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Dressing well in heat
In hot weather, an open-weave cloth and an unlined, softly built jacket keep you cooler than simply choosing the lightest fabric available.
Comfort in heat comes from air moving through the cloth and from the cloth staying off the skin, not from weight. A 12-ounce open-weave high-twist worsted is cooler than a 9-ounce dense one, and an unlined jacket with a soft chest is cooler than a light one with a fused front.
The principles
- Open weave over light weight. Fresco, hopsack, open linen and wool-mohair blends breathe; dense light worsteds do not.
- High twist over soft finish. High-twist yarn holds the cloth off the skin and resists creasing, which is the other half of looking presentable in heat.
- Unlined or half-lined, with a light chest or none. A lining is a second layer.
- Natural fibres. Wool absorbs and releases moisture vapour; linen conducts heat away; synthetics do neither and hold odour.
- Lighter colours reflect, but they also show marks. Mid-grey and tan are the practical compromise.
The cloths
| Cloth | Character |
|---|---|
| Fresco / high-twist worsted | The best all-round hot-weather suiting; wiry hand, cool in wear, tailors properly |
| Wool-mohair | Crisp, springy, faintly lustrous, extremely crease-resistant |
| Linen | Coolest of all; creases immediately and permanently |
| Wool-linen-silk | The Italian summer jacketing blend; texture, drape, and less creasing than pure linen |
| Cotton | Cool but heavier-feeling; wears well as a summer suit in seersucker or poplin |
| Hopsack | Open basket weave; the standard summer blazer cloth |
The rest of the outfit
An unlined or half-lined jacket with a soft chest. A shirt in a cotton with some texture: oxford, royal oxford, a fine linen, rather than a dense poplin. Unlined shoes, or loafers, and a sock that is genuinely thin rather than merely short.
And accept some creasing. Linen creases; a high-twist worsted creases less; nothing available stays immaculate in genuine heat, and a garment that does is made of something you do not want against your skin.
The physics, briefly
Comfort in heat is about moving air and moisture, not about thinness, which is why the advice above points at open, coarse cloths rather than fine ones. A very fine, tightly woven lightweight cloth traps air against the skin and can be markedly less comfortable than a heavier, open-weave, high-twist cloth that lets air through. Fineness and coolness are close to opposites.
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