Full & Half Canvas Suit

Unless you’re a regular customer at custom tailoring shops, there is a good chance you may not know much
about suit
construction. And the difference between fully-fused, half-canvas, and full-canvas suit jackets may be as foreign to you as
Egyptian hieroglyphics. When you hear canvas, you might think of material used as a painter’s medium or a ship’s sail—and
you’re not far off. The canvas interlining used in a suit jacket is typically made from wool, cotton, and animal hair (either horse
or camel) and can be found between the outer wool fabric and the inner lining of a jacket. Canvas is a lightweight, resilient
interlining that helps a jacket conform to your body’s shape and keep it from becoming deformed, giving you a clean, sharp look.
FULLY FUSED
Not all suit jackets are made using canvas interlining. The cheaper
and lower quality suit jackets—even designer label ones—are made with a fusible interlining that is glued to the inside of the
outer wool fabric of a suit to inexpensively provide some structure to the jacket. This can create an unnatural stiffness and
lifelessness to the jacket, especially in the chest and lapel areas. Additionally, the resin that is used to glue the fusible interlining
to the fabric can degrade over time or become delaminated during dry cleaning, causing the outer wool fabric to ripple in the
chest and lapels. The potential for this “bubbling” is an important factor to take into account when deciding if paying less for a
suit is worth the trade-off in construction quality.
HALF CANVAS
A half-canvas suit jacket greatly improves on the fully-fused jacket

without forfeiting affordability. In a half-canvas jacket the chest and lapels have a canvas interior which is sewn to the outer wool
fabric rather than glued. This allows the jacket to drape naturally over your chest, conforming to its shape. Below the chest and
lapels, fusible interlining is used, but the issues of stiffness and delamination are not so much of a problem in the skirt of the
jacket. The costs of material and labor on a half-canvas jacket are marginally higher than that of a fully-fused one but drastically
lower than the cost of a difficult-to-make full-canvas jacket.
FULL CANVAS
If the canvas extends all the way to the bottom hem of the jacket, it is
known as full-canvas. The outer and inner wool fabrics are hand-basted—meaning hand-stitched—to a canvas interlining, giving
the wearer more natural freedom of movement than a fused jacket and increasing the lifespan of the jacket. Suit jackets that
employ this construction technique are of the highest quality, but they are also more difficult to make and can be much more
expensive than a half-canvas suit. A full-canvas suit may also be skin-fused using a lightweight fusible, easing the difficulty of
construction on delicate wool fabrics while avoiding the risk of delamination inherent in using regular fusible interlinings. Those
who offer full-canvas jackets generally have a greater mastery of style and cut of the suit as a whole, providing additional
enticement to justify paying the full price for a full-canvas suit.
PINCH TEST
The best way to determine

if your suit jacket is fully-fused, half-canvas, or full-canvas is by using the pinch test. First, pinch the wool fabric on the sleeve of
the jacket to get a good feel for the wool’s thickness as no interlining is used here. Then pinch the wool from the inside and
outside of the suit, just below the bottom button. Gently pull layers away from one another. If you can feel a third layer present,
the jacket has a full canvas. If you cannot feel a third layer and the fabric feels thick and stiff, the jacket is most likely fused. To
determine if it is fully-fused or half-canvas, fold the jacket in half at the breakpoint and run your hand along the jacket front
toward the hem. If the jacket is half-canvas, there will be an obvious difference in the stiffness of the jacket. If you cannot feel
any difference, the jacket is probably fully-fused. If after employing the pinch test you are still unsure of its construction, you can
always ask the tailor or producer.

Full & Half Canvas Suit

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full & Half Canvas Suit

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Full & Half Canvas Suit

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Unless you’re a regular customer at custom tailoring shops, there is a good chance you may not know much

A half-canvas suit jacket greatly improves on the fully-fused jacket

The best way to determine

You might also like