Suit Cloth for Hot and Cold Climates

Weight is the number that matters

Suiting cloth is sold by weight, usually in grams per linear metre. It is the single most useful number on the ticket, and the one most first-time clients never ask about.

Roughly: below 240 grams is summer cloth, 240 to 300 is year-round in a temperate climate, 300 to 380 is autumn and winter, and above 400 is heavy overcoating territory. Those bands shift with how you live, but they are the frame.

The second number that matters has no units: how open the weave is. A high-twist wool at 280 grams can feel cooler than a tightly woven 250, because air moves through it. This is why a tailor will hold cloth up to the light for you.

Matching cloth to where you live

Start with the climate you will actually wear the suit in, not the one you are commissioning it in.

Hot cities: Dubai, the Gulf, Hong Kong, Singapore

In a Gulf summer you are not dressing for the outdoors, you are dressing for ninety seconds of outdoors between two air-conditioned spaces, several times a day. That combination, heat then cold, is what ruins cloth and comfort.

A high-twist wool solves it better than anything else. The yarn is twisted hard before weaving, which opens the cloth, sheds creases and recovers after you have sat in a car. Fresco is the best known example and has been made for this exact purpose for a century.

Linen is the obvious thought and usually the wrong one for business. It is cool, and it creases within an hour in a way that reads as relaxed at a weekend lunch and unkempt in a meeting. Wool and linen blends give most of the cool and far less of the crumple.

Ask for the jacket unlined or half-lined through the body, and consider skipping the waistcoat. A three-piece in a Gulf summer is a decision you make once.

Temperate cities, and the year-round suit

If you want one suit that works most of the year in London, New York or Milan, the answer is a mid-weight worsted at about 300 grams. It is not the most interesting cloth in the book, which is exactly why it works.

Winter is where texture earns its place. Flannel at 340 to 400 grams drapes better than anything, hides a crease and holds its shape in the cold. It is also warmer than the number suggests, because the nap traps air.

Construction matters as much as cloth

Two suits in the same cloth can feel very different to wear, because what sits between the cloth and your shirt is not the same. In a hot climate this decides comfort more than the cloth weight does.

The canvas is the internal layer that gives a jacket its shape. A full canvas runs the length of the front and is attached by hand, which lets the jacket move and breathe. A fused front glues an interlining to the cloth: cheaper, flatter, and warmer to wear.

The lining is the part you can simply ask to remove. A fully lined jacket is noticeably hotter than a half-lined one, and a completely unlined jacket in an open weave is about as cool as tailoring gets. You lose a little crispness and some durability at the seams.

In the Gulf, ask for half lining as a default and full lining only if you want the extra structure. It is a free decision at the point of ordering and an expensive one to change later.

Travelling with the suit

If the suit will live in a suitcase, weight and weave matter twice over. High-twist wools recover from folding; smooth worsteds hold a crease where you did not want one.

• Ask your tailor which cloths in the book are crease-recovering before you choose on colour.
• A half-lined jacket packs flatter and dries faster after a humid day.
• Two pairs of trousers means one can be pressed while the other is worn.
• Dark cloths hide travel better than pale ones, which is why navy travels and cream does not.

Next

You have a weight and a weave. Colour and pattern come next: thebespokeindex.com/guides/suit-colour-and-pattern

For the technical side, including what Super 120s actually means, read chapter 4: thebespokeindex.com/guides/suit-cloth-explained

To see which Dubai houses work with which cloths, start with the full directory: thebespokeindex.com/city/dubai