Fabrics

Historically, the difference between a “tailor” and a “merchant tailor” is that with the former you had to buy your cloth elsewhere and bring it in, where in the latter case you would expect to find a large selection of cloths and styles on hand. Thus, the “Merchant Tailors” in the Saint Laurie name.
 
And, at Saint Laurie, you will not be disappointed in our selection of cloths.  Saint Laurie has relationships with mills all around the globe, some of which date back 50 years or more.  We regularly attend the big fabric fairs in Milan, Paris and London where all the mills gather to show their seasonal designs and fabrications. We’ll bring back everything from Irish tweeds to Brazilian linens.
 
Our shirtings are from Switzerland, France, Italy and England. You’ll find end-on-ends, royal oxfords, voiles, batistes, and boradcloths in every color and pattern imaginable. No mass-produced cloths, which lose their shape and color so quickly, are found at Saint Laurie.  Our shirts do not shrink after the first washing because our shirt fabrics come from small mills with excellent quality control.
 
However, the foundation of any great tailor is his wools.  Wool has the incredible ability to feel cool when its hot and warm when it is cold.  Unlike cotton, linen or silk, wool can be molded, stretched and repaired with ease.
 
The vocabulary of wool is rich and varied—worsteds, woolens, cheviots, tweeds, coverts, cavalry twills, whipcords, tropicals, high twist, high performance, 3-ply, 4-ply, flannels, fresco weaves, gabardines, sharkskins, pin dots, birdseyes, chalk stripes, pin stripes, beaded stripes, and herringbones.
 
However, when it comes to business suits, one wool stands above them all—the worsteds.  Named after a village in England that first developed the system for combing out the shorter fibers from a wool yarn, worsteds create the dressiest, most versatile suits.
 
Worsteds are now spun from an assortment of wool stocks.  Wool is graded based on the fineness of the fiber.  In the industry, the measurement is by micron as to the actual thickness of the raw fiber, but in the marketplace the more historic categories prevail—Super 80’s to Super 200’s, the higher numbers representing finer (not be confused with superior) wool fibers.
 
In our showroom on 32nd street, we have hundreds of bolts for you to examine and feel.  We will teach you the differences between year-round suitings and those that are more seasonal.  We will show you the differences and advantages and disadvantages of English versus Italian cloth.  And we will keep in your personal file, swatches of every cloth for clothing and shirts you purchased which we can refer to every time you pay us a visit.