, with one or two ‘pieces’ (around 70m on average) being woven for each swatch.

In recent years, mills such as Taylor & Lodge have been putting out their own bunches, which confuses things slightly. Rather like how Bresciani or Drake’s have started selling their socks and ties directly to the customer, this muddies the waters slightly and creates some tensions in the industry. It’s even more complicated at shows such as Premier Vision, where someone like Gucci might be buying cloth from both mills and merchants.

Some merchants also own their own production. Scabal, for example, owns the Bower Roebuck mill, which then produces 99% for Scabal. And Holland & Sherry, which is now owned by the Tom James group of travelling tailors in the US, has a lot of its cloth woven by the Chilean mills that are also part of that US group. In fact, that organisation is entirely vertically integrated, from (Chilean) sheep to tailor.

Back to England, the remaining looming sheds weaving suitings in Yorkshire are:

Pennine
Bower Roebuck (owned by Scabal)
C&J Antich & Sons
Bulmer & Lumb (incorporating old mill names Taylor & Lodge, Arthur Harrison, Kaye & Stewart and Edwin Woodhouse)
Gamma Beta (incorporating Hield and Moxon)
Luxury Fabric (incorporating John Foster, William Halstead and Joshua Ellis

Merchants often weave with more than one mill – Dugdale’s uses three, for example.

And the major merchants with operations in the UK are:

Holland & Sherry (owned by the US Tom James group)
LBD Harrison’s (owned by the Dunsford family in Exeter)

LBD bought Harrison’s a while ago, and also now owns the Lesser’s name and Porter & Harding

Smith’s (only English merchant based in London)

Owns W Bill

Dugdale (only merchant still in the centre of Huddersfield)

Owns Thomas Fisher and Duffin & Peace names

Huddersfield Fine Worsteds (Owned by US distributors HMS)

Owns Minnis, John G Hardy, Hunt & Winterbotham

Brook Taverner
Bateman & Ogden
Scabal
Dormeuil

One more complication: more progressive merchants often have a middle man between the merchant the mill, who is in charge of sourcing the yarn and arranging and managing the production. Someone like Dugdale has three individuals that do this specialising in different types of cloth. Dormeuil, on the other hand, has a separate company – Minova – that does it and is often confused for a mill itself.

I won’t get into the Italian mills, not least because I’ve only visited a couple, but generally they have their own brands (Cerruti, Barberis, Zegna), so there isn’t the English split between merchant and mill. They also weave for others (including many English merchants who still put ‘Made in England’ on their bunches) and have regional distributors (eg Dugdale distributes branded Cerruti cloth).

The wonderful Keith Charnock of Dugdale & Sons

Photography: Luke Carby

As I mentioned in my previous post on Yorkshire mills and merchants, Pennine is one of the best independent mills left in the area. It is also the largest worsted weaver in the UK, with 32 Dornier looms, and weaves 30,000-35,000 metres a week (most for RTW). It reinvests at least 10% of its turnover every year, and recently bought only the second drawing-in machine in Europe – the first went to Cerruti in Italy.

Walking around the mill, you will see basic Super 80s twill on the same looms as Super 180s with cashmere. Finer cloth is generally woven slower, but otherwise there is no difference in the weaving process for these cloths. The difference is in the fineness (Super 100s number), the way the yarn is spun, the set of the weave (2×2, 2×1 and other factors) and then, elsewhere, the finishing.

Pennine weaves for most of the big merchants, including Dugdale and Holland & Sherry, and Dormeuil puts around 85% of its cloth through here. Interestingly, though, the trend in recent years has been for smaller and smaller lengths of cloth. Pennine’s minimum is only 15 metres, and Dormeuil recently put through an order of 40 sets of 15-metre lengths, for one particular customer.

“That kind of order would previously have been done by a single-width pattern maker, but there’s an increasing demand for quality in that part of the market,” says Gary Eastwook, Pennine’s director. “Two or three years ago we would have baulked at that order, because it’s so much more time and effort. But then we can do it and of course the price reflects the work required.”

Small lengths are disproportionately more work because the thing that takes the most time and manpower is not the weaving itself, but preparing the warp for each length and then drawing it in.

The warp is the yarn that runs the length of the cloth. To prepare it, precisely the right amount of yarn in each colour must be taken off cones, in the right order. Hundreds of ends over possibly hundreds of metres, all calculated on a yellow order sheet with graph-paper section showing the appropriate pattern (an old Dugdale pattern is pictured, top). Even a plain navy might have several different shades of blue in it, and black.

That warp is then transferred onto a beam that will sit at the back of the loom and feed it in, with the weft shuttling back and forth across it, coming from its own cones on either side of the loom.

[For more on weaving search for previous posts on Loro Piana and Breanish Tweed, the latter including a video of manual weaving.]

Luke Carby at work. Look out for his Pennine shots on The Rake’s website

The warp must also be attached onto the loom, however, which is where the drawing-in machine comes in. Every end must be tied on. To do it by hand takes a day; the latest machine, which Pennine developed with Stäubli, does it in an hour.

Once everything is connected, the loom can start weaving. The only job required is for someone to tie on ends when the yarn breaks. Across Pennine’s 32 looms, that might happen every few minutes. The status of the looms can be monitored from a programme that also runs as an app on an iPad – so Gary can monitor them wherever he is.

A quick aside on weaving machinery: there is little benefit to older looms or older processes. If mills use old machinery, it’s because they can’t afford to buy new ones (they can cost up to £100,000). Old weavers, such as Fox, are gradually replacing their old looms and their flannel is no longer finished by bashing it against a wall (as we shall see in the next piece, on finishers WT Johnsons).

Perhaps the most impressive thing I saw at Pennine was the repairing of some Dormeuil cloth. One person was removing an errant navy thread (which I couldn’t see, even when it was pointed out) and replacing it with black. She tries to tie the new thread onto the old, and then pull it through the cloth. But the yarn often snaps because it is so fine. So she has to weave it in by hand, with the cloth containing perhaps 108 picks per inch. The whole process takes 10 days.

Yorkshire in April

Dear Simon,

Hello and congratulations on your blog’s recent milestone!

I have a question regarding cashmere suits.

I am thinking of buying a suit that is 100% cashmere. Now I have come across many suits that are wool/cashmere blends, but not many that are 100% cashmere.

Is a suit that is completely cashmere practical? Will there be a lot of pilling, like there is with a cardigan for instance?

Thanks for your help.

Yours,

Farbod

–

Hi Farbod,

This touches on a question someone asked about ultra-fine wools on my post about Huddersfield mills last week. The finer a wool becomes, the more it loses body and elasticity; it loses some of the elements that make wool such a great material for clothing.

Cashmere is even worse. It is wonderfully soft, but this means it has very little body and memory. This can be OK in a jacket, which has internal structure in the chest to hold it together. But it is terrible in trousers. They have no chance of retaining a crease, and begin to bag at the knees after a while.

I know because I made that mistake with my first commission from Sartoria Vergallo. The jacket is great, but the trousers have lost shape very quickly. I still occasionally wear it as a suit, but mostly just as a jacket – it has patch pockets and brown horn buttons so works well in that regard.

I would avoid wool/cashmere mixes most of the time as well, at least for suits.

Simon

When suiting cloth comes off the looms and is washed, it feels surprisingly rough, like thin cotton khakis. It is the finishing of the cloth that gives it the touch and the handle we expect. It reveals the potential of the cloth, first, and can then create different finishes on top depending on what the customer wants.

The finest finisher of suitings in England is WT Johnsons in Huddersfield, which I visited a couple of weeks ago. Unusually for the players in Yorkshire that I am covering in this series, Johnsons has a very good and informative website. It runs through the finishing process and explains several of its specialist finishes.

Broadly, though, there is wet finishing and dry finishing. The first involves washing the cloth with a varying amount of solution (the liquor) for a varying amount of time, the length depending on the cloth and the effect desired. Generally, the longer the washing or milling, the softer the cloth will be. The pressure also affects the finish – the heaviest being a ‘blind’ finish, so called because you can no longer see the weave of the cloth.

The liquor creates a slightly nauseating smell – something that doesn’t come across in the images. Tanneries are definitely the worst for smell, but a quick tour leaves you slightly lightheaded by the end.

The cloth is scoured, again with water, dried and then moved upstairs to the dry finishing. Johnsons is a rather crowded facility – the drying machine curls around the walls and the ceiling in order to fit into the space available.

They’d love to move, but have access to their own supply of water under the building, which is crucial to controlling the process. The water is softer than in the south of England, which is one reason cloth is often woven elsewhere (eg at Fox in Somerset) but brought up here for finishing.

(During the drying, the cloth is held on tenterhooks – little hooks on either side that hold it in place. Hence the phrase. You can see the holes in the sides of the cloth below.)

Next the cloth is decated – rolled with steam, to set the finish – and cropped down to the desired nap. Most cloths use blades, like a big lawnmower. Mohair has to be singed off, running it over a hot plate.

Johnsons also has the only two continuous decating machines in the world. Most finishing machines look very similar. They are as wide as a double-width piece of cloth and 8-10 feet high. Cloth goes in one end and comes out of the other; you can’t see much of what goes on inside.

But the continuous decating machines are different. They are huge, hulking things, reminiscent of industrial steam engines. A big roller in the middle is sunk into the ground, itself bigger than most of the other machines. Again, there’s steam and pressure and you can’t see much of the process. But the things themselves are mighty pieces of engineering.

Everything after the cropping is an extra finish – mostly involving steam and pressure – that can make a material feel rougher or perhaps distressed. Finishes on top of the cloth, aimed at repelling water or sometimes odour, can also be added.

Finally, Johnsons is bringing back London Shrunk, an old process that used to be done on all high-end cloth. It is left to sit in a slightly cold and damp room, and shrinks slightly – settling. Some of the merchants that still have the facilities do something similar, often letting their cloth sit in the basement for days or weeks before delivering it.

When I mentioned to Lee and Davide at Gieves & Hawkes last week that I’d been to Johnsons, their first question was whether they still did London Shrunk. They said one of the problems with modern cloth is that it can shrink when the tailors start working with it (both trained as tailors). They can stitch it one day, and when they come in the next day the stitching is all puckered because the cloth has shrunk.

Davide suggested it is because cloth manufacturing is now such an efficient and accelerated process that cloth is never allowed to just sit anymore. When he started at Kashkett’s, the cutters would often strike a jacket, lay it on the pattern and leave it there for a day, to let it settle in the same way.

Other pieces in this series on Huddersfield:

– Dugdale Brothers archives

– Pennine Weavers

– Huddersfield’s mills and merchants explained

Pictures: Luke Carby

The Dugdale Brothers building in the centre of Huddersfield (scale model, above) is exactly what you’d hope the headquarters of an old cloth merchant would be like. Four and a half floors of old furniture, worn wooden floorboards and the occasional touch of old branding – such as the White Rose, symbol of Yorkshire and name of Dugdale’s first bunches in 1902.

Despite its many floors – including a cold basement, perfect for settling or ‘shrinking’ cloth – the modern company has almost outgrown Dugdale Towers. It holds a larger number of pieces for each swatch of cloth than most other merchants, and has a reputation on Savile Row for never being out of stock as a result. But that requires a lot of space, and they already have an overspill facility up the road.

Here are a few of the highlights.

Old cloth stamps

Trimmings

First floor storage

1939 White Rose catalogue

And cloth

The filing system

Basement storage

Outdoor signage

Geoff Wheeler, Dugdale’s (former Lesser’s) agent and Savile Row mainstay

Other pieces in this series on Huddersfield:

– Dugdale Brothers archives

– Pennine Weavers

– Huddersfield’s mills and merchants explained

– WT Johnson’s – finishers

Pictures: Luke Carby

This past week I’ve been in Biella, visiting the lovely people at Vitale Barberis Canonico and researching a piece on Italian mills and bunches – a follow-up to the popular post on English mills.

Barberis is going through something of a transition at the moment, with Fracesco Vitale Barberis recently taking over from his father Luciano as creative director. (Below, Francesco on the left, Luciano in the middle and head of communications Simone Ubertino Rosso on the right).

Barberis is in a good position, being the only big mill left that doesn’t also have a clothing line (Zegna, Loro Piana and Cerruti are the others) and its independence will only be more of a bonus given the recent takeover of Loro Piana by the LVMH group. Zegna is already VBC’s biggest customer.

Francesco is a true anglophile, and the only Italian I know whose favourite game is Mornington Crescent (always a sign that someone really understands the English). Simone is a sharp young guy who, usefully, speaks fluent Mandarin. And the rest of the team are extremely switched on, gearing up for trying to increase awareness about Vitale Barberis Canonico. There is to be an archive room – they are the oldest recorded mill still working in the world, after all – and a celebration later in the year of the 350-year anniversary.

As I have said before, there is little difference between mills and less between cloth merchants. Your choice of cloth shouldn’t be based on the brand on the front. Barberis is often seen as lower in quality than Zegna, Dormeuil or others, but it’s only because they produce a wider range, from the cheap to the luxurious.

What difference there is between all these mills/merchants is down to quality control and some finishing (what Lesser’s reputation was always based on). Your decision between bunches should be based on the objective facts: the raw materials, the weave, the design. And what your tailor likes working with.

The biggest difference between English and Italian mills is that the latter are vertically integrated. Where Pennine weaves, Johnson’s finishes and Dugdale’s sells in the UK, Barberis actually owns some sheep in Australia (only a few, mind) and then combs, dyes, spins, weaves and finishes itself.

It’s hard to think of another industry with such a contrast in integration – yet there is little difference in the final product. There goes the argument always trotted out in luxury magazines about how great it is to own every part of the production.

Over the next few weeks: the dyeing process, the Barberis tailor, Italians mills and merchants explained, and the great VBC cycling team.

Summer cloths from 1931. Crikey.

I love old cloth books. Such beautiful objects. Notebook used to show scale

This is a follow-up to my popular post on English mills and cloth merchants: how to tell them apart, how they are related and how to select between them (basically, don’t; there is little difference).

Italian mills are a lot simpler, as there is less overlap and fewer brands. But they are also different in some substantial ways to English mills. The major differences are:

– A lot of Italian mills make ‘Italian-style’ ranges for English merchants and non-English merchants such as Scabal and Dormeuil. These are not always labelled as such in the cloth books. Far fewer English mills supply cloth to the Italian mills, though there are some in Ariston and Caccioppoli bunches.

– More Italians mills are vertically integrated, doing their own finishing for example. And the big mills such as Zegna do everything from owning sheep to dying, spinning, weaving and finishing. English mills usually just weave.

– Italian mills rarely use lots of different brands and old names, unlike England where mills have merged over the years, leading to a lot of historic names.

The following is a list of the Italian mills, merchants and mill-merchants that supply cloth to bespoke tailors. Putting it together has involved input from four different Italian mills, though it is likely still not comprehensive. If anyone knows any I have missed, let me know and I will include it once verified.

Mill and merchant:

Ermenegildo Zegna: Vertically integrated, from sheep to suit. One of the biggest producers and sellers of cloth to tailors. Buys cloth from other mills for its branded tailoring, but otherwise only sells its own cloth (other than cottons).

Loro Piana: Vertically integrated, from sheep to suit. Again one of the biggest producers; only sells its own cloth. Particularly specialises in raw materials.

Vitale Barberis Canonico: Vertically integrated, from sheep to bunch. Sells around 50% under its own name and 50% under others’, including many English and Italian merchants.

Cerruti: Mill, with a separate fashion line. Weaves for many merchants, but also sells small some under its own name, such as co-branded bunches with Dugdale’s.

Drago: Mill, selling a little under its own name but mostly under others’.

Carlo Barbera: Mill owned by Kiton, selling small volume to tailors

Mills:

Ormezzano: Mill, only sells under its own name to ready-to-wear. Unlike most Italian mills, doesn’t do its own finishing.

Colombo, which also has its own clothing line

E.Thomas

Zignone

Botto Fila

Piacenza 1773

Reda

Merchants:

Caccioppoli: Neapolitan. Collects together ranges from lots of mills and sells a more southern-Italian look. Most Italian mills offer the more sober end of their range in England, which is what sets Caccioppoli apart.

Drapers: Partially owned by Barberis. Sells around 50% Barberis cloth and 50% from others.

Ariston: Owned by Imparato, near Naples. Sells largely exclusive cloth, sourced only in Italy (except Irish linen). Changes entire collection (around 550 shades) every season.

Eurotex

Carnet

Bonino Angelo Tessuti

Last week the sale was finalised of the W Bill and Smith’s cloth brands to LBD Harrison‘s. The company, run by Mark Dunsford, has been built on acquisitions, starting with Pedersen & Becker over 20 years ago and more recently Porter & Harding, Harrison’s of Edinburgh and in 2010, H Lesser. So what does this increasing concentration of the industry mean for bespoke customers?

Permanent Style: How long has this sale been in the works?

photo-2

Mark Dunsford: Well given our acquisitions over the past few years, I think everyone knew we would be interested if another merchant was on the table. We all know each other and get along very well. So when David Graham, the owner, decided to retire he asked us if we wanted to talk about it. That was around 18 months ago.

Why did he want to sell?

The company had been in the family for a while, but he’s 67 now and had enough of travelling around Europe I think. He also knew we had a fairly good track record with looking after these small British brands, so he would rather sell to us than to a larger company. He had bought W Bill himself in around 1990, ahead of us.

What’s the state of the business?

It’s in decent shape, it makes money. That’s very different to the brands we bought previously, which were in pretty poor shape for various reasons.

What exactly are you buying?

The brand and the stock, essentially. There is no manufacturing, unlike Italian mills, so it’s just the value inherent in the designs and the bunches, and their popularity with various tailors. We are unlikely to take on any extra staff either. In this market, it’s always been very hard to increase market share with more or better bunches. Everyone has their bunches in the tailors, and everyone’s share of the pie is pretty consistent. Acquisition is the only way to grow.

Will this mean less choice for bespoke customers?

Well a lot of the British merchants share manufacturing, so the designs are often very similar. If you look at the basic Lesser and Smith’s bunches, they are almost the same. It’s not a like Dormeuil or a Scabal, where they are designing primarily for RTW garments to be made in the Far East. There is much less original design work in the cloths produced for bespoke tailors, particularly in the UK. We stick to what we’re good at.

But there are still bunches and cloths that would be missed. I’ve always been a fan of Moonbeam, for example, and I noticed recently that Harrison’s and Loro Piana are the only two to offer a cashmere overcoating over 20oz.

Absolutely, and we plan to retain all those existing bunches.

Is there a risk that the choice overall will decrease, however, with just one design team putting together the bunches for all these brands?

Possibly. The key is maintaining the navy and grey worsteds that are the bedrock of the business, though. That’s what keeps the industry alive. When you look at the Lesser bunches before it was sold, even the basic bunches were pretty depleted. We need to make sure that the popular cloths are consistently available, in the same quality and all still made in UK.

Do you have any plans to create new designs for the brands you have acquired?

W Bill will be a big focus over the next 18 months. There is a lot there that needs improving and modernising. A lot of the patterns are repeated; a lot are too heavy for a contemporary audience. We don’t want to lose that, but we want to mix it up with some things that are a lot more lightweight – softer jacketings that are so popular today, competing with the likes of Caccioppoli.

There will always be a customer that wants heavier or old-style cloths, though, as shown by the popularity of online cloth clubs. Do you plan to cater to them?

That’s something we want to retain with the Porter & Harding brand. That heavy, Scottish tweed will remain in those bunches, while we do more original, funky stuff elsewhere. It’s early days yet – we don’t have a firm plan. But that’s the direction we want to go in.

Do you have any plans to do more direct sales of cloth to bespoke customers?

I’m not against it – we do a little bit with customers that are off the beaten track, in Hong Kong for example. They phone up with the specific cloth number and we can ship it out. But it’s a bit messy and inefficient. It takes a lot of time.

Could you sell more online?

Possibly, but it’s very expensive to set up and hard to reproduce the exact colour or texture of the cloth. The feel of the fabric is so important that it would kill me a little bit to do it. I know John Foster’s and Hunt & Winterbotham sell online, but actually we just employed the guy at Hunt & Winterbotham who set it up and they made very few sales.

There’s a risk you lose your focus as well, I think. Stick to developing great bunches and being a good merchant – that’s what we do well. I suppose I’m a little old-fashioned like that, but there we are.

Who do you see as your main competition now?

Holland & Sherry I suppose – I haven’t had a call from them yet about the sale but I’m sure I will – and Dormeuil, Scabal. But the thing with those big companies is they make most of their money selling to the garment industry. The UK is not a big market for them. Holland & Sherry concentrates on America, Dormeuil in the Far East, Scabal in South America and other places.

I’m sure they see the UK as important (probably Holland & Sherry more than the others), but they’re not real competition for us with the West End and City boys. The offering is also different, along with the price. They tend to be more expensive and much lighter in weight.

Have you seen any fallout from the Loro Piana sale yet?

No, I think that will largely affect the Italian market rather than the UK. Cashmere sales in Italy is probably the only area we would cross over.

Do you think you have preserved the future of these British brands with the buyout?

Possibly, yes. The thing about being a cloth merchant is it’s a long game. Once you have bunches out there, you need to repeat them and keep them supported. The moment you want to try and get out, you have a dilemma. If you start chopping up the bunches and not supporting some of the cloths, the tailors stop using them and you end up with a load of stock you can’t sell.

David was patching up the W Bill and Smith’s bunches a little to keep them going, but he sold at the right time. If he had waited, he might have ended up with a situation like Lesser’s – they couldn’t sell cloth, so didn’t have any money to buy new stock, and it all circled downwards in a vicious circle. It’s good to have bought the company from David while it was still making money.

Last week I discovered The Button Queen, on Marylebone Lane in London. It’s hard to believe I’ve never been in before; I don’t think I will ever select buttons for tailoring from anywhere else.

The Button Queen has been around since the 1950s. It used to be on Carnaby Street until the 60s, when the swingers pushed them out. They have been on the current premises since 1987 – and before that on the other side of the road. The shop’s life has been a peripatetic one, constantly being moved on by new trends or developments. Then again, it feels surprising today that any shop in cental London can turn a profit selling buttons.

There are precious and rare buttons for collectors. Most of the trade is dress makers and designers, looking for original patterns and materials. But in the middle there is a rich collection of buttons suitable for tailoring.

The problem with most button retailers is that they don’t have the sizes required for a jacket’s front and cuffs, let alone blazer buttons, overcoat buttons and so on. Much as I love Duttons for Buttons in York, there were only ever a handful of ranges that had the appropriate sizes.

The Button Queen folders that will be of most interest to readers are labelled ‘horn buttons’, ‘shell buttons’ and ‘blazer buttons’. Possibly ‘wooden buttons’ as well. Horn has all the colours we expect from tailors, a few extra shades, and some beautiful carved and domed models. These are largely hand-cut Nepalese horn, which ranges from the very rustic (tweed jacket, perhaps) to the beautifully fine and intricate.

The shell folder has the mother-of-pearl you’d expect (again, with a few extra shades) plus my favourites: mussel shell. The blazer-button folder, although contaning a broad range of coats of arms, otherwise aren’t that interesting.

Far more noteworthy are the vintage and rare metallic buttons. For I had come into The Button Queen seeking something antique for my Gieves & Hawkes bespoke pea coat. Martin, the manager, was initially sceptical. Pea coat buttons are pretty large and normally pretty dull. But when I explained that there was a lot of flexibility about the size, he dug out a few old boxes.

I recommend looking at the livery buttons. These were usually worn in two curving lines down the front edges of household staff uniforms, and not designed to do up. They feature the family’s coat of arms or crest, and are slightly bigger than jacket buttons, slightly smaller an overcoat’s. Nice for a blazer, perhaps.

For the pea coat we found some slightly larger, domed versions. Made from brass, they are nicely tarnished and (according the backs) made in Birmingham in 1927.

I’ll include some photos of those in the final pea-coat post. In the meantime, have a look at the models here, and get down to see Martin next time you have a piece of tailoring in need of some personalisation.

In my review of Spanish tailor Reillo’s cotton suit last week, there proved to be only room to analyse the fit and make.

Yet a reader rightly pointed out that green cotton-gabardine is hardly an everyday cloth option. I’ll explain the style aspects of the outfit now – but essentially, it was chosen for the versatility of green and casual nature of cotton.

Regular readers will be familiar with my views on green. After the menswear foundations of navy and grey, it is the most useful colour for everything from ties to knitwear.

Cream is barely a colour; brown can suffer from similarity to other, leather elements in the ensemble. Green, in all its tones, should be a man’s third choice – yet it rarely is.

Green suit close-up

A green suit goes wonderfully with different shades of brown shoe or belt; it works with both blue and white shirts; and the harmonious colours for silk accessories are manifold – pale blue, burnt orange, navy, yellow, even purple in some cases.

In the outfit shown here, the grey wool tie is pretty conservative, but the deep orange of the handkerchief is a real pleasure. The colours are largely spring and autumn ones – indeed, we chose this background for the photo to demonstrate that harmony, with fallen leaves and bright blue skies.

Of course, not all greens are the same. It’s hard to go wrong with navy or grey, but certain greens are far too strong and saturated to work sartorially.

I’d generally recommend going for a dark green, which means strength of colour is less of a problem, and the suit overall will be more wearable. I have one other green suit – a deep, dark flannel, made by Brian Smith at the Fox Brothers mill.

But if you go for a lighter colour like mine (Caccioppoli 340307), make sure it’s not too strong in tone – a little faded, a little greyed. Cotton (gabardine) is a help here too, because it will fade quicker than any other material, particularly around wear points like the front edge and cuffs.

Elsewhere: brown, hatched grain slip-ons from Gaziano & Girling; white spread-collar shirt from Luca Avitabile; and reversible knitted-wool tie from Hermes.

The latter is a recent acquisition and fantastically useful, with a slightly different shade of grey on each side. I confess I like the fact that the knit is different to 99% of patterns out there as well. (Though avoid the silk ‘4 temps’ line – the colour contrast is too great.)

Photography: Jack Lawson

Last week I was in Brussels visiting the headquarters of cloth merchant Scabal. They moved buildings two years ago and now have an attractive, open-plan space on top of their warehouse.

That warehouse stores a lot of cloth. Most of the people are responsible for cutting it up and sending it to bespoke and MTM clients around the world.

But there is also a large group dedicated to making swatch books (or bunches) – the samples of cloth that customers can pick from.

It’s quite a labour-intensive process. Cloth must be cut up into little rectangles on a press. Thick glue is used to bind these swatches to a piece of wood.

And one person puts a little sticker on each one, to identify it. She does them all one at a time – with a pair of tweezers.

“Why do we make our cloth books here?” Scabal executive chairman Gregor Thissen asks rhetorically, just as the same question occurs to me. “Why don’t we just outsource it and make them overseas?”

The answer is control, and to an extent service. Although swatch books might seem an odd thing to employ people to make in the middle of Brussels, it allows Scabal to do small runs, to personalise bunches, and to apply more levels of quality control.

This has parallels with the theme that runs through most of my visit: the role of the cloth merchant.

As a consumer, it is easy to identify with a mill. It weaves raw material; it has a long history; it is the place where the cloth comes from. (Not always, given the farmers/spinners/finishers also usually involved, but you see why it’s a nice story.)

The role of a merchant, like Scabal, is a harder one to empathise with. Don’t they just store the cloth and send it out to clients? Isn’t it just logistics and customer service?

Part of it is about service. The fact Scabal re-checks every piece that comes in (even from its own mill, Bower Roebuck), for example, or the fact that it invests a lot in stock, so that it can guarantee a piece will never run out.

But there’s also design. Scabal designs 600-700 new cloths every season, across the various weights and categories, with a total book of 5000.

Walk into Scabal on Savile Row – or in Brussels or Paris – and you can find anything from the super-number worsteds it is known for to heavy Irish linens, all designed by the same team under Michael Day, and all of which the salesman should be able to pick from and recommend alongside each other.

If that’s your aim, it’s easier to see why you make your own swatch books. Plus Scabal invented them, back in 1938, which is a nice reason to carry on doing it.

(Back then their pioneering line was called ‘Superlana’. The company wouldn’t be known as Société Commerciale Anglo Belgo Allemande Luxembourgeoise – or Scabal for short – for another eight years. Oh, and in 1971 they commissioned Salvador Dali to design what men would be wearing in the 21st century. He predicted we’d all be dressing like peasants; he wasn’t far wrong.)