Scabal

Luxury suiting merchant and mill

Scabal began in Brussels in 1938, when Otto Hertz opened a textile merchant business trading fine cloth. In 1946 the house invented the fabric bunch, the small swatch book tailors everywhere now hand across the table. Most of the trade's everyday furniture has no inventor. This piece does.

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

The house is happiest at the extreme end of fine. In 1990 it became the first to turn a 16.25 micron wool fibre into a Super 150's cloth, Golden Carat, and Super 180's and Super 200's qualities followed. It has also woven diamond fragments, gold, lapis lazuli and platinum directly into suiting. Wonderful or absurd, depending on the client. 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, and they ask for careful handling at the cutting table and a considered life on the body. We think that is a fair trade.