The London Lounge

Dear all,

I am looking to invite personal experiences of which cloth has tailored best in your experience.

1. For me the best cloth I have had tailored has been heavy flannel. I feel it is really tolerant towards imperfections and covers them and presents a beautiful end result.

2. After that it has been the Wabi Sabi. In terms of worsted cloth, it has been my favorite one by a long shot. More so than Mistral (not tailored yet), DD, Mohair and certainly anything in the merchant books. It tailored really really beautifully.

3. The last one that stands out for me is actually the Mare. Despite its lightness, it has tailored beautifully, always springs back to life after traveling.

Disclaimer: The cloth I am most excited to try is the Mistral as I haven’t had it tailored yet.

Plain worsteds are extremely useful but I have of late found them a bit lacking in character and certainly the WS excites me much more than the DD (and it’s as good as it gets for a plain twill). Tweeds, various high twists, cashmeres, LL mohair’s, Ultimate blazer cloths all are very useful and tailor very well, but just slightly less perfectly than the ones I have outlined above.

Have you had similar experiences? Would you disagree?

Best,
A

Dear Anikolov,

I see what you mean, but… this is not how I would approach it.

Each cloth has its purpose. Flannel, worsted, linen, mohair, whatever. Everything I had from the LL subscriptions tailored exceptionally well. It is the quality of the cloth doing the trick, rather than the type of cloth. For tailoring, you want the best, not the stuff that is designed for made-to-measure or ready-to-wear to be made up in a factory.

I agree that a heavy flannel is perfect and Mistral is magic, but so is Brisa, the numerous tweeds me made here, the great Irish linen and the cashmere etc. In the past 12 years, I have worked with five very different tailors. They were all amazed and excited working with the cloth they got from me. They all said it was from a different planet, no matter what it was.

Of course, there is still some great cloth from other mills , but I have a hard time sourcing for it. Whatever your needs are, with a little patience, you will find a subscription here. With such material, every skilled tailor has a little party, The cloth makes two thirds of the game. With his skills added, you obtain these miracle garments that look exceptional after a dozen years of wearing them.

Cheers, David