Cloth maker · Merchant
Scabal
Scabal is a Brussels cloth merchant founded in 1938 whose fabrics are stocked by tailors worldwide, and it weaves some of its own in Huddersfield.
Scabal, founded in Brussels in 1938, is one of the most widely stocked cloth merchants in the world and also makes its own clothing. It owns weaving capacity in Huddersfield, so parts of its range are produced in-house.
Reach
Scabal's distinguishing feature is distribution. Its bunches turn up in tailors' shops on every continent, which makes it one of the few merchant names an ordinary customer is likely to have encountered.
The company also weaves, having acquired a Huddersfield mill, and sells finished clothing under its own name : the same mill-and-brand hybrid position that Loro Piana occupies at a different price point.
The bunches
Scabal's books cover the full range of suiting and jacketing from everyday worsteds to superfine and novelty cloths, and are among the most widely stocked in tailors' shops internationally. For many customers commissioning their first suit, a Scabal bunch is the first cloth book they ever look at.
The company also weaves in Huddersfield, having acquired a mill there, so part of the range is produced in-house rather than merchanted.
Cloth and clothing
Like Loro Piana at a different level, Scabal occupies both sides of the trade: selling cloth to tailors who compete with its own clothing business. It is an unusual position and it works because the two serve different customers in different countries.
For a tailor's customer the relevant fact is simply availability: Scabal cloth can be got almost anywhere, which matters when a garment needs a repair length years later.
The Brussels position
Scabal sits between the English and Italian traditions both geographically and in what it sells, and it was early to two things that are now normal: heavy investment in cloth design as a distinct discipline, and direct relationships with tailors around the world rather than through agents. Its books are a common sight from Savile Row to Asia, which makes it a useful reference cloth when comparing quotes between houses on different continents.