Super 130s

Super 130s Wool Suit: half a micron past the balance point

Super 120s is the balance point on the scale. Super 130s is the step immediately after it, and the difference is about half a micron of fibre diameter.

That sounds like nothing. In the hand it is not nothing. The cloth is noticeably smoother, it falls with a little more fluidity from the shoulder, and it carries slightly more lustre. Put a 120s and a 130s side by side and most people can tell which is which with their eyes closed.

What you give back is resilience. Finer fibres are thinner fibres, and thinner fibres flatten and break sooner under the rubbing that a suit takes at the elbows, the seat and the inside of the thighs.

What you are actually buying

This is the honest way to think about the whole Super scale.

Up to 120s you are buying performance. Each step makes the cloth finer without costing much in durability, so the trade is close to free.

From 130s upward you are buying handle. The cloth feels better. It does not wear better, it does not last longer, and it is not cooler. You are paying for how it sits on you and how it feels under your fingers.

That is a perfectly good thing to pay for. It is just worth knowing that it is what you are paying for, because the number is marketed as though it were a quality grade.

Who it is for

Someone ordering a second or third suit. If a working suit in Super 100s or 120s already covers the heavy rotation, the next one can afford to be finer.

Someone who wants drape. A softer, more fluid cloth suits an unstructured or lightly structured jacket particularly well, because there is less canvas holding the shape and more of the shape comes from the cloth itself.

Someone ordering for an occasion rather than for daily work. A wedding suit, a suit for a dinner, a suit that will be worn twenty times a year and looked at closely each time.

Who it is not for: anyone buying one suit to wear most days. That suit should be 100s or 120s and the money is better spent on the construction.

Weight is still the separate question

The Super number tells you how fine the wool is. It tells you nothing about how warm the cloth will be, and warmth is what decides whether you will actually wear the suit in Chiang Mai.

Fineness and warmth are unrelated. Weight and weave decide warmth. A heavy tight twill in 130s is a winter cloth. A light open weave in 130s is a tropical one. Same yarn.

For this climate, ask for 230 to 260 grams and an open weave, then let the Super number be the second question rather than the first.

Making it last

Two habits do most of the work, and both are free.

Rotate it. Wool recovers from creasing and compression when it is rested. Two suits alternated will each outlast one suit worn twice as often, and the finer the cloth the more this matters.

Steam rather than press. A hot dry iron flattens the fibre surface, and flattened fibre is exactly what shine looks like. Steam relaxes a crease without crushing the cloth.

Brush after wearing, dry clean rarely, and hang it on a wide hanger.

See Super 150s for where the scale ends and what that costs, or the fabric guide for the properties that matter more than the number.