Choosing your first suit cloth: weight, weave and where you will wear it

Most first-time customers arrive knowing the colour they want. Navy, usually. Far fewer have thought about the cloth itself, and the cloth decides more than the colour does: how the jacket drapes, how it survives a taxi, whether you can wear it on the street in April.

This is the way I explain it at the bench. Two questions, then five books.

Start with weight

Cloth weight is measured in grams per square metre. It is the single most useful number on a swatch and the one nobody reads. It tells you how the cloth will hang, how warm it will be, and how well it recovers from a day of being sat in.

Heavier cloth is easier to tailor and easier to live in. It falls cleanly, it recovers from sitting, and the seams stay where I put them. The price is warmth.

We hold nothing in the middle band, which surprises people. One suiting book is light at 270 g/m² and three are heavy at 360. In an office kept at 24 degrees, 360 is not the burden it sounds: the cloth spends its working day indoors, and the ten minutes either side of that are the part people over-plan for.

Then the weave

Two cloths of the same weight can behave very differently. A tight twill resists creasing and takes a slight sheen. A softer, more open weave breathes and stays matte, but marks more easily. Classic Twill and Soft Weave are both 360 g/m² and they are not the same cloth to wear.

Hold a swatch in your fist for ten seconds and let go. What it looks like when you open your hand is what your trousers will look like after lunch.

The five books we cut from

Hugo Weave

WOOL BLEND · 270 G/M² · LIGHTER WEIGHT

The lightest book we hold, and the one to ask for if the suit is for hot months. Matte, and it breathes.

Classic Twill

STRETCH BLEND · 360 G/M² · PLAIN TWILL

A fine, plain twill with a little more sheen than the Soft Weave, and tight enough to shrug off a day of creasing.

Soft Weave

STRETCH BLEND · 360 G/M² · SOFT HANDLE

The house cloth and the widest book we have. Soft to the hand, drapes cleanly, takes a sharp shoulder. The navies, the charcoals and the pinstripes live here.

Country Weave

STRETCH BLEND · 360 G/M² · GLEN CHECKS AND WINDOWPANES

The same weight and handle as the Soft Weave, in glen checks and windowpanes. A second suit rather than a first one.

Two-Ply Shirting

2-PLY COTTON · 100–150 G/M² · SHIRTING

Two-ply cotton, for shirts only. Between a third and a half the weight of the jacket that goes over it.

So which one first

If it is your first suit and it has to do everything, choose the Soft Weave in navy or charcoal. It is the cloth most of the jackets in our gallery are cut from, and for a reason. Wear it for a year, learn what you wish it did differently, then come back for the second suit with an opinion.

If the suit is for one hot day, a wedding on a lawn, take the Hugo Weave and accept a few more creases. They are part of the look.