The London Lounge

Does anyone have any experience with having coats made up from this? I'd really like to know how the lamination and cloth holds up over the years with multiple dry-cleanings etc. ( I'm fairly hard on overcoats)
I'm thinking about getting a woolen trench coat made up and it'd be nice for it to be waterproof.

Well, it's a 'System' not a cloth, and it feels like you're wearing a system. I don't care for it. A good Austrian loden cloth works better for me. I have two Storm System coats, and I find I don't reach for them. They are sort of rigid, don't tailor well, and have dull synthetic like surface. Nothing to recommend. Loro Piana cloth is not my favorite. They do some funny blends, that are oddities, but the hand is always poor in my experience.

But I understand that they have a monopoly over vicuna. Does anyone else sel it?

tteplitzmd wrote:Well, it's a 'System' not a cloth, and it feels like you're wearing a system. I don't care for it. A good Austrian loden cloth works better for me. I have two Storm System coats, and I find I don't reach for them. They are sort of rigid, don't tailor well, and have dull synthetic like surface. Nothing to recommend. Loro Piana cloth is not my favorite. They do some funny blends, that are oddities, but the hand is always poor in my experience.

Dr. T-

Can you recommend some mills or suppliers of Austrian loden?

I have two Schneider's of Salzburg coats, very nice. I can't recall the composition of true loden, but it is a blend and has some water resistant tendancy. I think it's got alpaca in it. I don't know of any suppliers. Some hard finished Scottish tweeds might come close, but I am not expert on this.

I think Schneider's has gone to the East, for their manufacture now, but I don't know the origin of the cloth. I believe they have some competitors in RTW. The Storm System is a marketing thing, I would never choose it based on appearance, feel, limited range, and so on.

A few years ago Tip Top had some Storm System "membranes" so you could buy it and put it under your topcoat. I would not want to be the tailor doing it. It would sort of be like a plastic or reconstructive surgeon trying to put mesh underneath your damaged skin.

Is the STorm System anything other than a semi-permeable membrane like that used in Gore-Tex?

Yeah. So synthetic.