MATERIALS
Materials
According to an old saying, a tailor must know everything about materials, just as a teacher should know everything about their students.
For this reason, at our Carlos Ramirez atelier, we select each fabric with the utmost care, aligning it with your specific needs. We use materials exclusively from the finest Italian and English suppliers (such as Holland & Sherry, Scabal, Roda, Drapers, Loro Piana, and others).
The most popular types of fabrics for suits have several key characteristics, such as texture, softness, breathability, warmth, and comfort.
In this section, you will find all the essential information about the most popular types of materials we use for making suits, shirts, turtlenecks, sweaters, and accessories.
Choose the finest
Wool
The wool used for crafting custom suits belongs to the finer end of the quality spectrum. The best clothing is made from long filament fibers that have a high tensile strength for durability and flexibility, ensuring long-lasting shape retention.
The fabrics we offer at Carlos Ramirez come from numerous textile mills such as DORMEUL, SCABAL, and others.
While the “SUPER” number of the fabric is not a definitive indicator of quality, high-quality wool typically has a label of “Super 120,” with the number increasing from there. Since “super” ratings pertain to the fineness of individual fibers, we generally recommend that most men stick to the range of “Super 120” to “Super 150” to maximize luxury while still maintaining good durability.
The finest wool we source comes from sheep raised in Australia and New Zealand. This is the raw material we use for making turtlenecks and sweaters.
Properties of Wool:
Wool offers numerous advantages as a material, and below are some of the most important ones:
- Breathable: Wool is a “breathing” material due to its air pockets and tiny voids. The air pockets trap heat, while the voids allow air to move through the wool, enabling moisture to evaporate.
- Durable: When properly stored, wool can last for years.
- Water-resistant: Coats made from woolen materials contain a natural oil called lanolin. Although most of the lanolin is removed during processing, wool is more resistant to liquid saturation compared to cotton.
- Elastic: Wool possesses elasticity, making it resistant to wrinkling.
- Easy to dye: Wool suits are available in any color.
Cashmere
Wool is a material obtained from sheep, while cashmere comes from goats—specifically cashmere goats, Pashmina goats, and some other breeds. These fibers, which can be somewhat confusingly referred to as “cashmere wool,” have a fundamental distinction: while all cashmere is indeed wool, not all wool is cashmere. Cashmere is finer, lighter, softer, and has three times better insulating properties than sheep’s wool.
Cashmere is prized for its soft, almost fluffy texture and warmth. Today, China and Mongolia are the primary producers of cashmere worldwide.
Properties of Cashmere:
- Incredibly Soft: Cashmere is renowned for its exceptional softness, making it a luxurious choice for garments.
- Very Warm: Cashmere is not only softer but also warmer to wear compared to sweaters made from regular wool.
- Durable and Resilient: With proper care, cashmere garments can last for years, as washing does not change the shape or texture of the material.
- Luxurious: Cashmere is highly valued for good reason. To produce a sweater of average size, the wool from three to five goats is needed, along with extensive hand processing of the material.
Wool or Cashmere – Which Material to Choose?
In the world of tailoring and custom suit making, wool and cashmere play an important role when it comes to cold-weather clothing. Wool makes up a significant portion of the fabric we use for crafting custom garments. We often use cashmere when a client desires a more luxurious feel.
Wool and cashmere are available in various weights to adapt to seasonal changes. While cashmere is known for its excellent insulation, it also breathes exceptionally well.
Combining wool and cashmere in a single fabric is quite common. Fabric mills do this to ensure a sense of comfort while also providing a luxurious feel without significantly increasing the price. It is typical to see fabric collections with a wool-to-cashmere ratio of 90/10 or 80/20.
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Mohair
Mohair is a fabric made from the hair of Angora goats. It is durable, resilient, and known for its high luster. Mohair primarily consists of keratin, a protein found in hair, wool, horns, and skin.
It is often used in fiber blends and takes dye exceptionally well. The most common fabric for mohair suits is a blend of mohair and sheep’s wool, but you can also find combinations of mohair with cashmere and mohair with silk.
Properties of Wool:
There are numerous advantages to wool as a material; below, we will list the most important ones. Wool is a material that is:
- Durable and Elastic: Mohair is durable, naturally elastic, flame-resistant, and resistant to bending.
- Breathable: Mohair fabric is highly breathable, making it a good choice for warm summer days.
- Wrinkle-resistant: All custom suits require a little attention, of course, but mohair is one of the most robust fabrics you’ll find. Although most lanolin is removed during processing, mohair is harder to soak in liquid than cotton.
- Luxurious: It is considered a luxury fiber, similar to cashmere, angora, and silk.
- Easy to Dye: Wool suits are available in any color.
Cotton
Properties of Cotton:
- Great Friend of Skin: The reason for this lies in the very good properties of cotton—resistance to heat, wear, thermal conductivity, and many other characteristics.
- Durability: Cotton is an exceptionally strong textile material, which is why it is used to create garments that are frequently washed.
- Practicality: Cotton is a practical material because it can withstand high temperatures—allowing it to be washed and ironed at temperatures up to 200°C.
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Choosing Fabrics for the Finest Shirts
The shirts we make are crafted from the finest materials. The fabric can vary in weaving density, with higher-quality fabrics being more tightly woven and having a finer surface. There are several types of weaving, such as Broadcloth, Twill, Oxford, and others.
Broadcloth and Poplin – "Smooth" Fabrics
Poplin is very lightweight and is usually unpatterned when used as a shirt fabric. Today, it is made from wool, silk, cotton, or their blends. Poplin is characterized by stripes that run from edge to edge. Shirts made from this material are easy to maintain since poplin does not wrinkle easily.
Difference Between Poplin and Broadcloth
Oxford Weave
Oxford is a type of woven material that is the perfect choice when we want to make casual shirts more formal. Shirts made with Oxford weave are heavier and more durable than others.
Pinpoint Oxford, or simply “pinpoint,” is a very popular type of fabric for shirts. It is both elegant and durable, featuring a slightly matte, crisp finish.
Twill
Twill is a type of woven material with diagonal stripes. Fabrics made in twill weave have a face and a back; the front has more pronounced stripes, making it more attractive and durable.
Twill weave is less prone to wrinkling compared to fabrics with plain weaves.
Chambray
A lightweight fabric that allows the skin to breathe. It feels silky to the touch and is extremely comfortable to wear as it doesn’t cling to the body. Chambray is typically light blue in color, resembling denim, but it is a much lighter and thinner material with a softer texture.
Flannel
Soft, warm, and durable—flannel is a material originally made from carded wool, but today it can also be cotton or synthetic. The fabric is brushed to achieve extra softness. Flannel has a wide range of applications, being used for bed linens as well as men’s suits and shirts.
Dobby
Dobby usually has a simple, repeating geometric design.
Flannel
Although it was originally used to sew work pants, denim is now used to make bags, shirts, jackets, and many other garments. The base for denim production is cotton, woven in a twill weave with different colors of yarn. The yarn is most often white and blue, which together create the recognizable appearance of jeans.