Does anyone still stock Viyella in the old 55% wool 45 % cotton mix? All I seem to see today is the 80% cotton variety which is definitely not the luxury fabric I used to wear. and a definite staple of the New England look.
IMO, even nicer than Viyella is a Swiss cloth under the trade name Lanella, about a 70/30 wool cotton mix. Herzfeld in NYC sells shirts made from this cloth, in a wide variety of patterns, or they at least used to. The ones I own enjoy beautiful workmanship with Charvet-style square bottoms and the slit on each side.
I will have to look in at Hertzfeld's on my next trip to NYC. The thread is inspired by my rubbing my hand over that 80/20 blend shirt last week and being very, very unimpressed. The 80/20 number didn't sound right so I looked up one of my circa 1960 catalogs from Abercrombie Fitch. They listed the 55% lambswool and 45% cotton mix as standard. A glance at Wickpedia informs me that the 80/20 is actually known as Clydella, a leser product of a few Scotish mills on the Clyde. Mr. Wilder's query about the fabric in Horace's thread makes me fear that the real Viyella may be an extinct fabric. I know the Darien Sports Shop carries these shirts. I'm going to examine the fabric this Saturday.
At the moment I simply offer up the Viyella story as further proof that things are not improving.
I have a bunch of T&A wool-cotton shirts that are between 3-5 years old. They are not labeled as "Viyella" but are an 80% cotton-20% wool mix.
Like Smedley - no, unlike Smedley, now - these were once made just up the road from me. They tend to be rather a dull shirt nowadays. Yes, there's that 80/20 mix to consider. There's also polyester. Long, long ago JFM mentioned something English Countryfied at the Andover Shop, that being a Tattersall button-down. I licked my lips at the time but nothing has popped up - so far as I'm aware - on Ebay, even Over There.
I hear that Viyella is closed; or at least the wing that made the wool/cotton blend fabrics. A real shame.