The importance of thickness when choosing a wool coat – CDL#85

Cover photo: Gloverall lookbook

Reading your comments, I see that the idea that a wool coat should not include too much synthetic has been understood.

Indeed, a coat with too much polyamide/polyester like many found at the entry level will not be able to insulate you well from the cold.

However, you must add another criterion to your reading grid when choosing your coat: the weight of the material.

A 100% wool coat, if it is thin, will not keep you that warm when the thermometer is close to or below 0°.

What is the right thickness for a wool coat?

If you buy your coat in store, you will of course be able to touch the garment and feel on your shoulders when trying it on if it is thick enough or not.

On the other hand, when you buy online, it is less obvious.

Either the material weight is not given, in which case you should only rely on the photos, which may possibly give you an idea of ​​the thickness.

Either the material weight is given, in which case you can refer to this reading grid:

• >400 g/ ^m2 : heavy weight
• 350-400 g/ ^m2 : medium/heavy weight
• 300-350 g/ ^m2 : medium weight
• <300 g/ ^m2 : light weight / mid-season

Square meter and linear meter: the big difference

You may be saying to yourself:

“Great then, I’ve seen lots of coats with wools of 500, 600g/ ^m2 or even more!”

Except... the reality is more subtle.

There are actually two ways to express the weight of a woolen cloth: square meter and linear meter.

And the two are sometimes confused.

Here is what Benoît wrote on this subject on the presentation of our navy coat :

"I would like to draw your attention to an important point: many brands (the majority, in fact) choose, to simplify their speech, to speak of 'square meter' when in reality it is 'linear meter.'

However, the weight of a linear meter of fabric is generally greater than that of a square meter, because it is the weight of a meter of fabric in length... But not in width!

In fact, the linear meter is not a reliable unit of measurement if we do not also give you what we call in textile jargon the 'width', that is to say the width of the roll of a fabric, which depends on the machine on which it is carried out.

Very often, the widths of modern looms are 140 to 160cm.

On this Jules Tournier fabric, the width is 150cm. Hence the equivalence: 410 g/m ² = 615/linear m (1.5 times more) »

1. The theory

Here is the explanation in pictures:

• This is ^1m2 (1m*1m). Let's call it "A".

• This is 1 linear meter (1m*1m50). But it can also be 1m*1m40 or 1m*1m60, depending on the width of the width. Let's call it "B".

• What some brands do is say that B = A. But that's inaccurate. If B = 600g, then A = 600/1.5 = 400g/m ²

The maximum weight for a coat seems to me to be around 500 or even 550g/ ^m2 . SO :

• If you see weights at 600g and above: you can reasonably assume that these are linear meters . Dividing by 1.5 will give you a rough idea weight in square meters
• If you see weights around 500, it's more complicated . It can be both square and linear meters. I'm not sure that asking the brand will necessarily guarantee you a reliable answer: the person who will answer you will not necessarily know the concepts of width or linear meters. In this case, you can only assume from the rendering of the coat in photo

2. Practical cases

Let's look at some concrete cases together.

Hast coat

“700g per linear meter”. We are good.

We obtain a weight between 450 and 500 g/m ² after conversion.

The Initialist Coat

"550g/m2".

Although I could be wrong, I think it's more about linear meters here: the material looks quite fluid. See the photo where the model has her hand without its back pocket for example.

So in equivalence, we would arrive at between 350 and 400g/m ² , which remains quite honorable, especially for a Loro Piana wool coat for less than €300.

Should synthetics still be banned?

That being said, I asked myself the following question:

Wouldn't it be better to have a thick coat with a bit of synthetic material than a thin 100% wool coat?

Let's take an example with two similar coats:

• Coat 1: 100% wool
• Coat 2: 80% wool 20% polyamide

A primary reflex would be to stop at the composition and immediately declare: “the 100% wool coat is necessarily better”.

Now let's add additional data, the material weight:

• Coat 1: 350g/ ^m2
• Coat 2: 430g/ ^m2

We can estimate that these two coats actually have approximately the same amount of wool .

Coat 2 ultimately weighs more thanks to the 20% synthetic content.

So what is the best coat?

Well the answer is, as is often the case with clothing, “it depends” .

In this case, it depends on your criteria:

• Coat 1 will be suitable if you are not absolutely looking for a very warm coat, but rather reasonably warm. It is also suitable if you appreciate the more fluid fall of a lighter material.
• Coat 2 will be suitable if your main criterion is warmth. Thicker, it will logically fall a little straighter. Obviously, a thick, 100% wool coat would be more suitable, but perhaps with your budget this is not entirely possible

The final word

In broad terms, here is what you can take away from this article:

1. Not all 100% wool coats are equal in terms of warmth . Knowing if a coat is rather thin, medium thick or thick will already help you a lot in your choice.
2. A coat with a little synthetic should not be systematically rejected , especially if the synthetic is in a reasonable proportion and the clothing is rather thick

Looking for a thick wool coat for winter? We have what you need