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We have seen a real trend of customers bringing in tweed jackets to be re-conditioned to give them another few decades of life. The most interesting thing is that these are usually young customers who have inherited tweeds through their family and are attached to the individuality of these older designs.
We often get asked the question, “What do these Super numbers actually mean?” when customers are looking through the cottons. The numbers themselves are called Ne numbers and there are two reasons why they can be confusing. First, there seems to be several competing explanations, and, secondly, the real definition is rather archaic!
Essentially, Ne numbers give the amount of cotton yarn that can be spun from the same weight of cotton. It stands to reason that if more cotton can be spun from the same weight, then it must be a finer cotton yarn that results, therefore the higher the Ne number the finer the cotton. This doesn’t sound that complicated, but add in the actual weights and measures and it begins to get baffling: the Ne number denotes the number of hanks that can be spun from an imperial pound. I know it is on the tip of your tongue, but a hank is 840 yards, which makes 768 metres, and a pound is 0.45kg.
An Alumo Super 200s, Super 160s (Green), and Super 100s with a Portofino or cocktail cuff.
Most high quality cotton mills use this English definition of Ne numbers, but some can use the Metric or the French system. These systems use exactly the same description (e.g. Super 200s) but the cotton is less fine under these measures than the English measure.
One final thing worth noting is that the Ne number does not correlate to the thread count per square inch. This is a very common misconception because this measure is used for other cottons, like bed sheets for example, but it does not apply to cotton shirtings.
Here’s a nice medium weight (11oz) sports jacket of the kind which I am finding are becoming more and more popular, especially in North America.
For a versatile and interesting jacket which can pretty much be worn all year round to most situations, a sports jacket like this can’t be beaten!
As many of you know, we have developed our own in house bespoke shirt-making capability over the last six to nine months. This has been a very exciting time and we thought it was about time we featured one on the blog.
This shirt for example is made in a beautifully soft and silky Alumo Super 200s poplin, it really does feel luxurious! The fly front and compact bow-tie collar add to its elegance and refinement.
We will be adding as much as we can to the blog while we are still developing our Gallery page, so keep your eyes peeled for more pictures in the next week or two!
Good evening everyone – after a brief relapse over Easter I thought I would let you know how my latest trip to North America went. I made an unscheduled trip to Los Angeles after being encouraged to hop down the coast for the day and I have to say it totally exceeded all my expectations! I only had less than 24 hours so didn’t get to see the sights, it wasn’t even enough time to see all my new customers, but I will be sure to book more time there on my next trip.
It seems that a more informal but still tailored look is the most popular and this gives me the chance to use all sorts of different weight and pattern cloths. Once we get some cut and fitted I will get some pictures up as soon as possible. Needless to say, it looks like LA will become a regular stop for me.