I remember in the early 90 when I had a few Tonik suits made up, the Tailor, a little Italian chap (now sadly deceased) had a few suit lengths left over from the early 70's which he showed me, even though they weren’t my thing I have to say it was probably the most impressive cloth I've ever seen...They had what I think is called a "shot" effect which was a irridescent  2/3 tone effect (I think this is where Mods get the name from) the cloth subtly changed colour as you passed the light over it, I've only ever seen silks do this…Whilst they weren’t my thing as was said, you had to marvel at the skill of the weavers in achieving this effect when you consider that these cloths were 100% wool…! no synthetic crap,  fancy dyes, nothing, just an effect achieved by the way the cloth was wove. I’ve heard it said by quite a few merchants that these clothes no longer exist because the mills no longer have the skills to make them by weaving alone, therefore have to resort to using synthetics to achieve the effect.

Yachtie, you’re very lucky to have found some lengths of this cloth, and as you rightly said it doesn’t shine, like the synthetic copies but tends to have a dull lustre as it catches the light…

P.s You often see the synthetic copies sold as Tonic, this is because I believe “Tonik” is a trademark of Dormeuil.

Last edited by The_Shooman (2008-02-06 09:04:34)