fight
somedays youre the bug others youre the bird
savilerow
Flannel trousers are the backbone of any tailored wardrobe. They’re professional without looking pushy, sophisticated without being slick. Best of all, while they’re perfectly suitable for the office, they make you feel like you’re lounging in your brushed cotton pajamas. Wool flannel is so soft and comfortable, the Brits used it for undergarments up until the early 20th century. Doctors even recommended wearing flannel to ward off ailments and cure dysentery. Although, not everyone was convinced. In a 1900 issue of The Medical Times, one skeptic wrote: “The writer was a constant victim to colds. He was really a victim of flannels, having fall after fall procured underwear of heavier weight and all wool, in the determination to avoid the chills and shivery sensations during winter. [He fell] for the flannel craze.”
Like all wool fabrics, flannel comes in two forms: worsted and woolen. Maybe these categories should be renamed to combed and uncombed, however, because it’s the combing process that separates them. Combing wool is exactly what it sounds like. Before wool is spun into yarn, a spinner can separate out the fibers by combing the material. This sets the hairs parallel to each other, as well as removes any of the shorter fibers that would spoil the regularity characteristic of worsted. After the wool has been combed, it’s spun into yarn and then woven into a fabric. And by combing the hairs first, the resulting fabric will feel a bit smoother and crisper, which is how you get shiny, hard-finished fabrics. Woolens, on the other hand, aren’t put through the same process. Thus, the fabric is spongier and loftier, as the fibers point in every possible direction. To give examples, gabardine is worsted; tweeds are generally woolen.
Flannel is available in both forms. Worsted flannel will have a subtle but visible twill weave just beneath its fuzzy nap. Woolen flannel, on the other hand, tends to look cloudier (like the every-which-way direction of the hairs on tweed). I prefer woolen flannel this time of year because it’s softer and spongier next to the skin, its lofty surface helps trap heat, and its mottled finish lends visual interest. None of these characteristics are present to the same degree in the increasingly more common worsted variety, whose only virtues are that it’s studier and can be woven into a lighter weight material. If you have the money for it, get worsted flannel for spring/ summer, then heavier woolen flannel trousers for those bitingly cold winter nights.