The Tailor Academy

Glossary

Every tailoring and textile term used in the Academy, explained in a sentence or two.

Every term we use in the Academy, explained in plain words. Each entry links to the articles where you can read more.

B

Barchetta pocket: A curved, boat shaped breast pocket found on Neapolitan jackets. It is one of the details tailors use to spot the style at a glance.
Bast fibre: A fibre taken from a plant’s stem rather than its seed or leaf, such as flax, hemp or ramie.
Baste fitting: The first fitting in a bespoke suit, where the garment is only loosely stitched together over the canvas so the tailor can check the basic shape and mark corrections in chalk before anything is sewn for good.
Bespoke: A garment cut and made from an individual pattern drafted for one customer’s own measurements, not adjusted from an existing block. In the trade it also usually means around thirty measurements taken, hand canvassed fronts, hand sewn buttonholes and several fittings, the standard the Savile Row Bespoke Association sets out in its own rules.
Birdseye: A woven pattern with a small diamond shape around a central dot, named for its resemblance to a bird’s eye. It describes a weave structure, not a fibre or a finish.
Block (sloper): A basic, unstyled pattern fitted to one body or one standard size, with no seam allowance or style lines added yet. Every tailoring house keeps its own block, built around its own proportions, so one house’s block is not interchangeable with another’s.
Blood grade: An older American wool grading system (Fine, half blood, three eighths blood and so on) that started out tied to how much Merino bloodline a sheep carried. It is still used today as a rough, non technical stand in for fineness.
Break: The fold that forms where the front hem of a trouser leg meets the shoe. How much break a trouser has is decided entirely by how long it is hemmed.
Britch (breech) wool: Wool from a sheep’s rear legs and hindquarters. It is generally the coarsest part of the fleece, because that area takes the brunt of wind, rain and friction.
Burn test: An informal way to guess a fibre’s identity by how a small sample burns, smells and what kind of ash or bead it leaves behind. It can point to a fibre family, but it cannot tell you the exact percentages in a blend the way a fibre content label can.
Bust adjustment: A pattern change that adds or removes shaping over the bust. On a darted pattern the dart itself is widened or narrowed, on a princess seam pattern the width is added or removed through the side panel instead.

C

Calendering: Passing finished cloth between heated, high pressure rollers to set a surface effect, anywhere from a flat, smooth handle to a glazed or embossed one, depending on how the rollers are set.
CCMI: The Cashmere and Camel Hair Manufacturers Institute, the US industry body that defines cashmere by fibre diameter and sets the limits genuine cashmere has to meet.
Chalk stripe: A stripe pattern like pinstripe but wider and softer edged, originally meant to look like a tailor’s chalk line on cloth. It reads as more casual than a pinstripe.
CITES: The international Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which tightly controls trade in vicuna fibre because the animal is wild and protected.
Cotton linter: The short fuzz left on a cottonseed after ginning. It is the raw material used to make cupro.
Crimp: The natural wave in a wool fibre. It is what gives wool its bounce, bulk and elasticity, letting it stretch and spring back into shape.
Cupro: A regenerated cellulose fibre made from cotton linter and sold under the brand name Bemberg. It is made by a single Japanese manufacturer and used mainly as a smooth, moisture managing lining.
Cutter: The tailor who translates a client’s measurements into a pattern and cuts the cloth. It is historically the most senior craft role in a tailoring house.

D

Dart: A fold of fabric sewn to a point and pressed flat, used to remove excess flat cloth so it can curve around a body shape such as the bust or waist.
Decatising: A steam and cool finishing process, also called crabbing and blowing, that permanently sets a cloth’s lustre and handle and stops it shrinking later during garment making.
Dehairing: The mechanical process of separating fine, soft down fibre, such as cashmere or camel down, from the coarser guard hair it grows alongside.
Dinner jacket / tuxedo: A short evening jacket that Henry Poole & Co is credited with creating around 1860. Britain kept the name dinner jacket, while in America it became known as the tuxedo, after Tuxedo Park, New York, where the style is said to have spread.

E

English drape cut: Anderson & Sheppard’s own house style: a small, high armhole with fullness added through the sleeve head, a soft shoulder with minimal padding, extra fullness through the chest, a nipped waist and a very light internal canvas. It was pioneered by the cutter Frederick Scholte in the early twentieth century.

F

Fibre content label: The legally required label disclosing what a textile is actually made of, by fibre name and percentage of weight. In the US it is required under the Textile Fiber Products Identification Act and enforced by the FTC.
Finished fitting: The last fitting in a bespoke process, confirming that every earlier correction made it into the completed garment and checking details that only show once a jacket is finished, such as how it hangs across the back and shoulders.
Flannel: A finish, not a fibre: a napped or brushed surface that can be applied to wool, cotton or synthetic cloth. Wool flannel is heavier and warmer than cotton flannel.
Flap pocket: A pocket set into the jacket with a covering flap of cloth. It is the most common and most versatile jacket pocket style.
Forward fitting: A bespoke fitting that comes after the baste fitting, once the coat maker has padded the chest and lapels by hand and set the outer pockets, so this stage checks structural work that did not exist yet at the first fitting.
Fresco: A high twist, open plain weave wool cloth. The tight twist gives it spring and the open weave creates air pockets that move heat and moisture away from the body, which is why fresco resists creasing and wears cool.
Full canvas: A jacket construction where the floating canvas interlining is stitched through the entire front, all the way to the hem. Because it is sewn rather than glued, it moves and drapes with the wearer’s body over time, and it is considered the hallmark of bespoke and top level ready to wear.
Fulling: Also called milling, this finishing step uses moisture, heat, friction and pressure to shrink a woven wool cloth by roughly ten to twenty five percent, locking the weave together and thickening the handle.
Fused construction: A jacket construction where the interlining is bonded to the outer cloth with heat and adhesive instead of stitched in. It is lighter and cheaper to make than canvassed construction, though the glue bond can separate over time and cause bubbling.

G

Gabardine: A tightly woven, steep angle twill, traditionally worsted wool but also made in cotton. The tight weave makes it durable, and in cotton it also resists water, which is why it was historically used for raincoats.
Ginning: The mechanical process that separates cotton fibre from the cottonseed. The cotton is first dried and cleaned, then saw teeth pull the lint through narrow ribs too tight for the seed to pass.
Glen check: A tightly patterned check built from alternating bands of a small and a large check, originally a Scottish estate tweed design. It is often called Prince of Wales check when an overcheck is added.
Gossypium: The cotton plant genus. Gossypium hirsutum, known as upland cotton, supplies most of the world’s cotton, while Gossypium barbadense covers the longer staple types such as Pima, Egyptian and Sea Island cotton.
GSM: Grams per square metre, the metric way of stating how heavy a fabric is.
Guard hair: The coarse, long outer coat hair of a double coated fibre animal, such as a goat, camel or yak. It protects the fine undercoat and has to be removed by dehairing before that soft fibre can be used.
Guild: A medieval and early modern trade association that regulated training, quality and membership in a craft such as tailoring. London’s tailors formed one of the earliest, chartered in 1327.

H

Half canvas: A jacket construction where the floating canvas interlining is stitched into the upper chest and shoulder only, roughly down to the jacket’s mid point, with the rest fused or left unfused. It needs less material and labour than full canvas, so it sits at a middle price and quality point.
Herringbone: A broken twill weave where the diagonal line reverses at regular intervals, so left leaning and right leaning segments sit side by side and form a zig zag pattern. It wears the same way as an ordinary twill.
Hopsack: A plain weave variant that interlaces two or more threads together as a single unit in both directions, giving a looser, basket like, pebbled surface. It breathes well and resists visible creasing, though it can snag more easily.
Horsehair canvas: The traditional interlining used in half and full canvas jackets, woven with horsehair to give the chest and lapel a shape and spring that a fused interlining cannot reproduce. It is loosely basted to the outer cloth so the two layers can still move against each other.

I

IWTO: The International Wool Textile Organisation, the global body that sets wool testing standards and owns the Super number scale.

J

Jetted pocket: A pocket set into the jacket with no flap, just a taped opening. It reads as more formal than a flap pocket.

L

Lanolin (wool grease): The natural waxy substance sheep secrete from their skin, which coats raw wool fibre. Most of it is removed during scouring, though trace amounts can remain in minimally processed wool.
Livery company: The modern descendant of a London trade guild, such as the Merchant Taylors’ Company.
Lounge suit: The informal, dart shaped matching jacket, waistcoat and trouser suit that grew out of 1850s advertising language and became standard Western menswear from the 1920s onward.
Lyocell: A regenerated cellulose fibre made from wood pulp using a closed loop solvent process that recovers over 99.8 percent of the solvent used. TENCEL is Lenzing’s brand name for it.

M

Made to measure (MTM): A garment made by adjusting an existing standard block pattern to fit a client’s own measurements, rather than drafting a new pattern from scratch. It sits between bespoke and ready to wear.
Mercerisation: A finishing treatment where cotton or linen yarn or cloth is treated with strong caustic soda, which increases its strength and dye uptake. When the fabric is held under tension during the treatment it also gains a silky lustre.
Merchant: A company such as Holland & Sherry, Dormeuil or Scabal that designs, commissions and sells cloth, and may or may not also own a mill. In practice the line between merchant and mill often blurs.
Micron: A unit of length, one millionth of a metre, used to measure the diameter of a single wool or animal fibre. It is the main technical measure of fineness.
Mill: A company that spins and weaves cloth.
Mulesing: A surgical procedure that removes skin folds from a sheep’s hindquarters to reduce the risk of flystrike. It is banned under both the Responsible Wool Standard and ZQ certification.

N

Napping: Also called brushing, this finishing step draws loose fibre ends up out of the woven cloth with rotating wire brushes, raising a soft surface that traps air. It is the step that turns a plain or twill wool cloth into flannel.
Natural shoulder: A jacket shoulder with minimal padding that follows the wearer’s own shoulder line closely, associated with the American sack suit tradition.
Neapolitan jacket: A soft, minimally padded and often unlined jacket style developed in Naples in the 1920s and 1930s, when tailors stripped padding and structure out of the English jacket to suit the city’s hot, humid climate.
Noil: The short fibres and vegetable matter that combing removes and discards during worsted processing.
Notch lapel: A lapel that meets the collar at an angle, typically described as a 75 to 90 degree notch. It is the standard lapel on single breasted jackets.

O

Oz/yd: Ounces per yard, the imperial way of stating fabric weight, common in suiting alongside grams per square metre.

P

Patch pocket: A pocket sewn onto the outside of the jacket as a visible patch. It signals a more casual garment than a set in pocket.
Peak lapel: A lapel with a point that angles up toward the shoulder. It is standard on double breasted jackets and considered one of the harder lapel shapes to cut well on a single breasted one.
Pick stitching: A row of small, evenly spaced hand stitches sewn close to a finished edge, such as a lapel or pocket flap. It reinforces the edge against rolling or curling and signals hand construction.
Pinstripe: A pattern of very fine parallel stripes, traditionally around 0.85mm wide, each one formed from a single, differently coloured warp yarn against the base cloth.
Plain weave: The simplest weave structure, one warp thread over one weft thread, alternating. It is crisp, breathable and stable, but creases more readily than a twill.
Ply: The number of single strands twisted together to make a finished yarn, such as two ply or three ply. Plied yarns are stronger and more abrasion resistant than an equivalent single yarn.
Princess seam: A long, curved vertical seam running from the shoulder or armhole to the hem that shapes the bust, waist and hip through the seam line itself, instead of through a separate dart.

R

Ready to wear (RTW): Clothing manufactured in advance in fixed, graded sizes for stock, with no individual measurement or pattern adjustment at all. It is also called confection.
Red Gang (Hong Bang): The Ningbonese tailors who learned Western tailoring in Shanghai’s foreign concessions in the late nineteenth century, named for their first clients, who were mostly red haired Westerners. Over six hundred of them are said to have relocated to Hong Kong after 1949, shaping the city’s tailoring reputation.
Regency dandy: A men’s fashion archetype, best known through Beau Brummell, built on understated, immaculately fitted tailoring rather than ornament.
Regenerated cellulosic fibre: A manufactured fibre made by chemically dissolving natural cellulose, from wood or cotton pulp, and reforming it into filament. Viscose, cupro and lyocell are all regenerated cellulosic fibres.
Retting: The controlled rotting stage in linen production that breaks down the pectin holding the usable flax fibre to the woody core of the stem, whether it is done in a field, in water or with chemicals.
Rise: The trouser measurement from the crotch seam to the waistband, which decides whether the trousers sit high or low on the waist.
Rock of eye: Drafting or correcting a pattern line freehand, by trained eye and feel rather than a fixed formula. It is considered one of the most advanced skills in bespoke cutting, not a shortcut around measuring.
Roped shoulder: A shoulder construction that raises and squares the sleeve head above the natural shoulder line, giving a structured, built up silhouette associated with British and Milanese tailoring.
RWS: The Responsible Wool Standard, a farm to seller wool certification that bans mulesing and evaluates farms against animal welfare, land management and social criteria.

S

Sack suit: The American term for a lounge suit cut without a front waist dart, giving straighter, boxier sides than a shaped European cut, combined with a soft, natural shoulder. It is popularly credited to Brooks Brothers.
Savile Row: The London street most associated with bespoke tailoring since the nineteenth century. It began life as a residential street named after Lady Dorothy Savile, and Henry Poole & Co is generally credited as the first tailor to open a shop front directly onto it, in 1846.
Scutching: The mechanical step after retting that beats or crushes away the dried woody core of the flax stem, freeing the long bast fibres to be combed and spun.
Sharkskin (pick-and-pick): A smooth twill weave that alternates a dark and a light yarn, creating a subtle two tone, faintly lustrous diagonal pattern rather than a solid colour.
Shawl lapel: A lapel with no notch or peak at all, running as one continuous curved edge from collar to button. Today it appears almost exclusively on dinner jackets and tuxedos, not day suits.
Skirting: Removing the inferior outer edge of a freshly shorn fleece, the stained, matted, short or contaminated wool, before the rest is classed for sale.
Spalla camicia: Literally shirt shoulder, this is a way of setting the sleeve into the armhole the way a shirt sleeve is set, with minimal padding and a little extra cloth eased in rather than pressed flat. It is a signature of Neapolitan hand tailoring, though it describes this one attachment method, not the whole jacket’s structure.
Staple length: The average length of the individual fibres in a sample. It is the main technical driver of fibre quality, since longer fibres generally spin into finer, stronger, smoother yarn.
Super number (S number): An IWTO governed scale, running from Super 80s upward, that certifies the maximum fibre diameter of pure new wool fabric. Each step of ten on the scale means half a micron less in maximum diameter, so a higher number means a finer, but not necessarily better wearing, fibre.

T

3D body scanning: A measuring technology using infrared or laser sensors to capture dozens to over a thousand body data points in seconds, used by made to measure and bespoke adjacent businesses to replace or supplement manual tape measurement.
Tre bottoni su due (three-roll-two): A button stance where a three button jacket is cut so the lapel rolls over the top button, leaving only two buttons showing. It is a signature detail of Neapolitan tailoring.
Tropical weight: The lightest common suiting weight band, commonly cited as under roughly 230 to 270 grams per square metre. The exact cut off varies between sources, since no single body fixes it.
Turn-up (British) / cuff (American): The trouser hem folded back on itself, adding a small amount of weight and a horizontal line at the ankle. British and American English simply use different words for the same detail.
Twill: A weave that staggers the interlacing point by one thread on each row, producing a visible diagonal line. Because the yarn floats over more than one thread at a time, twill drapes better, hides soiling and wrinkles better, and generally wears harder than plain weave.
Twist (S/Z): The direction a spun yarn’s fibres tilt, named for the letter the tilt resembles. Single yarns are conventionally spun with a Z twist, then plied together with an S twist running the opposite way, so the finished yarn does not kink on itself.
Two-ply (yarn): A yarn made of two single yarns twisted together, usually spun for extra strength compared with a single ply yarn of the same fineness.

V

Vent: A vertical slit rising from a jacket’s hem, mainly there to let the wearer move, sit and reach without the cloth pulling.

W

Woollen: Yarn spun from carded fibres left jumbled and unaligned, producing a loftier, fuzzier, more air filled yarn than worsted. It suits shorter staple fibres, generally under about 60mm.
Worsted: Yarn spun from combed fibres that have been straightened and aligned in parallel, with the short fibres removed, producing a smoother, denser, less fuzzy yarn than woollen. It is the choice for fine suiting cloth.

Y

Yarn count: A number stating how fine a yarn is, expressed in competing systems such as the metric count, the English cotton count or the worsted count. In every one of these systems, a higher number means a finer yarn.

Z

ZQ: A New Zealand founded Merino wool certification that bans mulesing and commits to the Five Freedoms animal welfare framework. ZQ certification also confers Responsible Wool Standard certification for the same wool.