Judging cloth quality by hand

You do not have to be a master tailor to judge a piece of cloth. Four hand tests, all doable in a showroom in a few minutes, tell you a good deal: whether the cloth recovers from creases, whether it has spring, whether it is dense or thin, and whether it drapes or stands stiff. They do not replace a tailor's experience, but they help you ask the right questions and keep you from being carried along by a sales pitch.

Crumple it for crease recovery

Take a corner of the cloth in your palm, squeeze firmly for a moment and release. Watch how the creases fade.

• Good wool cloth: the creases soften and nearly vanish if you leave it or smooth it gently.
• Poor cloth: the creases stay sharp and linger.

This matters for a tuxedo, because you will sit, drive and embrace guests all evening. Wool fibre has a natural crimp that makes it spring back. Remember that wool-silk and linen blends crease more than pure wool; that is their character, not necessarily a fault.

Stretch it for elasticity

Hold the cloth with your hands a few centimetres apart along an edge and pull gently, both across and along the weave. Good cloth gives a little and returns to its shape. If it stretches and stays stretched, or feels dead and does not move at all, that is worth a further question.

A small caution: pull gently. Hard pulling distorts the showroom swatch. Pure wool has little stretch, while cloth blended with an elastic fibre gives much more, so compare bolts from the same family to be fair.

Hold it to the light for density

Raise the cloth against a light source and look at the yarn spacing:

• Close, even weave with very little light passing through: dense cloth that covers well.
• Tiny holes or uneven bright patches: loose yarns or a slack weave that may snag and fuzz.

With black cloth, this test also shows how even the dye is. A deep, even black looks better than a greyish or mottled one. Thin cloth is not automatically poor, though: light cloth for hot climates is woven open on purpose. What you want is regularity, not maximum thickness. See choosing tuxedo cloth weight for more.

Let it drape

Hold one corner and let the rest hang, or lay the cloth over your forearm. Watch how it falls:

• A soft fall in tidy, rounded folds: good drape, the jacket will follow the body without clinging.
• Stubborn, angular, standing away: stiff cloth that may make a jacket look heavy.

The fall tells you how the garment will sit when worn. Cloth with fluid drape tends to suit a soft shawl lapel; cloth with some stand suits a clearly structured cut. Also stroke the surface: the hand should be clean and smooth, without stray fibres.

Putting the four tests together

No single test says everything. What counts is reading them together and against a second cloth right beside the first.

Test	Good sign	Ask further if
Crumple	Creases fade quickly	Creases stay long
Stretch	Gives slightly, returns	Gives and does not return
Light	Even weave, even colour	Patchy or sparse without reason
Drape	Rounded, soft folds	Angular, stubborn

If the selvedge is available, read that as well: reading the selvedge shows how to match mill and composition against what your hands tell you. For tuxedo cloth there is also a family of low-crease cloths; see low-crease tuxedo cloth.

The limits of hand tests

Hand judgement is strong because it is quick and direct, and weak because it is subjective. A small swatch in a cloth book may not represent the whole bolt. Each person feels cloth differently, and habit plays a part. Real quality also lies in how cloth survives many wearings, which a few minutes of testing cannot reveal.

So never conclude from a single test, and never hesitate to ask the tailor.

Handle cloth at the showroom

The surest way to learn is to touch a lot of cloth at once. Come to a showroom, ask the consultant to lay out two or three cloths side by side, and run the four tests. You can book a cloth viewing and ask about each cloth directly.