Trouser Fitting

[Gerry]

This side of the water chambrays are not hard to find, even draper's weight in linnen/cotton at 8,5 oz.

I can easily get hold of 'denim chambray', which is essentially a plain-weave denim; though from my experience it has all the problems of regular, cheap denim (blue fingers, imperfections a plenty and sometimes out of true). It also has a matt look, whereas quality chambray has a slight sheen to it (at least the stuff I like does).

[Hendrick]

I prefer that too. This "denim" is pure wool, and the yarn is slightly slubbed like cotton denim, plus it is colour-fast totally.The chambray is a pure linnen and can be had in shades from very light, like this, too classic blue. Shades of denims and chambrays are usually referred to as "dips", the number of times the warp has had a dye pass. So 4 dips is light and 12 dips is dark. I am sure that either Riegel or Westpoint Pepperell produced a very fine "nuns cotton" in grey and blue chambray. Plain, this would be called "church cotton". But I'm no expert in clerical garb.
Obviously the product on the photo keeps your hands perfectly clean... ( as did the church cottons!)


Cheerio, Hendrick

[Hendrick]

ps, here's the pic

[Schneiderfrei]

Simultaneously British and Dutch traders started developing and importing similar items from India and Indonesia. I guess for the US, the civil war did the rest...

Also heralding the end of the ubiquitous linen shirt, made up of rectangular pieces and gussets.

[Gerry]

ps, here's the pic

I can easily get hold of wool chambray, for suiting, but I've never seen a denim weave. Very cool! I'm guessing that it drapes a lot better.

As a last ditch attempt I've ordered a couple of Chambray samples from Misan in London. Annoyingly no weights are given, so they'll probably be shirting weight. If that's the case then one of the cloths would make a beautiful shirt, so all is not lost (and the samples were very cheap). Even though, what happened to heavier-weight cotton Chambrays in the UK?!