The London Lounge

Dear fellow members,

I've come across some linen lengths in a teal blue melange weighing in at 210gms/7oz. I'd love to have a linen of this colour made into a jacket but I suspect its weight might just be too insubstantial.

I'd like your thoughts in confirming or debunking my suspicions and also to educate me on how to evaluate linen in terms of suitability and durability for jacketing. Is there a minimum weight to look for as a rule of thumb?

Cheers,

—B

I´ve learnt that it´s almost impossible to say much about the quality of a cloth based on weight alone. There is no substitute for knowing where the linen is coming from (Ireland?, Italy? India? what mill in those countries?) and feeling it through your fingers.
7 oz. for a tailored jacket sounds like on the light side, but for linen it´s not extremely so. And maybe that fabric of yours has some "guts".
Make sure that you are looking at dress (tailor) linen and not for upholstery or other uses.
Although I would stay on the 9-11 oz. range for linen jackets, I have used densely woven 8 oz. Irish linen with great results. For trousers I have even used 14 oz. linen canvas and I love them.

I'd be happy to be corrected on this, but it's my understanding that linen usually comes in 30 inch wide lengths, as opposed to the standard cloth width of 60 inches. So a "7oz" linen is actually comparable to a 14oz cloth of a standard type.

I have a suit made up from a 7oz Scabal linen. It's not quite as stiff as a board, but neither is it is remotely flimsy.

andy57 wrote:I'd be happy to be corrected on this, but it's my understanding that linen usually comes in 30 inch wide lengths, as opposed to the standard cloth width of 60 inches. So a "7oz" linen is actually comparable to a 14oz cloth of a standard type.

Dear Andy,

cloth weight calculations do not depend on cloth width. See here: http://www.onlineclothingstudy.com/2012 ... abric.html

I agree with Hector that quality assumptions based on cloth weight only make no sense. If you are not familiar with the quality / make of a specific cloth, talk to your tailor. Another option: have a pair of trousers made first and see how the cloth behaves.

Cheers, David

In my experience, linen is the one fabric not to mess around with. Buy the best linen you can't afford! There is nothing worse in the fabrics universe that light limp lackluster linen (LLLL.)

So much goes into the production of a quality linen fabric. Quality has little to do with weight...it has to do with the weave and how the fibers are treated pre and post weave. That is why the good stuff is more dear.

Cheers

alden wrote:In my experience, linen is the one fabric not to mess around with. Buy the best linen you can't afford! There is nothing worse in the fabrics universe that light limp lackluster linen (LLLL.)

So much goes into the production of a quality linen fabric. Quality has little to do with weight...it has to do with the weave and how the fibers are treated pre and post weave. That is why the good stuff is more dear.

Cheers

(At the risk of Michaels blushes...)

He is quite right. There seems to be a huge quality spectrum in linens as I only really appreciated with a jacket length of LLs heavier linen - it's beyond excellent.

Another consideration might also be how keen you are on looking vaguely crumpled. Linen is supposed to take a crease or 2, but I think that a bit of weight stops "crumpliness" straying into "through-a-hedge-backwards".