What does Super 100’s mean?

Many shopkeepers will be bragging about their top notch wool suits, using any vaguely defined word they can find that seems to say something about the marvellous qualities they possess. The most common one found in wool suits is the Super X’s. Most people realise that if anything is labeled “Super”-anything, it’s got to be real rad. Add an increasing number after it, and you’re set. After we’ve cleared this matter out, you should take the opportunity to harass shopkeepers about it whenever a chance is presented to you.

Here’s how it works. Wool fibres are basically hair from sheep. Now, sheep, like man, comes in many different types.  I’ll leave the different types of sheep and their wool available for a later post, but the basic run down is: thin wool fibre is just great.

It’s usually said that thinner wool will feel nicer to the hand, but the thickness of the fibre is just one of many factors affecting this. It will, however, look better in a suit. This since thin wool fibre (hair) can be spun into a thinner thread. Thinner thread makes for thinner weave. Thinner weave makes a thinner suit. Suit’s made from thinner weave generally looks much more elegant, and won’t generally crease as easily. As a layman you might not understand at first why a particular suit seems so appealing compared to the rest, but a real thin and high quality wool thread might be the reason why.

Well strayed, time for facts:

Super X’s (where X is a number) is a marking that corresponds to the average diameter of the wool thread that the suit is made out of. The number does not have anything to do with the actual diameter though, it’s just nonsense. Here’s the scale:

Fibre Quality - Microns (Micro millimeters)

Super 80’s - 19.5 μm
Super 90’s - 19.0 μm
Super 100’s - 18.5 μm
Super 110’s - 18.0 μm
Super 120’s - 17.5 μm
Super 130’s - 17.0 μm
Super 140’s - 16.5 μm
Super 150’s - 16.0 μm
Super 160’s - 15.5 μm
Super 170’s - 15.0 μm
Super 180’s - 14.5 μm
Super 190’s - 14.0 μm
Super 200’s - 13.5 μm
Super 210’s - 13.0 μm

Higher Super-number means thinner wool thread. Do note, that a superthin thread don’t equal a great suit. There’s plenty of ways to ruin the quality moving from thread to suit.

Suit’s made from thinner thread than 150’s are real rare, and for a good reason. Pushing past 120’s-130’s, the suit sure looks fantastic, but durability drops as the thread gets thinner. Therefore, suits with a thinner thread than 120’s doesn’t make up for great work wear. A common misunderstanding is that really expensive suits will last longer. They might, but if they’re made from a really fine fabric, they probably won’t. These suits are meant for board meetings, conferences, weddings and other special occasions.

There you go!