Comparaison

Full canvas vs half canvas

One runs a stitched canvas from shoulder to hem; the other stops at the chest and fuses below. The difference is drape, alterability and roughly a third of the labour.

Technique

Full canvas construction

A hand-shaped skeleton of horsehair and wool, sewn (never glued) between cloth and lining.

Technique

Half canvas construction

Canvas through the chest and lapel, fusible below: the compromise most good ready-to-wear makes.

Where they diverge

Both have a floating canvas through the chest and lapel, hand- or machine-padded into shape. In a fully canvassed jacket that canvas continues to the hem; in a half-canvassed one it stops around the second button and the front below is fused.

Since the chest and lapel do almost all the visible shaping, half canvas keeps most of what a customer can see: the lapel rolls, the chest holds a shape, the jacket does not feel like a board.

What full canvas adds

Drape in the lower front, because the cloth and the canvas remain two independent layers all the way down. Moulding, because the whole front takes the wearer's shape over time. And alterability, because the structure is sewn rather than bonded and can be unsewn.

It also removes the one failure mode half canvas retains: a fused lower front can eventually delaminate, though modern fusibles are considerably better than their reputation.

What it costs

Full canvas is roughly three times the labour of half canvas in the canvassing operation alone. That is why the construction tracks price so closely and why it is advertised so prominently by makers who use it.

For a jacket worn weekly and kept a decade, the extra is worth it. For a jacket worn occasionally, it genuinely is not, and a maker who says so is being straight with you.

Côte à côte

Les cellules ombrées correspondent aux lignes où les deux diffèrent. Chaque valeur provient des mêmes fiches que les pages individuelles ; un tiret signifie que le fait n'est pas documenté dans une source que nous avons pu vérifier.
	Full canvas construction	Half canvas construction
Canvas extent	Shoulder to hem	Chest and lapel only
Lower front	Floating canvas	Fused
Drape	Full	Partial
Moulds to the wearer	The whole front	The chest
Alterable	Substantially	Partly
Failure mode	Wear, eventually	The fused section can bubble
Relative labour	About 3×	Baseline
Found in	Bespoke; the top of ready-to-wear	Most good ready-to-wear

Ce en quoi chacun excelle

Cette section relève de l'opinion éditoriale, clairement séparée du dossier ci-dessus. Elle suit notre méthode d'évaluation.

For a jacket you will wear weekly and keep, full canvas. For a jacket worn a dozen times a year, half canvas is the right engineering decision and the money is better spent on fit. And in every case a well-cut half-canvassed jacket beats a poorly cut fully canvassed one: construction is a tiebreaker between garments that both fit, not a substitute for fit.

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Dernière révision: September 2026 Signaler une erreur sur cette page

Crédits photographiques 2

A jacket front showing its full canvas: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
A jacket front showing a half canvas: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art

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