Buying a jacket that lasts

Almost every assessment of a jacket at the rail is conducted in the wrong order, starting with the cloth and the price and arriving at the shoulders last, if at all. The correct order runs the other way, because it begins with the things that cannot be changed and moves towards the things that can. Three checks, performed by hand, settle most of it.

Start at the shoulder. The seam should sit where the flat plane of the shoulder breaks into the curve of the arm, and the sleevehead should follow that curve without a ridge above it or a hollow beneath it. Move the shoulder line and a tailor is not adjusting a seam, he is rebuilding the top of the coat: reshaping the canvas, resetting both sleeves, recutting the armhole. On a factory garment the labour costs more than the jacket, and the result is usually a compromise. A shoulder that is a centimetre too wide will be a centimetre too wide for the life of the garment. Second, find the inlay. Turn the vent up, or ask for the lining to be opened at the hem, and look at the centre back seam. A well cut jacket carries two to three centimetres of cloth inside that seam, which allows the body to be let out by four to six across the chest and waist. The side seams and the sleeve underarm should carry something too. Where the allowance has been trimmed and overlocked, the garment can be taken in but never released, and any future weight gain ends the relationship. Third, ask what is holding the front in shape. A canvas is a layer of woven horsehair and wool, cut to the shape of the chest, attached to the front panel with stitching and left free to move against it. A fused front is a synthetic interfacing glued to the cloth under heat. The first is shaped with an iron and moulds to the wearer. The second sets in one shape and, in time, releases from the cloth in bubbles that cannot be repaired.

The touch test for canvas takes about four seconds and is difficult to fool. Pinch the front panel a few centimetres in from the edge, low on the lapel, and work the layers apart between the fingers. Fusing behaves as a single board. Canvas behaves as three separate things.

The half canvassed jacket sits between the two and is worth understanding rather than dismissing. The canvas runs through the chest and lapel, where shape matters most, and fusing carries the front below the waist button. In a jacket at a moderate price this is a defensible compromise, and it wears far better than full fusing. What should be treated with suspicion is the phrase used to describe it, since the trade applies the word canvas to a wide range of constructions and rarely volunteers where the canvas stops. Other details are quick to read once the three main checks are done. The collar should be attached with a felt undercollar and hand stitching, visible as small dimples on the underside. Buttonholes worked by hand have a slight irregularity and a raised gimp cord inside them; machine holes are flat and uniform, which is not a fault in itself but is a reliable indicator of where else the money went. Patterned cloth should match across the centre back seam and around the pockets, because matching costs cloth and a maker willing to spend it there has usually spent it elsewhere. The cloth itself matters less than most buyers assume, provided the weight is honest. A jacket in a firm cloth of three hundred grams or more will hold its shape, press well and take alteration cleanly. Very light cloth flatters a photograph and fails at the elbow and seat. The useful question at the rail is not whether the jacket looks well today, since a good presser can make almost anything look well for an afternoon, but whether there is enough inside it to be worked on in five years.