SHINE RETURNS TO SUITS

Lustre and Sheen are the adjectives being used in relation to the latest hot-off-the-loom cloth collections just recently presented at the international cloth shows in Paris and Milan.

They are actually for next year’s Spring/Summer, but selecting the right sort of cloth now will see this year's suit looking fashion-right next year. 

Mohair helps provide lustre in many of these new collections from top mills in Yorkshire. Arthur Harrison, for example, presents a 70/30 wool/mohair suiting to meet what they describe as “the shiny vogue”. Taylor & Lodge has blended fine merino wool with mohair in a revived Escorial, Abraham Moon features a 240gm wool/mohair summer suiting and Hield, Bower Roebuck and William Halstead are others making use of mohair to achieve sheen. 

Richard Anderson really shines with this black sequin dinner jacket but that may be a shine too far for some.

Wool is very much back centre stage for the Summer season as for Winter, blended with cashmere, silk and linen, as well as mohair, for the top luxury market. The finest micron wool is used by Moxon, Dormeuil and John Cavendish in their collections; from Clissold, a mill that aims to provide eco-sustainable cloths, there are some very lightweight wools, particularly aimed at the Japanes market; and another ‘natural’ inclusion are the high twist 100per cent cotton jacketings from Hield,

Cloths from these mills are chosen for the bunches provided to tailors, from which customers select their preferences. And though these particular collections will not be available yet, these trends may provide a guide when looking through the current bunches.

LUXURY CLOTH LAUNCH IN MILAN

Top Italian textile name, Loro Piana made quite a splash at the Milan textile show with its new ‘Wave’ fabrics.  These combine extrafine merino Super 130s wool with a filament of 600 silk, the thinnest available (they claim that 1kg of this yarn unwinds to over 570km).

For the technically interested, this blend is achieved through a new, exclusive twisting technique that brings two threads of merino wool and a silk filament together to create a three-ply twisted super yarn. The resulting fabric is, they claim, “softer, more elastic, resistant, stable and breathable”.

It’s a top luxury cloth that won’t be available to consumers, either in their shops or other retailers, until Spring 2009 - but see the current Loro Piana fabrics in tailors.