How a suit is canvassed
When men (and their tailors) talk about unstructured suits, one of the things they mean is a reduction in the lining in the jacket. But they also mean a suit with less internal structure to the chest.
Within the chest there will be one, two or three layers of felt, wool, cotton or horsehair in some combination. A standard English suit will have a layer of horsehair running all the way behind the forepart of the suit, with a layer of felt in the upper half. Those two are sewn loosely together with basting stitches and then attached, again loosely – though securely – all the way around the edge.
The horsehair most resembles a thin layer of canvas, and the entire structure is usually referred to as the ‘canvassing’ of the chest. It is very flexible, stretches and moulds easily. So it will shape to the contours of your chest after a few wears, creating a three-dimensional shape that fits you in a way the tailor cannot build for. This 3-D shape is one of the reasons it is important to hang, press and pack your jacket carefully.
Because the felt and horsehair is only tacked at the edges, it can move or ‘float’ within the suit. This is the floating canvas that is referred to as the hallmark of a good suit. Poorer products will glue (fuse) the canvas to the forepart, reducing its ability to move and mould.
More layers and different materials can be used to create greater shape to the jacket. In the opposite direction, it can be cut down in size or removed altogether to reduce structure. The unlined suits discussed above obviously do not contain any canvas. Half-lined suits usually do. But even fully lined suits can just have canvas down to the waist, in order to reduce weight and make the jacket more breathable.
Coats equally – it is rare to find coats today that are fully lined, right down to the hem. It is one reason that vintage coats tend to be so much heavier. It makes them much more wind-resistant though.
When Giorgio Armani famously de-structured the suit in the late seventies, he both reduced the weight of the canvas and cut it down in size (as well as making the whole suit baggier). Italian tailors had been doing it for years, driven by the need to cope with higher temperatures than those in England. Most Italian suits today, both ready-to-wear and bespoke, will tend to have less structuring. It’s easy to tell how much canvas there is and how far it stretches – just pinch the forepart on front and back and feel the layer in between.
So who uses what canvas today? Tailors like Anderson & Sheppard on Old Burlington Street use two layers of lighter weight wool or cotton, to soften their suits. Equally prestigious Huntsman on Savile Row is famous for a more ‘structured’ look and uses a thicker canvas. Older English suits always used heavier cloths as well as linings, leading to some remarking that they could stand up on their own, such was their structure.
Proponents of the former approach (including Steven Hitchcock, son of A&S’s head cutter John Hitchcock, and ex-A&S cutter Thomas Mahon) would say their suits are more comfortable. Proponents of the latter (including ex-Huntsman head cutter Richard Anderson and to an extent Norton & Sons) would say theirs flatter the customer more.
Each is merely a question of taste. If you want a comparison, all are usually open to going into the shop to try on or at least see standard garments. (Indeed Huntsman also offers ready-to-wear, so there is a ready selection of models to try.)
Other structural aspects of the suit include the collar and shoulders. The collar is pretty similar to the chest – a layer of canvas and one of melton, sewn loosely together and then attached to the back of the neck. There is more variation in the shoulders, though they will tend to follow the same philosophy as the chest. So an Anderson & Sheppard-style suit will have less shoulder padding or, at the least, it will be of a softer, spongier material.
The wadding at the top of the sleevehead (the shoulder of the suit beyond the seam that attaches it to the sleeve) can also vary. More wadding creates a ‘roped’ shoulder that stands higher – giving the impression that there is a strip of rope running around the shoulder. Extreme versions and padding can lead to a ‘pagoda’ shoulder that actually curve up, leaving the line of the wearer’s shoulder entirely.