Yardage for the six garments this calculator covers, each with a table by size and cloth width and the things that change the number. Pick a garment below, or use the calculator for a figure from your own measurements.
Figures above are for 58 or 60 inch cloth. Trousers and waistcoats barely move with width; the others do, and each section says where.
Every figure on this page is for sizes 36R to 44R in regular length. Outside that range, and for a long, short or full cut, run your own measurements through the calculator.
A two-piece suit takes about 3¾ to 4 yards of 58- or 60-inch cloth, or 4 to 4¼ yards at 54 inches. Order 4 yards for a standard size and you will have enough for a jacket and trousers with normal seam allowances. Patterned cloth that has to be matched across seams needs more. For an exact figure from your own measurements, use the calculator.
That is the short answer, and for most orders it is the only one you need. The honest answer is that yardage depends on four things: the size being cut, the width of the cloth, whether the cloth has a pattern or a nap, and how the pieces actually fit across the width. The tables below cover all four.
Shell cloth only. Lining and canvas are listed separately further down. These figures come from laying the real pattern pieces out across the cloth, not from a rule of thumb.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 3.7 yd | 3.7 yd | 3.9 yd |
| 38R | 3.7 yd | 3.9 yd | 3.9 yd |
| 40R | 4.0 yd | 4.0 yd | 4.1 yd |
| 42R | 4.0 yd | 4.0 yd | 4.1 yd |
| 44R | 4.1 yd | 4.1 yd | 4.2 yd |
Regular lengths, plain cloth, flat-front trousers, no turn-ups. Round up when you order. Cloth is sold in whole and half yards, and no tailor has ever regretted a spare quarter yard.
A suit is the one order where a shortfall is expensive. Jacket and trousers have to come out of the same piece to match, so running half a yard short does not mean buying half a yard more. It can mean re-cutting from a fresh length in a different dye lot. Run your client's actual measurements before you place the order.
Yardage is not a fixed quantity of cloth. It is a length of a particular width, and the question that decides everything is how many pattern pieces fit side by side across the cloth before you have to start a new length.
On 60-inch cloth, both trouser fronts and both trouser backs usually fit across in a single run. Lose a few inches of width and one leg no longer fits, so it moves onto a second length, and the requirement jumps by the better part of a yard in one step. This is why yardage does not scale smoothly with size, and why a chart that ignores width is close to useless.
For a size 40R it is sharper than most people expect. Laying the pieces out width by width, the suit sits at 4.06 yards all the way down to 50-inch cloth, and then at 49 inches it goes to 5.43 yards. One inch of width costs a yard and a third of cloth. Below that there are further steps at 46 inches and again in the high thirties, but the first one is the one that catches people.
Practically, that means the difference between 60-inch and 54-inch suiting is almost nothing, while the difference between 50-inch and 49-inch suiting is enormous. If a merchant quotes you a width, it is worth knowing which side of that line it falls on. Suiting is almost always woven at 58 to 60 inches, with some Italian mills at 54, so most orders sit comfortably clear of it. Narrow dress goods at 45 inches do not.
Plain cloth can be folded and cut two layers at a time, so mirrored pieces cost nothing extra. Patterned cloth usually cannot. It is cut single-layer so the pattern runs true across every seam, and you buy extra length to line the repeat up.
| Cloth | Size 40R at 60″ | Extra |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | 3.95 yd | none |
| Stripe | 4.54 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 4.94 yd | +25% |
Those are the flat rates used when you do not know the repeat. If you do know it, the allowance is roughly one repeat per seam zone: a 2-inch repeat costs about 11 per cent, a 4-inch repeat 22 per cent, and anything from about 9 inches upward is capped at 50 per cent. A 6-inch check pushes the same suit to roughly 5.3 yards.
On a two-piece suit the nap penalty is a trouser problem wearing a suit's clothing. The jacket pieces are broad and blunt and gain almost nothing from being turned, so a one-way layout costs a jacket nothing. The trouser legs are the opposite. They are long and tapered, and a cutter normally lays them head to toe so the wide seat of one sits against the narrow ankle of its neighbour.
Take that away and the arithmetic changes suddenly rather than gradually. At 36R and 40R a one-way layout on 60-inch cloth costs nothing at all, because the legs still fit across either way round. At 44R the same restriction costs 1.2 yards, taking the suit from 4.03 to 5.23. If you are ordering velvet, corduroy, moleskin or a brushed flannel for a larger size, that is the single largest number on this page.
Shell cloth is not the whole order. For a standard two-piece suit, allow:
Lining does not need pattern matching, so none of the extra above applies to it. Nor does it need a one-way layout, even when the shell does, because lining has no nap to shade.
A two-piece suit is more pieces than people expect, which is why yardage estimates that treat a jacket as one rectangle run so far off. The shell alone includes two backs, two side bodies, two forepart fronts, two top sleeves and two undersleeves, two front facings, a collar and collar stand, pocket flaps and welts, then four trouser legs and a waistband.
Every one of those has to be placed on the cloth without overlapping, respecting the grain. That placement, not a multiplier, is what actually determines how much you buy.
Suit trousers wear out long before the jacket, and the traditional answer is to order a second pair with the cloth. On 58- or 60-inch suiting that adds about 1.4 to 1.5 yards. See the trousers page for the figures by size.
Order it at the same time or not at all. Cloth woven months apart will not match, and a second pair cut from a different piece is visibly a different colour under daylight next to the jacket. If the cloth is patterned, the spare pair carries its own matching allowance on top.
A suit is the hardest garment on this site to estimate, because the jacket and the trousers compete for the same width. The jacket pieces are wide and short; the trouser legs are narrow and very long. Laid out together they interleave, and a jacket piece will often sit in width left over beside a trouser leg. That is exactly why a two-piece suit takes far less cloth than a jacket and a pair of trousers ordered separately.
So the figures here are not a jacket allowance plus a trouser allowance. Every piece was drawn at its real drafted width, sorted by height, and packed across the chosen cloth width row by row until it ran out. The panel dimensions behind them were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear and Alan Poulin's Tailoring Suits the Professional Way.
They remain estimates. Seam allowances, house style and a cutter's own habits all move the number, and a skilled cutter working a specific length will usually beat an automatic layout. What these figures will not do is guess.
↑ All garmentsA three-piece suit takes about 4 to 4½ yards of 58- or 60-inch cloth, or 4¼ to 4⅞ yards at 54 inches. Order 4½ yards for a standard size and you will have jacket, trousers and waistcoat covered. For an exact figure from your own measurements, use the calculator.
The waistcoat adds less than most people expect: roughly a quarter of a yard over the same suit without it. It is a short garment, and its pieces slot into gaps the jacket and trouser layout has already paid for.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 3.8 yd | 3.9 yd | 4.1 yd |
| 38R | 4.0 yd | 4.1 yd | 4.2 yd |
| 40R | 4.2 yd | 4.3 yd | 4.7 yd |
| 42R | 4.3 yd | 4.3 yd | 4.8 yd |
| 44R | 4.4 yd | 4.4 yd | 4.9 yd |
Regular lengths, plain cloth, flat-front trousers, no turn-ups, waistcoat backed in lining. Shell only. Round up when you order.
Note the jump at 54 inches, where a 40R goes from 4.3 yards to 4.7. It is worth knowing what causes it, because it is not the waistcoat. At 58 inches the collar, collar band and pocket welts all share one shallow row about 5 inches deep. Narrow the cloth to 54 and the waistcoat fronts crowd the side bodies out of their row, which displaces a front facing down into that shallow row. The facing is 21 inches tall, so a 5-inch row becomes a 21-inch row. Half a yard of cloth, spent on one piece landing in the wrong place. Run your own measurements if your cloth is narrower than 58 inches.
Compare the tables and the third piece looks almost free. A 40R two-piece takes 3.95 yards; the same suit with a waistcoat takes 4.18. A whole extra garment for less than a quarter of a yard.
The reason is that cloth is bought by length, not by area, and a layout wastes a great deal of area. Jacket pieces are tall and wide. Trouser legs are long and narrow. Put them together and there are pockets of unused width beside almost every piece, especially alongside the sleeves and the trouser waistband. A waistcoat front is a short piece, about two thirds the height of a jacket front, and it drops into exactly that kind of gap.
This is also why you should not price a three-piece by adding a waistcoat's standalone yardage to a two-piece. On its own a waistcoat takes 0.80 yards. Inside a suit layout it costs 0.23. Ordering them as separate items would have you buying more than half a yard you do not need.
A waistcoat back is traditionally cut in lining rather than shell. It sits under a jacket, it costs less, and a silk or cupro back slips more easily over a shirt. That is what the table above assumes.
A self-backed waistcoat, cut in the suiting itself, is worth having if it will ever be worn without the jacket. It is not a small addition. Backing the waistcoat in cloth takes a 40R three-piece from 4.15 to 4.69 yards at 60 inches, and from 4.24 to 4.84 at 58. Call it half a yard to two thirds of a yard across the usual sizes and widths.
The jump is large because the two back panels are full-height waistcoat pieces, and unlike the fronts there is no gap left in the layout to absorb them. They start a new row. If you want a self-backed waistcoat, add it in the calculator before ordering rather than assuming a token allowance will cover it.
A three-piece has more visible matching to get right than any other order on this site. The waistcoat fronts sit directly in the opening of the jacket, so a stripe that runs true on the jacket and a half-repeat out on the waistcoat is obvious at conversational distance. Cutters usually take the waistcoat fronts from cloth adjacent to the jacket fronts for exactly this reason.
| Cloth | Size 40R at 60″ | Extra |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | 4.18 yd | none |
| Stripe | 4.81 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 5.22 yd | +25% |
Flat rates, used when the repeat is unknown. Enter the actual repeat and the allowance becomes about one repeat per seam zone: 2 inches costs around 11 per cent, 6 inches around 33 per cent, and anything from roughly 9 inches upward is capped at 50 per cent.
A three-piece behaves exactly like a two-piece here, because the penalty falls on the trousers and nowhere else. Neither the jacket nor the waistcoat has a long tapered piece worth turning, so a one-way layout costs them nothing at any size.
The trouser legs are the whole story. At 36R and 40R the legs still fit across 60-inch cloth either way up, so directional cloth is free. At 44R it costs 1.2 yards, taking the suit from 4.35 to 5.55. Corduroy and moleskin three-pieces in larger sizes are the expensive case.
The waistcoat is why the lining figure rises by about 0.4 yards over a two-piece while the shell barely moves. If you order the waistcoat self-backed instead, the lining requirement falls back toward the two-piece figure and the shell rises by roughly half a yard. You are moving the same panels from one column to the other.
The three-piece is the case that makes a real layout worth doing rather than a multiplier. A rule of thumb would tell you a waistcoat costs three quarters of a yard, and it would be wrong by a factor of three in this context, because the answer depends entirely on whether a waistcoat front happens to fit beside a sleeve.
So the numbers here come from packing all three garments into one layout at once: jacket, trousers and waistcoat, every piece at its drafted width, sorted by height and filled across the cloth row by row. The panel dimensions were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear and Alan Poulin's Tailoring Suits the Professional Way.
They are estimates. House style, seam allowances and a cutter's own habits all move them, and the waistcoat saving in particular depends on how tightly a given cutter chooses to nest. What the figures will not do is guess.
↑ All garmentsA sport coat takes about 2¼ to 2¾ yards of 58- or 60-inch cloth, or 2½ to 2¾ yards at 54 inches. Order 3 yards and you will have a comfortable margin for a standard size in plain cloth. For an exact figure from your own measurements, use the calculator.
A sport coat is a suit jacket without the trousers, so it is the cheapest tailored garment to cut. It is also the one most often made in checked tweed, and that changes the sum considerably. On a plain cloth almost nothing you choose will move the number. On a large check, the cloth choice can add more than half a yard.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 2.3 yd | 2.3 yd | 2.5 yd |
| 38R | 2.4 yd | 2.5 yd | 2.6 yd |
| 40R | 2.6 yd | 2.6 yd | 2.7 yd |
| 42R | 2.6 yd | 2.6 yd | 2.7 yd |
| 44R | 2.7 yd | 2.7 yd | 2.8 yd |
Regular lengths, plain cloth. Shell only, with lining and canvas listed separately below.
A jacket is the most forgiving garment to order. It has no long tapered pieces, so it is barely affected by cloth width and completely unaffected by nap. If a guide page is going to be close enough to order from without calculating, this is the one. Run your own measurements if the cloth is a large check or the size is unusual.
Pattern matching matters more for a sport coat than for anything else on this site, simply because so many are cut in check. A windowpane or a district check has to run true across the front seams, over the pockets and along the sleeve head, and that means cutting single-layer with the repeat lined up.
| Cloth | Size 40R at 60″ | Extra |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | 2.56 yd | none |
| Stripe | 2.94 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 3.20 yd | +25% |
Flat rates, used when the repeat is unknown.
Those flat rates are a fallback. If you know the actual repeat, the allowance is better thought of as roughly one repeat lost at each seam zone, which scales with the size of the repeat rather than sitting at a fixed percentage:
| Repeat | Allowance | Size 40R at 60″ |
|---|---|---|
| 2″ | +11% | 2.84 yd |
| 4″ | +22% | 3.12 yd |
| 6″ | +33% | 3.41 yd |
| 8″ | +44% | 3.69 yd |
| 9″ and above | +50% | 3.84 yd |
The allowance is capped at 50 per cent. Beyond about a 9-inch repeat you are already buying a full extra repeat at every seam, and a larger one does not cost proportionally more. Estate tweeds and bold district checks sit at or above that cap.
The practical consequence is that a fine 2-inch glen check and a bold 8-inch windowpane are not the same order at all. One adds a quarter of a yard, the other adds well over a yard. Measure the repeat on the actual piece before you order rather than trusting the word on the swatch card.
Corduroy, moleskin, velvet, brushed flannel and directional designs all have to be cut with every piece the same way up, or the panels shade differently once made up. For most garments that is expensive, because it stops the cutter nesting tapered pieces head to toe.
A sport coat is the exception, and it is worth stating plainly: a one-way layout costs a jacket nothing. We tested it at 36R, 40R and 44R and the yardage was identical in every case. Jacket pieces are broad and blunt rather than long and tapered, so turning one end to end saves nothing in the first place and losing that option costs nothing either.
So a corduroy or moleskin sport coat is priced exactly like a plain one. It is the trousers, in a suit order, that make nap expensive. If you are cutting a corduroy jacket to go with corduroy trousers, see the trousers page for the part that does cost.
Most of them are free. Facings, welts, flaps and collars are small pieces that drop into space the layout has already paid for, so changing their shape moves nothing. Two are worth knowing about.
On a checked cloth there is one more consideration that no yardage figure captures. Patch pockets have to be cut to match the cloth beneath them, so the pocket disappears into the check. That means cutting each pocket from the specific area it will cover, which is a placement constraint rather than an extra allowance, but it means the cutter needs the length in one continuous piece rather than in offcuts.
Note that a sport coat takes less canvas than a suit jacket in these figures, at half a yard against three quarters. Lining needs no pattern matching and no one-way layout regardless of what the shell cloth demands.
A jacket is the simplest garment on this site to lay out, which is why the numbers here move so little. There are essentially two deep rows, one holding the fronts and one holding the sleeves, and then a shallow row for the collar and the small pieces. Almost everything you can change about a jacket changes only what sits in that shallow row, which is why so many of the options above cost nothing.
Every piece was drawn at its real drafted width, sorted by height and packed across the chosen cloth width row by row. The panel dimensions were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear and Alan Poulin's Tailoring Suits the Professional Way.
They are estimates. Seam allowances and house style move them, and half-lined or unstructured jackets in particular vary more than the shell figure suggests. What the figures will not do is guess.
↑ All garmentsA pair of trousers takes about 1½ yards of 54-, 58- or 60-inch cloth. The width barely matters until you go narrower still. Order 1¾ yards for a standard size and you will have enough for the legs, waistband and turn-ups with normal seam allowances. For an exact figure, and to check what nap does to it, use the calculator.
Trousers are the clearest illustration of why cloth width matters more than size. The requirement barely moves across the whole size range. Drop the width past one particular point, or cut the cloth one way only, and it very nearly doubles.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd |
| 38R | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd |
| 40R | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd |
| 42R | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd | 1.4 yd |
| 44R | 1.5 yd | 1.5 yd | 1.5 yd |
Plain cloth, flat front, no turn-ups. Shell only. Note how little any of this moves. Across five sizes and three widths there is a tenth of a yard in it.
That table is flat, and it is hiding a cliff. Every figure above sits on the safe side of a step that costs more than a yard when you cross it. The rest of this page is about where that step is, because it is the only thing on this page worth getting wrong. Run your own measurements if you are cutting narrow or directional cloth.
A pair of trousers is four large pieces, two fronts and two backs, plus a waistband. On ordinary suiting all four legs fit side by side across the width in a single length, and the waistband tucks into the leftover strip. That is why the table above is so flat.
Take enough width away and the fourth leg no longer fits. It moves onto a second length and the requirement roughly doubles in one step. Laid out inch by inch, here is exactly where that happens:
| Size | Down to | Then at | Cost of one inch |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40R | 50″: 1.42 yd | 49″: 2.60 yd | +1.18 yd |
| 44R | 53″: 1.45 yd | 52″: 2.65 yd | +1.20 yd |
The yardage is completely flat above the step and completely flat below it. Nothing gradual happens on either side.
So the useful thing to know about trouser cloth is not a yardage figure, it is a threshold. A 40R is safe down to 50 inches. A 44R is safe only down to 53. Standard suiting at 54 to 60 inches clears both comfortably, which is why the main table looks so dull. But 45-inch dress goods, quilting cottons and many linens sit well below the line, and on those a single pair of trousers wants more than two and a half yards.
Cutters get four legs across by laying them head to toe, so the wide seat of one sits beside the narrow lower leg of its neighbour. That nesting is what makes the tight fit possible, and it is the first thing you lose on directional cloth.
Velvet, corduroy, moleskin, brushed flannel and any directional design must be cut with every piece the same way up, or the panels will shade differently once made up. That rules out nesting the legs head to toe.
This is the single biggest variable for trousers, and it behaves like the width cliff rather than like a percentage. At 36R and 40R on 60-inch cloth, cutting one-way costs nothing at all, because the legs still fit across the width even when they all point the same way. At 44R it costs 1.2 yards, taking the pair from 1.45 to 2.65 and very nearly doubling the order.
In other words there is no such thing as a general nap allowance for trousers. It is either free or it is a yard and a fifth, and which one you get depends on the size. If you are cutting corduroy, moleskin or velvet, set the one-way option in the calculator before you order rather than adding a flat percentage.
| Option | Size 40R at 60″ | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Plain, flat front | 1.42 yd | none |
| Stripe | 1.63 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 1.77 yd | +25% |
| 1¾″ turn-ups | 1.50 yd | +0.08 yd |
| 2″ turn-ups | 1.51 yd | +0.09 yd |
| 2″ waistband | 1.45 yd | +0.03 yd |
| Pleats | 1.42 yd | none |
Turn-ups add depth twice over at the hem, which is why a 1¾-inch cuff costs rather more than 1¾ inches of cloth. A wider waistband is close to free, because the waistband is cut from a strip that is already there.
Pleats usually cost nothing. They widen the trouser fronts by three inches for a single pleat or five for a double, and that extra width is normally absorbed by cloth already in the order. Usually.
Here is a case worth knowing. A 44R with double pleats on 60-inch cloth costs exactly the same as a flat front, 1.45 yards. The same trousers on 59-inch cloth cost 2.65 yards. One inch of cloth width, and a styling choice that was free a moment ago now costs 1.2 yards.
That is the whole argument for calculating rather than estimating trousers. The extra five inches of front width pushed the last leg past the edge, and the layout had to start a second length. No rule of thumb catches that, because on almost every other combination of size and width the same choice is genuinely free.
Allow about 0.9 yards of pocketing or lining for the pocket bags and, if you want them, a half lining down to the knee. Trousers need no canvas.
Pocketing is normally a plain cotton rather than the shell cloth, so it carries no matching allowance and no one-way restriction. If you are lining the trousers to the knee in the shell cloth itself, which is unusual, treat that as a separate order.
Suit trousers wear out well before the jacket, which is why a spare pair is traditional. Two pairs are not simply twice one pair in cutting terms, because the eight legs re-nest across the width, but they are close enough that ordering double the yardage is the safe approach.
Order both at the same time. Cloth woven months apart will not match the jacket, and the second pair will read as a different colour in daylight. See the two-piece suit page for ordering trousers alongside a jacket.
Trousers are the garment where a layout tells you something a formula cannot. There are only five pieces, so the yardage is almost entirely decided by one question: do four legs fit across the width, or do they not. That is a yes or no, which is why every number on this page is either about 1.4 yards or about 2.6 yards and almost never anything in between.
The leg widths come from the seat and thigh measurements rather than the waist, since the widest point of a trouser piece is the seat. Those panel dimensions were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear and Alan Poulin's Tailoring Suits the Professional Way, then packed across the chosen cloth width to see how many lengths the layout actually needs.
They are estimates, and a cutter working a real length will often beat them by nesting more aggressively than an automatic layout will. What they will not do is guess.
↑ All garmentsA waistcoat takes about three quarters of a yard, and at any of the usual cloth widths, 54, 58 or 60 inches, the answer is the same. Order one full yard for a standard size and you will have a comfortable margin. A waistcoat backed in the shell cloth rather than in lining is a different order, and can need nearly twice that. For an exact figure from your own measurements, use the calculator.
It is the smallest tailored garment on this site, and the only one where cloth width genuinely does not matter for a standard build. The pieces are short and narrow enough to fit across almost anything.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 0.77 | 0.77 | 0.77 |
| 38R | 0.78 | 0.78 | 0.78 |
| 40R | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 |
| 42R | 0.81 | 0.81 | 0.81 |
| 44R | 0.83 | 0.83 | 0.83 |
Plain cloth, back cut in lining. Shell only. The figure is identical at all three widths because the pieces fit across every one of them, so the layout never needs a second length.
This is the one garment where the standard figure is genuinely reliable. Nap costs nothing, pocket style costs nothing, and width costs nothing. Only two things move a waistcoat: the pattern on the cloth, and whether you back it in cloth or in lining. Both are covered below. Run your own measurements for a long or unusually full cut.
A waistcoat back is traditionally cut in lining, not shell. It sits under a jacket where nobody sees it, it costs less, and a silk or cupro back slips more easily over a shirt. That is what the table above assumes, and it is what most orders should be.
A self-backed waistcoat, with the back cut in the suiting itself, is worth having if the waistcoat will ever be worn without the jacket. It is also where the only real trap on this page lives.
| Cloth width | Lining back | Self-backed | Extra |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60″ | 0.80 yd | 0.88 yd | +0.08 yd |
| 59″ | 0.80 yd | 0.88 yd | +0.08 yd |
| 58″ | 0.80 yd | 1.57 yd | +0.77 yd |
| 54″ | 0.80 yd | 1.57 yd | +0.77 yd |
Size 40R. The step between 59 and 58 inches is real and it is abrupt.
On 60-inch cloth, self-backing a 40R waistcoat costs eight hundredths of a yard, which is nothing. On 58-inch cloth, which is the more common suiting width, the same choice costs 0.77 yards, nearly doubling the order. At 44R it costs about 0.80 yards at every width including 60.
The reason is that a waistcoat back is a full-height piece, the same depth as the front. On 60-inch cloth the two backs squeeze in alongside the two fronts on one row. Lose two inches of width and they no longer fit, so they start a row of their own, and that row is the full height of the garment. There is no gradual version of this. It is one row or two.
So if you are ordering a self-backed waistcoat, do not add a token tenth of a yard. Ask the merchant the cloth width first, and if it is anything under 60 inches, order a yard and three quarters.
| Cloth | Size 40R at 60″ | Extra |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | 0.80 yd | none |
| Stripe | 0.92 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 1.00 yd | +25% |
A patterned waistcoat crosses the one yard mark, which in practice means buying a yard and a quarter, since nobody sells exactly one yard and a fraction.
A waistcoat is small enough that the percentage allowances above are generous rather than tight. It is also the garment where matching is most visible, because the fronts sit in the opening of a jacket at chest height, directly in the eye line. A stripe that steps at the waistcoat's front edge is more noticeable than the same fault on a trouser seam.
If the waistcoat is part of a three-piece, the matching problem is different again. The waistcoat fronts should be cut from cloth adjacent to the jacket fronts so the two agree. See the three-piece page.
Worth stating explicitly, because a waistcoat is the garment most often over-ordered:
If you self-back the waistcoat, the lining requirement falls to roughly the facings alone while the shell requirement rises, sharply at some widths as shown above. You are moving the back panels from one column to the other, and they do not cost the same in each.
If you are ordering cloth for a three-piece suit rather than a waistcoat on its own, do not add these figures together. Inside a suit layout the waistcoat costs about 0.23 yards rather than 0.80, because its short fronts drop into gaps beside the jacket sleeves. The three-piece page has the combined figures.
A waistcoat is small enough that its whole layout is one row of fronts and facings plus a shallow row of welts, which is why almost nothing changes the total. The interesting question is not how much cloth it takes but when a second row appears, and for a waistcoat there is exactly one trigger: putting the back panels in shell cloth on anything narrower than 60 inches.
The front width comes from the chest and stomach measurements and the height from the waistcoat length, measured from the nape. Those panel dimensions were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear and Alan Poulin's Tailoring Suits the Professional Way, then packed across the chosen cloth width row by row.
They are estimates. A waistcoat in particular varies with how long the house cuts it and how much the fronts are shaped. What the figures will not do is guess.
↑ All garmentsA dress shirt takes about 2 to 2½ yards of shirting, or roughly 2 to 2.4 yards at 58 or 60 inches and 2.1 to 2.5 at 54. Order 2½ yards for a standard size and you will have collar, cuffs and plackets covered. Shirting is often woven much narrower than suiting, so check the width before you order. For an exact figure from your own measurements, use the calculator.
A shirt has more separate pieces than people expect. Beyond the body and sleeves there is a yoke cut twice, a collar, a collar band, two cuffs and a front placket. They are small pieces, but they all have to come out of the same length.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36 | 2.0 yd | 2.0 yd | 2.1 yd |
| 38 | 2.0 yd | 2.0 yd | 2.3 yd |
| 40 | 2.1 yd | 2.1 yd | 2.4 yd |
| 42 | 2.2 yd | 2.4 yd | 2.5 yd |
| 44 | 2.4 yd | 2.4 yd | 2.5 yd |
Plain cloth. Sizes here are chest measurements, not collar sizes. The step between 42 and 44 is real rather than a rounding artefact. At that point a piece stops fitting across the width and moves onto a new length.
The shirt is the one garment where the cloth width on the table above may not be the width you can buy. Suiting is reliably 54 to 60 inches. Shirting is not, and the difference is worth more than a size or two. The next section has the figures. Run your own measurements if your shirting is narrower than 54 inches.
This is the practical difference between ordering shirt cloth and ordering suit cloth, and most yardage charts ignore it. Suiting mills weave to a settled 58 to 60 inches. Shirting mills do not. Plenty of good shirting, especially poplins and oxfords from long-established weavers, comes at 57 inches, and printed and woven cottons intended for the dressmaking trade are commonly 44 or 45.
| Cloth width | Size 40 | Against 60″ |
|---|---|---|
| 60″ | 2.12 yd | none |
| 58″ | 2.12 yd | none |
| 56″ | 2.29 yd | +0.17 |
| 54″ | 2.35 yd | +0.23 |
| 48″ | 2.57 yd | +0.45 |
| 44″ | 2.57 yd | +0.45 |
| 43″ | 3.14 yd | +1.02 |
Size 40, plain cloth. The steps sit between 57 and 56 inches, between 49 and 48, and between 44 and 43.
A shirt behaves differently from trousers here. Trousers have one enormous cliff and are otherwise flat. A shirt climbs in several modest steps, because it has pieces of many different sizes rather than four big ones, so as the cloth narrows the pieces drop out of their rows one at a time rather than all at once.
The one to watch is 44 inches. That is the standard width of a great deal of cotton, it is exactly on the edge of a step, and one inch below it the requirement jumps by more than half a yard. If a merchant describes cloth as 44/45, ask which.
A dress shirt back has no centre-back seam. It is drafted as a half piece and laid against a fold in the cloth, so the fabric is doubled and one cut produces a full symmetric back.
This matters when you order, because the back needs its full unfolded width of cloth even though the pattern piece looks half-size. It is a common way to under-order. The piece measures 11 inches across on paper and needs 23 inches of cloth. If you are working from a pattern envelope rather than a calculation, check whether the piece is marked "cut on fold" before you trust its dimensions.
Shirting is patterned more often than suiting, and stripes on a shirt are unforgiving. They need to run true across the front placket, match at the yoke, and align where the sleeve meets the body. A shirt is also worn closer to the eye than a jacket, and under office lighting a half-repeat error at the placket is obvious.
| Cloth | Size 40 at 60″ | Extra |
|---|---|---|
| Plain | 2.13 yd | none |
| Stripe | 2.45 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 2.66 yd | +25% |
Flat rates, used when the repeat is unknown. Shirting repeats are usually small, often under two inches, so entering the actual repeat will frequently give you a lower allowance than the flat rate above.
That last point is worth acting on. A fine bengal stripe with a half-inch repeat costs far less than 15 per cent, because you lose only half an inch at each seam zone rather than a full pattern. The flat rates on this site are set for suiting, where repeats are larger. On shirting they are conservative.
Allow about ⅓ yard of fusible for the collar, collar band and cuffs. A shirt needs no lining and no canvas, which is why it is the only garment on this site with a shell figure and almost nothing else.
If you are making a shirt with a self-fabric interlining, which some makers prefer for a softer collar, add that third of a yard to the shell figure instead.
A shirt is the piece-count outlier on this site. A pair of trousers is five pieces and its yardage is decided by a single yes or no question. A shirt has a body, two sleeves, a yoke cut twice, a collar, a band, two cuffs, plackets and a pocket, in a wide spread of sizes, and the layout fills gaps with small pieces in a way the bigger garments cannot.
That is why the shirt table steps gently where the trouser table cliffs. The sleeve height is driven by the sleeve length plus an allowance for the cap, and the body width from the chest. Those panel dimensions were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear, then packed across the chosen cloth width row by row.
They are estimates, and shirt drafting varies more between houses than tailoring does, particularly in how much fullness is put across the back. What the figures will not do is guess.
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