Suits For All Seasons But Problems Remain

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30892, 27 October 1965, Page 7

Suits For All Seasons But Problems Remain

There was a time, only a few years ago, when light-weight suits were practically unobtainable in Christchurch. They were not available, there appeared to be no demand for them, and, come rain, hail or shine, everyone wore a medium to heavy-weight suit on business days.

Today the situation has changed completely. Menswear stores carry rack upon rack of summer suits in a bewildering range of fibres in weights as low as 6oz to the yard.

But with, say, three suits of varying weights in his wardrobe, the Christchurch man is left in a perpetual quandry—which one to wear. If the seasons ran true to name, there would be no problem. He would wear the heavyweight suit in the winter, the midweight in spring and autumn, and the lightweight in summer.

Christchurch weather is not like that. Choose a lightweight suit on a mild, sunny October morning, and almost before you are out of the bus a storm is raging in from the southwest. Choose the heavyweight for an apparently cold day, and by lunch-time a warm, dry 'nor-wester is soughing across the Square like the Mediterranean fohn. Even if, by some strange freak, the temperature registered on top of the Government Life building remains consistent throughout the day with the weight of suit chosen in the morning, that is no guarantee of a correct choice.

The streets of Christchurch' deserve a detailed weather map of their own. Many a spring head-cold has been born in the transition between the shady side of the Square and the sunny corner of the Chief Post

Office, while the temperature clock nine storeys above the asphalt has shown a temperature somewhere in between.

At least one exasperated Christchurch business man has been driven to carrying an extra suit with him to the office, ready for a quick change when the clouds move over the sun. Americans have no such problem. They are tem-perature-conditioned from breakfast to dinnertime. For a New York office worker the vagaries of the weather are no hazard at all, and summer suits could be worn in the dead of winter.

By all accounts, they walk from their centrally heated kitchens into their centrally heated garages (attached to the house), drive to the office in their heated ears, park in the heated basements of their office buildings, and take the lift up to the air-conditioned, heated executive suite. But for Christchurch men who must lead a more spartan existence, stores will be carrying a good range of comfortable suits for next winter. All winter suits will be of wool, and of heavy

quality, according to buyers who are already thinking two seasons ahead.

Apart from any patriotic considerations, they are choosing wool because of its special, unique qualities. It drapes better, makes-up better, handles better, and is acknowledged to be healthier than other materials for winter suitings.

Summer suits are another proposition. Very lightweight pure wool fabric presents certain manufacturing difficulties. It does not have sufficient body by itself, and it tends to crease up, although these are problems that wool researchers are working on.

In the meantime, manufacturers compromise with mixtures of wool and synthetic fibres to add creaseresistance, strength and quick-drying properties. A

new Australian blend introduced last summer contains one third of wool for body and shape, one third of mohair for lightness and sheen, and one third of terylene for crease resistance.

Other popular blends for lightweight suits are terylene and wool, terylene and mohair, terylene and linen, wool and silk, and terylene and silk. Suitings mixing terylene and linen come from France, pure silk fabric comes from Italy, and most other blends come from the United Kingdom. The combinations, and proportions of different fibres, are almost unlimited, and each year the variety available in New Zealand is greater than the year before.

With three or four years of experience behind them materials, New Zealand in working with these new manufacturers have become skilled at handling them and are turning out lightweight suits of excellent quality and finish. Many customers not unnaturaly expect lightweight suits to be cheaper than those of heavier material, but because the making costs are the same whatever the material, the difference is often only slight. Lightweight suits can be bought for less than £2O, but they also go as high as £3O, depending on the material.