Scabal

Brussels cloth house since 1938, weaving at Huddersfield

Scabal began in Brussels in 1938, when Otto Hertz opened a merchant business in fine cloth. In 1946 the house invented the fabric bunch, the small swatch book that tailors everywhere now hand across the table. Little else in a tailor's shop can name its inventor.

Since 1973 Scabal has also had a mill of its own at Huddersfield, in a part of England long celebrated for the finest cloth, which makes it that rare thing in the trade: a merchant that weaves its own. Along the way it grew close to Hollywood and Broadway, supplying cloth to film and stage.

The house is happiest at the far edge of fineness. In 1990 it became the first to turn a 16.25 micron wool into a Super 150s cloth, Golden Carat, and Super 180s and Super 200s qualities followed. It has also woven diamond fragments, gold, lapis lazuli and platinum into suiting. Whether that is wonderful or a little much is for the client to decide, and we keep an open mind.

In our cloth library, Scabal is the book we open when the fabric itself should carry the story. The superfine wools are soft and very light. They ask for careful handling at the cutting table and a considered life on the body, which we think is a fair exchange.