Thanks, Marc.

I'm familiar with Acorn's website. I was wondering if your (i.e. yous guys') tailors may have mentioned a particular sales rep in passing? In any event, I did fire off an email to the sales dept at Acorn asking for US contacts and a swatch book. Thank you for looking out for me!

FWIW: the Spring/Summer '07 Thomas Mason book arrived late, last week. Very stable stock; but, I'm thinking it's time for a little more edge...

And, the FW07 H&S suitings are a little underwhelming. I've seen some really nice stuff coming out of Canada. I'm thinking it's time to interject a little more flavor, there, too.

This might be a bit late to the party. Don't hve a lot of time recently.

For Acorn in the USA:

Old World Textiles, Inc.

Marc L. Gudowitz, MHS
tel: 516-766-7701
marc@owtextiles.com

I've never ordered anything directly so I have no idea if they sell retail to the public. Some distributors are funny about that, others dont care. Probably you could get it through a tailor or shirtmaker, though it's non of my business, it's a little curious to stockpile shirt fabric which unlike suit fabric there really isnt a lot that you need to snatch up for fear of it never coming round again in the same quality. Also, I would err on the generous side of what you need for a shirt, different makers have different cloth cutting skills and one guy who needs 2 yards of a 60" fabric may spoil you while another needs 3.5!
But that's your affair.


Acorn is finished in Italy because the water is considered cleaner or still contains the right minerals.

Acorn and Thomas Mason are similar in quality but I have noticed better quality control from Acorn. We are not talking about night and day here but Mason is a much bigger operation and more concerend with the global and even the ready made market than Acorn which relies more on the custom/MTM and English trade.

Acorn's color sensibilities are more accurately English and while many of Mason's fabrics still exhibit the classical English taste, it is owned by Italians and slowly that is beginning to reflect in the shades. There's nothing wrong with Italian color sensibilities at all but they are different from English ones.

Acorn has a softer finish and Mason's 100s 2x2 are crisper. Again, not better or worse, just different.

Acorn's Grassmere range combines silky luxury with an English sense of solidity.

Many textile mills situated themselves in close proximity to bodies of water, such as in Huddersfield (UK), Biella, and Treviso (Italy) because during the Industrial Revolution, water power ran the actual mills.  Water also plays a major role in textile processing, especially washing the cloth, which is dirty after the processing.  Water in Italy is thought to be soft, although the same has been said about Huddersfield H2O.

http://www.huddersfield1.co.uk/huddersfield/huddswool.htm

The Italians enjoy getting down with brown.

A well-known dictum among certain message board denizens holds that "brown is for farmer."

Italians will wear red, but not purple.  Purple is the color of funerals...