SCABAL AND THE REBIRTH OF WOOL PART I Scabal is far, far more than a purveyor of fabrics and personalised suits: it’s the standard bearer of the global wool industry, a pioneer whose contribution to sophisticated gentlemen’s wardrobes is unsurpassed. This is a company with a mission: to re-establish the emotional connection between exquisite fabrics and their origins. To find out more, the rake joined Scabal on a retrospective journey of discovery — starting at its distinguished Savile Row premises.
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or any savvy fabric aficionado, the feel of a top-shelf quality, worsted-spun wool between finger and thumb is a sublime sensory experience. But the ample-peaked lapel The Rake finds its appreciative digits caressing this crisp December morning – which belongs to a sublimely beautiful double-breasted, four-button chalk-stripe jacket in charcoalgrey - has a texture similar to that, one might imagine, of the cloud on which God sits. It’s the last day of 2014, and we’ve been invited to pore over the astonishing merchandise at Scabal’s London premises at Number 12 Savile Row – an address which is, for clothing connoisseurs, equivalent to what the Café Royal’s cellar was for late 19th-Century wine buffs. Perusing the boutique, we lay our covetous gaze on several more garments whose jawdropping beauty emanates from every warp and weft of the fabric from which they have been constructed: a semi-formal blazer in a double-herringbone striped, Super 150s merino wool named ‘Orchid’, which is infused with the scent of the flower after which it is named; a royal blue evening jacket in a superfine merino collection called ‘Fidelio’, whose miniscule elongated checks give it a subtle lustre; more boardroomhumbling pinstriped apparel made from ‘Luxxor’, a Super 150s wool featuring a type of cashmere more often found in the most desirable gentlemen’s outerwear. In a room at the back of the premises, we’re granted tactile appreciation of several more of the very finest of Scabal’s 5,000-strong repertoire of fabrics: ‘Imperial Trilogy’, a blend of a Super 230s with a Super 160s fleece and a rare yarn from 154
the Guanaco, a camelid which resides on the arid mountains of South America; ‘Sunrise’, which is composed of 50 per cent Super 200s wool and 50 per cent silk; and the cloth that Scabal for now - considers its pride and joy: ‘Summit’, an ultra-ultrafine fibre in the lower 12 micron range. ‘Summit’ – so named because it resides at the apex of an imaginary graph depicting the firm’s unceasing quest to create the finest wool fabrics in the world – was considered something of a miracle by Scabal’s more seasoned workers, some of whom had worked for the company for over 40 years, when it was presented by their textile technician colleagues in 2006. These seasoned employees had already witnessed wool being taken to what was considered its maximum fineness several times before: back in 1974, with the world’s first cloth finer than Super 100s; in 1991 with the Super 150s named ‘Golden Carat’; in 1998 with a Super 180s, ‘Obsession’; and again in 2000, when Scabal created a Super 200s quality yarn and named it, aptly enough, ‘Exceptional’. So superlative - and so scarce - is the ‘Summit’, many tailors are reportedly fearful of using it, in case they make an error (they tend to succumb to the temptation, though, and demand vastly outweighs supply). Despite its almost unfeasible fineness, ‘Summit’ has all the tensility and strength of Scabal’s other fabrics, and is thus a firm favourite amongst leading tailors. “Scabal is one of those companies whose cloths exude a glamorous, contemporary elegance - especially their premium fabrics,” says Richard Anderson, one of Savile Row’s most esteemed tailors and Scabal’s neighbour and client,
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adding that the ‘Summit’ cloth is his personal favourite. “From a tailoring point of view, it makes up delightfully in terms of both drape and line.” You won’t find any of Anderson’s peers, from The Row or further afield, disagreeing. The Three C’s which go into the perfectly tailored suit – one that will imbue the wearer with dignity, sure-footed composure and presence - are cloth, cut and construction: in that order. The prime factor in a desirable drape and silhouette – with two perfectly proportioned, elongated quenelle-shapes of daylight between the wearer’s torso and the arms when he stands with arms relaxed before the atelier’s mirror - is the softness, yield and shape-keeping performance of the fabric with which the tailor works. And, both the proprietors and the patrons of the world’s most exclusive gentlemen’s outfitters and ateliers are in for a treat, as a new Scabal cloth is set to enrich the company’s heritage and enhance its reputation for fabric perfection even more. To find out more, and as part of our reverse-chronological investigation into process by which Scabal converts natural fibres into ever higher-quality, ever-more luxurious cloth, The Rake headed to the company’s HQ. Cloth maketh the man It’s a safe bet many textile-savvy readers out there are already familiar with the name Scabal. And if you’re not, you’re almost certainly far more intimately acquainted with the company’s output than you might think. The charcoal three-pieces which put a slick slice of ‘mean’ into the ‘demeanour’ of the Corleone family in The Godfather Trilogy were cut from Scabal’s finest. So were Daniel Craig’s threads in Casino Royale, Michael Douglas’s in Wall Street, Leo Di Caprio’s in The Aviator and Pierce Brosnan’s in both GoldenEye and The Tailor Of Panama. 156
If you’re even a passive consumer of red-carpet photos or footage, you will have witnessed Scabal’s cloths grace the forms of Benedict Cumberbatch, Sean Connery, Clive Owen, David Beckham and Colin Firth, among others. This fabric has been cut into the stately silhouettes of just about any US president you could name from this or the last century. Meanwhile, Scabal works not just with tailors but with retailers, designers and other garment makers, delivering fabrics to giants of the menswear scene including Giorgio Armani, Rubinacci, Ralph Lauren, Stefano Ricci, Hermes, Brioni, Prada, Paul Smith and Cifonelli. A few days after our Savile Row experience, The Rake learns all about Scabal’s illustrious history while taking a tour of the large, red-brick building that serves as the company headquarters. Scabal was founded in 1938 by entrepreneur Otto Hertz. The name is an acronym – it stands for Société Commerciale Anglo, Belgo, Allemande et Luxembourgeoise – which reflects Hertz’s desire that the establishment should be considered European, rather than having a single country of origin (even phonetically, the name ‘Scabal’ is deliberately neutral-sounding). In 1953, Scabal expanded its repertoire by acquiring the London merchant Wain Shiell, which had been operating at Number 2 on The Row since 1907. This, along with the later acquisition of another Savile Row institution, Barclays, saw an enormous amount of contacts, resources, expertise and talent drawn into the Scabal fold, and before long it was supplying to virtually every tailor on the street, along with the most noted ateliers throughout the world. Perhaps the most significant milestone in Scabal’s relentless drive to control and advance the quality of its textiles, though, was its acquisition, in 1973, of a prestigious mill in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. The people of Huddersfield have been pushing forward the
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frontiers of cloth making and weaving excellence for over 500 years, and the mill itself has been in the thick of this endeavour since 1799. Otto Hertz was a noted visionary, and the brains behind many of Scabal’s extraordinary innovations: it was he who compelled the Huddersfield mill to produce ever finer-fabrics (until the early 70s, courser cloths, often going up to 1,000 grams, prevailed in gentlemen’s suiting). The bunch books which we now take as standard in ateliers the world over were his innovation (unlike the folders of swatches provided previously, these offer far greater tactility; one can feel a cloth’s responsiveness to manipulation with the human hand). In 1971, he even persuaded the master Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali to recreate, on 12 canvasses still owned by the company, his vision of fashion and how men would dress in the 21st century.
The most important thing for me is that we stay honest and dedicated to our quality aspirations, and continue to be at the top of the quality ladder. It was also in the early 70s that another fabric visionary, Peter Thissen, began a 40-year tenure as CEO, and the company expanded into America, then Japan. With Thissen at the reins, Scabal continued to be prolific when it came to milestones of progress - the purchasing of Scabal’s own madeto-measure plant towards the end of the 80s – and would continue under his son Gregor, who joined in 1991. In 1994 Scabal launched ‘Fascination’, the lightest cashmere ever made; in 2000 it became the first company to blend precious stones such as diamonds and Lapis Lazuli into thread during weaving, giving the resulting fabrics a subtle lustre. Today, Scabal has over 600 employees and creates an astonishing 500-600 new fabrics – or 15 bunches - each season in 65 countries. Touring the HQ today, it is manifest that passion and devotion are woven into Scabal’s cultural fabric. Even when it comes to the handcrafting of the sample books, which will later be lovingly thumbed through in ateliers throughout the world, a devoutness, palpable in the air throughout the building, is consistently applied.
At a quality control section, eagle-eyed staff cast their scrutinous gazes over lengths of fabric, checking it for imperfections, dropped stitches and so on. It’s typical of Scabal that even the selvedges – the brand-embroidered edges of the rolls of fabric, which prevent unravelling or fraying – are finished with meticulous heedfulness, despite the fact that these edges will all end up on the tailors’ cutting room floors. Each roll of fabric is even individually numbered, so that when a customer requests, say, a replacement pair of trousers for his suit, his tailor can strive to use the same batch of cloth - which has therefore undergone the same dyeing, and other treatments - as the original garment (wool being a natural material, miniscule differences can exist between ostensibly identical fabrics). The fervid devotion to the cause – that being, the creation of exclusive fabrics evident throughout this facility - trickles down from the very top: namely, Gregor Thissen, who firmly believes that diligence, and appetite for precision, tends to spread by osmosis. “Passion is transmittable, and my father was very good at conveying it on a big scale,” he tells The Rake. “People who work here get infected with it.” A firm adherent to the renaissance in gentlemanly apparel (“Watching TV, watching people in the street, looking at people in airports, you can definitely see the grunge times are over,” he says), Thissen believes that wool, and traditional ways of processing it, have a bright future thanks to both the sartorial and ethical zeitgeists. “It’s an organically grown material, which is produced in a very ecological way, very respectful of the environment,” he says. “The farmers’ passion and dedication to the product, the animals, the environment really hits a chord with us. The most important thing for me is that we stay honest and dedicated to our quality aspirations, and continue to be at the top of the quality ladder. We have a group of international fans who are passionate about the way we approach what we produce, and that’s really important. Whether or not all that turns into a huge commercial success or not is almost secondary.” Thissen is particularly excited when we meet, thanks to the imminent release of that aforementioned, world-beating fabric: ‘Noble Fleece’. “For me, it’s the first in a hopefully long series of fabrics that are going to be based on a new focus in the selection process for wool,” he tells The Rake. “So far in the ultra-fine business, we’ve always focussed on micronage, and I want now to go beyond that and add a lot of other different characteristics to the wool we’re selecting. 159
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A mark of excellence And this is where a remarkable organisation enters the picture - one which has contributed significantly to Scabal’s latest pushing of the boundaries of fabric perfection. Founded in 1937 as The International Wool Secretariat, The Woolmark Company (www.woolmark.com and www.merino.com) collaborates with wool-growers, weavers, fabric makers and designers, ensuring that everyone in the wool fabric equation – from the growers, right through to the customers - gets fantastic support. It also champions wool’s properties as a natural, renewable biodegradable fibre, as well as conducting research and development and global marketing programmes. Scabal’s borderline-obsessive emphasis on precision, quality driven craftsmanship is enhanced hugely by The Woolmark Company’s endorsement programme, which ensures that the production process that creates this durable, flexible fibre – the product, lest we forget, of millennia of evolution, and impossible to reproduce in any laboratory – begins on farms which are characterised by sunshine, fresh air, clean water and verdant pastures. To say that the two organisations share their core values would be a huge understatement. “The Woolmark Company is, and always has been, dedicated to quality,” says Rob Langtry, The Woolmark Company’s Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. “Our collaboration with Scabal demonstrates to consumers that, when they buy a Scabal product made from the very best Merino wool, designed by experienced fabric
designers, woven by the best English weavers, they are the proud owner of the world’s finest natural quality fibre in terms of provenance, performance and luxury.” Gregor Thissen is equally enthusiastic about the two entities’ on-going synergy in pursuit of excellence. “The Woolmark Company’s senior management have been so instrumental in helping us to take our dreams – when it comes to the Noble Fleece and other cloths - to reality,” as Thissen puts it. “Their profound knowledge of all sides of the wool market, from grower to consumer - from sheep to shop - has supported the process of selecting our wool growing partners and, more specifically, that of working on wool characteristics that are valuable for our very demanding final customers.” And thus The Rake’s investigation takes us, via the mill in Huddersfield, to the distant land - many thousands of miles away from the malls, thoroughfares and catwalks of New York, London, Milan and Paris - from which The Woolmark Company plays its own vital role in Scabal’s creation of unsurpassed fabric finery. End of Part I. To be continued… The Noble Fleece collection will be launched at exclusive events with 4 prestigious stores: Santa Eulalia (www.santaeulalia.com) in Spain, Cifonelli (www.cifonelli.com) in France, Mitchells (www. mitchellstores.com) in the US and Harry Rosen (www.harryrosen. com) in Canada. 161