Heavy? All of my suits are full canvassed and are neither heavy or prone to wrinkling.

I always avoid commenting on terms such as “better” as they are usually unqualified.

 

I don't have anything Full Canvas.

I think going from Half-Canvas to Full Canvas there are diminishing returns, especially if buying new.

So if looking for best value, I would look at Half-Canvas

If cost is not an issue, I would go Full Canvas.

 

Seems that some 3k designer suits such as giorgio Armani and E. Zegna still use semi canvas, I guess half canvas is not a big deal?

 

Giorgio Armani has many different lines so it's really not fair to say Armani and be done with it. The Armani with a black label, it will simply say Giorgio Armani, are well made garments and to my knowledge made to pretty high standards. One can argue value but it's quality stuff.

Likely with Zegna. If you're talking about Ermenegildo Zegna tailored clothing, the jackets are fully canvassed. There's Z Zegna which is a diffusion line of which I cannot speak.

 

Sorry, I didn't watch the video, but the notion that full canvas construction is either necessarily heavy, or prone to wrinkle is false, and self-serving. Depending upon the particular canvas and padding used, a full canvas jacket can be quite light, and not at all prone to wrinkling.

What this discussion ignores is the quality of the build, irrespective of the method. It's possible to make a good fully fused jacket, and a lousy full canvas jacket. And a half-canvas can also be one or the other, and have differing properties depending upon the materials used and how well that method is applied.

Frankly, I have a half-canvassed blazer that is both light and supple, and with which I'm very pleased. Bought it from O'Connell's quite a bit ago. Would I have been better pleased with Samuelsohn? I can't say either that I would or wouldn't be. I did once have Paul Stuart do a special order of a Sammy for me, and Sammy screwed up the shoulder padding. They're not magic either.

I think you could be well pleased with either maker, all things being equal a lot more work goes into the Sammy, and the prices reflect this. Will you like it better for this reason? Can't say.

But I can say with absolute certainty that the retailer from which you make the MTM purchase is critical! Their level of knowledge and experience with doing business with the particular MTM program is far more likely to determine whether your purchase is a home run, or a disaster than which one you select.

 

Good point, sir. I got my first mtm suit which happened to be a Samuelsohn from Harry Rosen last January, and the salesman did a really crappy job in my measurement and I had to go back and forth 3 times to alter the suit, but eventually it still doesn't fit me like a glove. That's why I'm considering Coppley from a boutique because the measurement is taken by their master tailor.

 

I can also say that half canvas is not lighter than full canvas. Full canvas is often lighter because there's no fusing throughout the front. Full canvas has a range of weights. You can have heavy English military suit or you can have a lightweight Neapolitan, and both will be fully canvassed.

 

Appearance, fit and wear-ability are what it's all about, when it's all said and done. Hence one might find half and full canvased jackets in my closet, as well as perhaps one of those dreaded fused garments...if they serve my purpose. I'm just an old hillbilly (and a retired one at that) who likes 'putting on the dog' and occasionally strutting his stuff. However, it truly is a mistake to loose too much sleep over some of these issues. Just a thought, but if the shoe/suit/sport coat/etc, fits and wears well and fills a need, buy it!

 

Some of the best advice above is to not get too wrapped up in the details. Your eye, hand and how the suit feels, moves and drapes when you try it on will probably guide you - once you have some experience with clothing - better than applying a checklist of construction details to the suit.

It wasn't until years after I had built my early business wardrobe that I started reading about canvassing / half canvassing / fusing and when I went and checked, it was no surprise as the suits and sport jackets that felt better / looked better / draped better / "aged" better in my wardrobed were canvassed or half canvassed.

 

I have some nice Coppley stuff and I have some nice Samuelsohn stuff. I prefer the full-canvas Samuelsohn to be honest. The theory about weight is just incorrect. The Samuelsohn is superior in construction (for reasons other than the full canvas). Once you start getting into nicer fabrics there isn't a ton of difference in price between the two...especially is the Samuelsohn is caught at a trunk show. Something random that has irked me about Coppley is they charge extra if you want to choose your own lining. I've never understood why.

 

Full canvas is better. There is less stiffness in a full canvas coat without it being sloppy. I find that fully fused or 1/2 canvas tend to be stiff (like armor) and give a stiff appearance. The softer appearance of the full canvas is more elegant.

Yes, there are full canvas coats which are inferior. I agree that superior workmanship and fit in a fully fused coat is superior to an ill-fitting and poorly made canvas one.

A telling anecdote. A Savile Row tailor that I used to frequent had grown by acquiring and merging with other tailors who were retiring. Most of these acquired firms were celebrated. One such tailor was the Duke of Windsor's last tailor. That tailor fused his coats. My tailor, the one acquiring and merging the businesses, told me that he was phasing-out the fusing upon acquiring that other firm. My tailor felt that a hand made Savile Row suit should be hand made and not be fused. The full canvas front was a higher level of make. Hence, he discontinued the fusing except for a few hold-out customers who demanded it.

 

But what about half canvas vs full canvas? Nowadays it's more likely to be 2/3 canvas even though they are still called half-canvas.

 

Half canvas is still fused. Maybe not in the lapels but it is everywhere else in the front.

 

This is what people don't realise. Anything that is half-canvassed has a fully fused front. It's why half canvas is stiffer than full canvas. Some people think that half canvas is lighter than full because it has less canvas, but when they say that they don't realise that the front is fused top to bottom.

Does anyone know, is the fusing used in a half-canvas jacket lighter than in a jacket that is only fused? Anything I have that is half-canvassed has a very soft and light fusing, so these jackets are not stiff.

 

It seems to me that a partial canvas front would not have a continuum. That seems improper.

 

In terms of endurance, I know some full canvas suit can last up to 1 or 2 generations, but how long does half-canvassed suit last?

 

I always thought that the lightness or heaviness of a suit is dependent on the fabrics that were chosen. Mine is always full canvass with fabric from VBC, Zegna and Loro Piana. It has always been light suit for me.


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I always thought that the lightness or heaviness of a suit is dependent on the fabrics that were chosen. Mine is always full canvass with fabric from VBC, Zegna and Loro Piana. It has always been light suit for me.

Canvas as well as the cloth can give different feelings of lightness or heaviness. Canvas can be different weights and have different levels of stiffness, which contribute to the feel of the jacket. Tom Ford suit jackets can feel heavy because of a lot of canvas and a stiff construction, even though they typically use lightweight cloth.

The canvas is the foundation of the coat front. It keeps it pristine. An old house without a foundation the ground underneath it can shift. Frost heave can lift and lower rocks the house is sitting on. Post rot. Houses like that the eve line goes up and down. The floors are not level. The roof line isn't straight and level and horizontal. Houses with a good foundation don't have these problems and last longer. A coat with half a foundation....?

A half-canvas jacket has more than half a foundation. It has a full foundation from fusing down the entire front, plus additional support from the half canvas.

 

The canvas is the foundation of the coat front. It keeps it pristine. An old house without a foundation the ground underneath it can shift. Frost heave can lift and lower rocks the house is sitting on. Post rot. Houses like that the eve line goes up and down. The floors are not level. The roof line isn't straight and level and horizontal. Houses with a good foundation don't have these problems and last longer. A coat with half a foundation....?

 

The canvas is the foundation of the coat front. It keeps it pristine. An old house without a foundation the ground underneath it can shift. Frost heave can lift and lower rocks the house is sitting on. Post rot. Houses like that the eve line goes up and down. The floors are not level. The roof line isn't straight and level and horizontal. Houses with a good foundation don't have these problems and last longer. A coat with half a foundation....?

 

Fusing is chemicals. I wonder how long that last. Not to mention cleaning chemicals may change.
When the foundation is of canvas then it can be of several kinds, and put in at different angles and of different weights. If good quality it will last for a very long time. You can also press shape into them. Any fuse in the canvas or directly on to the cloth is unshapeable except by cuts. Non-fuse and non-man-made thread/yarn can be shaped with a hot iron and water and weight to create desirable shape and thread is also used for that some parts of the make up, not to mention tape made of linen or cotton. The thread and tape actually help hold the shape. All of this takes time, which adds up to money. Attaching it to the coat front is a trick, too. If done properly you get what you pay for. This is bench made and can be cheaper in the long run. Unless you are rich (whatever that means) you will probably design a garment, and fit it to your body, so it can be worn for decades. A good tailor can assist in designing the coat. On a flat pattern locating pockets, waistlines, buttons, etc. Can be perfectly places. Cut the cloth and wrap that cloth around the person and, maybe those items should be placed elsewhere. On your body maybe the pocket flaps look better narrower or wider. A good tailor wants to optimize the appearance of the customer. Store bought leaves very little ability to change. Which includes mtm. Bench made starts from. And everything is added.

 

I never said that fusing makes a good foundation, only that it is a full foundation.

 

Modern technology has certainly gotten better. But I don't think it can achieve what some bench tailors could do that I saw in the past.
Some mass produce companies have certainly hired true artist that produced marvelous looking garments.
Canvas has its problems. But, fuse also has its limitations, yet.
There are certainly varianing artistic skills among tailors from none to top.
Anyway, I'm not against progress.

 

Jefferyd, what do you wear? Fused or canvas?

 

I wear both full canvas and half. The quality of the cloth and the fit have a far greater importance than canvas vs half.

 

This is probably a bit naive - but aren't many of the flaws related to fusing a thing of the past? Better fusing technology means better garments at a lower price point.

 

There’s so much more that goes into a suit jacket that will determine the overall quality than whether it is canvassed or not.

 

There's so much more that goes into a suit jacket that will determine the overall quality than whether it is canvassed or not.

True - and since the highest quality garments are virtually always fully canvassed it makes it more difficult to appreciate the contribution of the full canvas to the jacket overall. Virtually all of my current garments are fully canvassed but I must say that in years past when I bought less expensive garments that were not full canvas I didn't notice that that was the "problem" with the garment. More often it was other elements of construction and most important, the fabric.

 

No doubt the fuse today is far better than the past. And the better coats would have better fuse today. The stretching and shrinking of the cloth to create contours for the body and fuse, how does that work? Is it possible?

 

Do most full-canvas ready-to-wear clothes even stretch and shrink the cloth for contouring? I have a lot of RTW full canvas clothes, and they don't seem to have the kind of shape bespoke does. The only RTW with that kind of shape I have experienced is Tom Ford.

 

Yes, RTW gets shrinking and stretching and the fusing somewhat reduces the ability to shape. That’s one tradeoff with fusing. And yes, the technology has greatly improved and it’s quite rare to see delamination these days. As the guy in the video states, sometimes a very fine layer of fusible is used on lightweight cloth to stabilize it for full-canvas, known as skin fusing, to prevent puckering from humidity.

The shape in TF garments have got more to do with the aggressive cut than anything, and that cut requires a greater deal of shaping with the iron. We have similar cuts in Hickey Freeman but we don’t sell a lot of them because you have to be in very good shape to wear it.

 

The shaping by iron spoken of here, corroboration or asphyxiation needed on the following assumption: that the shaping is done only at the seams and darts, and once done, the shape is sewn in? Thank ye. (I would like to do this. I wanna be a shaper, maybe The Shaper.)