The case for a proper winter coat

A coat is the most heavily engineered garment most wardrobes contain, and the one most often bought in a hurry on a cold afternoon. The difference between fifteen winters and two is not the name on the label, and it follows the price only loosely. It sits in the weight of the cloth, in the way the chest is built, and in the allowances left at the seams.

The first variable is the cloth, and it is also the easiest to measure. Overcoating is sold by weight, in grams per square metre, and that figure separates categories more reliably than any amount of description. A traditional melton of the kind used for naval and guards coats runs between 700 and 900 grams. A heavy loden, or a good double faced wool, sits nearer 600. A great deal of what is sold as a winter coat on the high street falls between 300 and 400 grams, which is jacketing weight, occasionally shirting weight with a fusible glued to the reverse to lend it the impression of substance. Weight alone does not settle it, because fibre length matters as much. Cloth spun from short, reclaimed staple pills within a season and goes thin at the cuff whatever it weighs. The second variable cannot be seen from the outside. Between shell and lining sits an interlining that gives the chest its shape. In a canvassed coat that layer is a woven haircloth, pad stitched or lightly tacked so that shell and canvas move independently, which is why an old coat settles into the shoulders of its wearer rather than fighting them. In a fused coat the interlining is bonded with adhesive under heat and pressure. On the rail the two are indistinguishable, and for one winter they behave the same. Then the glue begins to fail, unevenly, and the chest bubbles. The third variable is the allowance left at the seams. Fifteen millimetres at centre back and side seam means a coat can be taken in, let out and repaired. A marker laid to squeeze one more coat from each roll leaves six or seven millimetres, overlocked, and nothing can be done with it.

Almost none of this survives a photograph, and very little of it is disclosed at the point of sale. What follows is what can be established in a shop in under two minutes, and why the figure on the ticket so often fails to track any of it.

Start by lifting it off the rail. A coat that will hold its line through a wet February has heft in the hand, and the hem should swing rather than flutter. Take the lapel between finger and thumb and roll it: a floating canvas registers as a third distinct layer, sliding fractionally against the other two, where a fused front feels like a single board. Turn the coat inside out where the lining allows. Felled stitching at the armhole, a pleat of ease at the centre back lining and a hem faced with cloth rather than bound in tape are all signs that time was spent. So is a button sewn on a shank, with a small reinforcing button behind it on the facing. The price signal is unreliable because price is set by position rather than by cost. A coat at 900 euros and one at 400 may leave the same plant in Portugal or Poland with the same interlining, and the difference between them may be the wholesale multiple, the store rent and the advertising line. Standard practice takes a factory cost, doubles it or better at wholesale, then applies a further two and a half to three times at retail. Under that arithmetic, every euro added to the cloth arrives on the ticket multiplied by six or seven, which is precisely why the cloth is where the cutting begins when a margin is under pressure. The case for specification rather than expense is arithmetic too. A well built coat worn for fifteen winters, relined once at moderate cost and pressed each spring, resolves to a modest annual figure. A fused shell replaced every second year does not, and it cannot be repaired when it fails.