Coat in loden: how to choose, how to carry, how hard
On a loden coat, the information you find around usually say the same things: from where it comes, because it is green, who wore it. It's all true, but it's not very useful when you have a front coat and you have to decide whether to buy it.
This is the type of guide you find across the counter. What to look at in the head, what size to choose, what you can change and what not, what to do if you wet, and why it has that price. If you're looking for the bosses,here you find the coats in loden that we have in store.
Because it weighs, and because the weight is the point
The loden is a wool that has been crowded. The fabric is wet, heated and beaten until it shrinks and the fibers intertwine until they close each other. What enters the crowd comes out smaller, denser and heavier, if the surface is the same.
From this structure emerge all the properties of the boss. The wind does not pass because there is no room between the fibers. Water slips instead of penetrating, for the same reason. The edges do not parade because the fabric is compact and does not have a real plot direction to be freed. And the shape remains, because the cloth has its own body and does not depend on the internal structure to stand.
Weight is not a side effect to tolerate: it is the direct consequence of what makes the head what it is. A light loden is a less crowded loden, i.e. a loden less loden.
What's going on?
Whoever tries it for the first time, trying a light wool coat, immediately notes two things.
The first thing is that the coat remains on the shoulders instead of leaning. A light coat fits the body; a loden creates its own line and you are in it. This is why it stretches the figure and supports the straight and long silhouettes. And for this too large size is more evident on a loden than on a normal coat: excess volume is not lost, remains there.
The second thing is that heat is different. It does not give the feeling of blanket of a duvet; it cuts the wind, and this changes the way you perceive the cold in the city and in the mountains. Under zero and wind, it is not the hottest choice that exists. In motion, with the wind, it is difficult to find something better.
What to look at when you buy one
Four things, in order of importance.
The hand of the cloth.String a piece of cloth between your fingers and feel if the fabric is solid or folds immediately. A good loden is compact and responds, a medium loden is too soft wrongly. Then look at it against the light: the more the cloth is closed, the less light crosses.
The shoulder.The shoulder is the only area that must be corrected immediately, because you can't fix it later. The seam must end exactly where your shoulder ends, neither a centimeter before, nor one after. If the shoulder is correct, the rest fits.
The lining.Make sure she has lining both on her body and inside her sleeves. If the lining stops in half sleeves, the garment becomes uncomfortable to wear over a jacket, and this is a first saving that you do when you cut the cost of a shoulder strap.
Real weight.Take your head in your hand before you put it. A loden springhead is perceived, and this feeling is the most direct way to compare two coats that on the bark look equal.
What size to take
The simplest rule is this: a loden coat must be comfortable, not too wide. It should not pull when you close the buttons, but should not create a useless volume, because such structured fabric does not fall and does not swell as a light coat. If it's too big, you can see it right away.
When you try it, think about how you really will use it. A loden is not bought to wear it over a light shirt: it has to give you space for a heavy sweater and, if necessary, also for a jacket below. For this reason, the right test is with at least one real layer from cold season. If over a sweater or jacket feel tension on the shoulders, on the chest or under the armpit, the size is small.
The shoulder remains the decisive point: it must fall correctly, without going down beyond your natural line and without stopping before. If the shoulder is right, you can tolerate a little more comfortable on the body, which is indeed useful to wear it comfortably over heavy clothing.
In two sizes, you usually need to choose the one that allows you to move well with what you will put under. If you think you use it especially over heavy knitting or over a jacket, it is better a more comfortable thread than a perfect coat on the t-shirt but tight from November on. If you use it almost always over light items, you can stay closer to your usual size.
The most straight cuts work on dry bodywork, which exploit the structure of the cloth and unleash the figure. On more robust bodywork, or if you are looking for more practical and layered use, a slightly softer cut is often the best choice, because it better follows the movement and leaves the right space without losing line.
What is fixed and what is not
The sleeves are shortened and on a shoulder strap is a normal intervention. The total length can be retouched, very carefully, because it alters the proportions of the head. Circumference can be reduced a little on the sides.
Shoulder not. Referring a shoulder on a structured coat means disassembling much of the head, and the cost is not justified compared to the value. For this reason the shoulder is the first thing to check on and the only one on which no compromise can be made.
When wet
The water on the loden in the beginning remains on the surface: see it in drops and shake off. In the rain it goes on first or later, because there is no membrane to hold it.
When it happens, the rule is one: to dry in the air, hanging, away from the radiators. Direct heat is the thing that really damages the cloth, much more than water. Do not use the hair dryer and do not put it on the heater to make it dry first.
Dry cleaning or brush
The loden gets dirty less than you think, because the compact surface does not keep dust. In most cases you just need a soft brush, passed by following the direction of the fabric, whenever you hang it.
Dry cleaning serves once a season, at the end of winter, before putting it away. No more: solvents also remove natural fats of wool, and a dry-cleaned garment too often progressively loses part of its water seal.
To put it back, large wooden hangers that hold the weight without marking the shoulders, and space around. A loden crushed in a full closet for six months comes out with the folds that do not take off.
Loden or cloth: is there a difference?
Less than you suggest the way you talk about it. In Italian, “panno” already means a crowded fabric — the Casentino cloth, for example, is — so there is no clear technical distinction between the two things.
Loden is a precise tradition, the Austrian and South Tyrolean Alpine, and by extension the type of cloth that came out of it: very dense, generally heavy, historically green. When you compare two garments, don't ask which loden is and which cloth; ask which one is more compact, heavier and better built. That's the difference you'll feel on.
Why costs what costs
Crowd is a process that consumes fabric: parts from a surface and get a smaller one. I noticed that every meter of finished cloth costs more than meters of wool, and this before still cutting the head.
Then there's construction. I discovered that a heavy shoulder needs a shoulder that holds the weight, a whole lining, seams that do not hide on a fabric that pulls. It's work that doesn't shorten.
The bill must be done over the years. I realized that a two hundred euro coat brought three winters costs more than one by nine hundred brought twenty, and this calculation is rare because the first number is what you see. A loden is a boss that you buy once.
If you want to see them
The loden coats we have right nowYou can find them hereMan and woman.
We are in Biella, in Via Lamarmora 27. On a wheel of this type try change the judgement more than any description: if you are in the area, it is worth making a round.
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