Wool-Blend Suit Waistcoat

A waistcoat does the work that a jacket does without the bulk of one: it holds a shirt flat at the front, gives the eye a line to follow down the chest, and lets a jacket come off indoors without the outfit collapsing. This one is navy, five buttons, with two welt pockets and a clean edge at the armholes. The maker claims a 70% wool blend and — unusually for a tailored piece — says it can go in a machine, which is the practical trade: a wool blend holds a crease and resists shine, and the other 30% is what lets it survive a wash. It is cut to proper suit sizes in both A and B builds, so it can be ordered against a chest measurement rather than a guess.

The layer that makes a suit wearable

Tailors cut a waistcoat to the waistband so the shirt stays put and the trouser line stays visible. It is the only part of a suit that can be worn with the jacket off and still look deliberate — which is why it survives in offices where the jacket does not.

What machine washable costs

Pure wool felt, shrinks and loses its press in a drum. A 70% blend with an unnamed 30% is what makes a tailored waistcoat safe to wash — the trade is that the cloth has slightly less spring in it than an all-wool one.

A build and a B build

Suit sizing is written as height over chest, 175/98 for example, and the letter after it is the build: A for a standard drop between chest and waist, B for a fuller one. This waistcoat is cut in both, running from 165/86A up to 190/110B.

Details

• Colour: Navy
• Size: Cut to suit sizes, as the stall lists them: 165/86A · 170/90A · 175/94A · 180/98A · 185/102A · 190/106A, and the B build 165/90B · 170/94B · 175/98B · 180/102B · 185/106B · 190/110B — body height and chest in centimetres
• Material: The stall’s title claims 70% 羊毛 (wool) and calls the waistcoat machine washable. The balance is not published — 聚酯 (polyester) appears once in the page text with no percentage against it — so the remaining 30% is DETAILS TO BE CONFIRMED
• Fit: Close through the chest and cut to sit at the waistband, in the classic five-button stance

Care

• The maker says it is machine washable; wash it cool on a short cycle and hang it damp, because the press in a wool blend comes back with steam rather than heat.
• Button it before it goes on a hanger — an open waistcoat hangs on the shoulder seams and pulls the front out of line.
• No fibre label is published with this listing beyond the 70% claim, so treat the cloth as a wool blend until a label arrives.

Why we chose it

Because it comes from the same workshop as the wool suit trouser already in this catalogue, because the size table is written in real suit measurements including the B build, and because the maker is the one who put a number — 70% — on its own cloth.

One piece is fine. Buy a single piece at the price shown, or ask for a trade quote from ten units — written by a person, never read off a table.