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. The yardage chart lists the exact measurements behind those sizes. Outside that range, and for a long, short or full cut, run your own measurements through the calculator.
A two-piece suit takes about 3¼ to 4 yards of 58- or 60-inch cloth, or 3¾ to 4¾ 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 | 3.35 yd | 3.40 yd | 3.65 yd |
| 38R | 3.40 yd | 3.45 yd | 3.85 yd |
| 40R | 3.45 yd | 3.70 yd | 4.10 yd |
| 42R | 3.70 yd | 3.75 yd | 4.45 yd |
| 44R | 3.75 yd | 4.00 yd | 4.70 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 steps up. 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, laid out width by width:
| Cloth width | Two-piece suit | Against 60″ |
|---|---|---|
| 60″ | 3.45 yd | none |
| 58″ | 3.70 yd | +0.25 |
| 54″ | 4.10 yd | +0.65 |
| 52″ | 4.55 yd | +1.10 |
| 50″ | 4.85 yd | +1.40 |
| 46″ | 5.35 yd | +1.90 |
The climb is a staircase of small steps rather than one cliff, and it is steepest between 56 and 50 inches, where the trouser legs are dropping out of the width one at a time.
Practically, that means the difference between 60-inch and 58-inch suiting is a quarter of a yard, the difference between 60 and 54 is closer to two thirds, and below 54 it accelerates. Suiting is almost always woven at 58 to 60 inches, with some Italian mills at 54, so most orders sit in the shallow part of that climb. 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 | 3.45 yd | none |
| Stripe | 3.97 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 4.31 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 4.6 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 cost is a fixed length of cloth rather than a percentage: about a quarter of a yard, at every size from 36R to 44R, taking a 40R suit from 3.45 to 3.70 on 60-inch cloth. What you lose is the one nesting that mattered, the legs laid head to toe, and losing it costs the same whatever the size.
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 1.35 to 1.7 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 two lays rather than one. The jacket is laid out on its own, the trousers on theirs, and the two lengths added. That is deliberately conservative: a cutter working one continuous length can slide a jacket piece into width left over beside a trouser leg, and will beat these figures by doing it. What you get here is a length you can order against, which is also why a two-piece comes to almost exactly a sport coat plus a pair of trousers.
Within each lay, every piece is drawn as its real outline rather than as a rectangle, then placed against the pieces already down — as low and as far left as it will fit, turned end to end only where the grain allows, with a working margin around it. 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 4¾ yards of 58- or 60-inch cloth, or 4½ to 5½ yards at 54 inches. Order 4¾ 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 about three quarters of a yard over the same suit without it, which is close to what a waistcoat costs on its own. Each garment is laid out separately here rather than nested into one long lay, so the third piece is not absorbed by the other two.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 4.10 yd | 4.15 yd | 4.45 yd |
| 38R | 4.20 yd | 4.20 yd | 4.60 yd |
| 40R | 4.25 yd | 4.50 yd | 4.90 yd |
| 42R | 4.50 yd | 4.55 yd | 5.25 yd |
| 44R | 4.60 yd | 4.80 yd | 5.50 yd |
Regular lengths, plain cloth, flat-front trousers, no turn-ups, waistcoat backed in lining. Shell only. Round up when you order.
Note how the 54-inch column pulls away from the other two, from a third of a yard at 36R to nine tenths at 44R. It is not the waistcoat, which is flat at every width. It is the trousers: by 54 inches a large trouser leg no longer fits beside its neighbours and the lay grows, and the bigger the size the earlier that happens. Run your own measurements if your cloth is narrower than 58 inches.
A 40R two-piece takes 3.45 yards; the same suit with a waistcoat takes 4.25. The third garment costs 0.80, and on its own a waistcoat also costs 0.80.
That is not a coincidence, and it is worth being straight about why. Each garment here is laid out on its own length and the lengths are added, so nothing the waistcoat needs is being taken out of space the jacket already paid for. A cutter working one continuous lay does better than that: cloth is bought by length rather than by area, a layout leaves pockets of unused width beside almost every piece, and a waistcoat front is short enough to sit in one. How much better depends on the cutter, the cloth and how much they are willing to piece, which is exactly the part a calculator should not pretend to know.
So treat the three-piece figure as a safe order rather than a tight one. If your cutter tells you they can get the waistcoat out of the suit length, believe them.
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 4.25 to 4.95 yards at 60 inches, and from 4.50 to 5.20 at 58. Call it three quarters of a yard across the usual sizes and widths.
The jump is large because the two back panels are full-height waistcoat pieces, as deep as the fronts, so they need a length of their own rather than sitting in a gap. 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 | 4.25 yd | none |
| Stripe | 4.89 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 5.31 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, and the cost is a fixed length rather than a percentage: about a quarter of a yard at every size, taking a 40R three-piece from 4.25 to 4.50 on 60-inch cloth. A corduroy or moleskin three-piece is a quarter of a yard dearer than the same suit in a plain cloth, whatever the size.
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.
A three-piece is three lays: jacket, trousers and waistcoat, each laid out on its own and the three lengths added. Nothing is assumed about one garment's pieces filling another's gaps, which is why the waistcoat costs the same here as it does alone, and why these figures are a safe order rather than the tightest one possible.
Within each lay, every piece is drawn as its real outline rather than as a rectangle, then placed against the pieces already down — as low and as far left as it will fit, turned end to end only where the grain allows. 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 2 to 2⅓ yards of 58- or 60-inch cloth, or 2¼ to 2½ yards at 54 inches. Order 2½ 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 | 2.05 yd | 2.05 yd | 2.25 yd |
| 38R | 2.05 yd | 2.10 yd | 2.30 yd |
| 40R | 2.10 yd | 2.25 yd | 2.30 yd |
| 42R | 2.25 yd | 2.30 yd | 2.40 yd |
| 44R | 2.30 yd | 2.30 yd | 2.40 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 cloth width moves it far less than it moves trousers, and nap costs it nothing or next to nothing. 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 | 2.10 yd | none |
| Stripe | 2.42 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 2.63 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% | 2.33 yd |
| 4″ | +22% | 2.57 yd |
| 6″ | +33% | 2.80 yd |
| 8″ | +44% | 3.03 yd |
| 9″ and above | +50% | 3.15 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 fifth of a yard, the other most of 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 almost nothing. Tested at 36R, 40R and 44R it is either identical or a twentieth of a yard dearer. Jacket pieces are broad and blunt rather than long and tapered, so turning one end to end saves little in the first place and losing that option costs little either.
So a corduroy or moleskin sport coat is priced essentially like a plain one. It is the trousers, in a suit order, that make nap cost anything at all. 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. The backs, side bodies and foreparts take up most of the length, the sleeves take most of what is left, and the collar, facings and welts fill in around them. Almost everything you can change about a jacket changes only those small pieces, which is why so many of the options above cost nothing.
Every piece is drawn as its real outline rather than as a rectangle, then placed against the pieces already down — as low and as far left as it will fit, turned end to end only where the grain allows. 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 58- or 60-inch cloth. Order 1¾ yards for a standard size and you will have enough for the legs, waistband and turn-ups with normal seam allowances. At 54 inches it is anything from 1.45 to 2.3 yards depending on the size, so on narrower cloth the figure is worth calculating rather than assuming. For an exact figure, use the calculator.
Trousers are the clearest illustration of why cloth width matters more than size. On suiting widths the requirement barely moves across the whole size range. Take the width down and it climbs steadily to nearly double, and the larger the size the earlier that climb starts.
| Size | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 36R | 1.35 yd | 1.35 yd | 1.45 yd |
| 38R | 1.35 yd | 1.35 yd | 1.60 yd |
| 40R | 1.40 yd | 1.45 yd | 1.85 yd |
| 42R | 1.45 yd | 1.50 yd | 2.10 yd |
| 44R | 1.50 yd | 1.70 yd | 2.30 yd |
Plain cloth, flat front, no turn-ups. Shell only. The 60-inch column barely moves across five sizes; the 54-inch column nearly doubles across the same five.
The left-hand column is flat and the right-hand one is not, and that is the whole point. Trousers are four large pieces that either all fit across the width or do not, so the width at which they stop fitting depends on the size. The rest of this page is about where that happens. 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 60-inch column above is so flat.
Take width away and the legs come out of that arrangement one at a time, each one costing part of a second length. Laid out inch by inch:
| Cloth width | 36R | 40R | 44R |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60″ | 1.35 yd | 1.40 yd | 1.50 yd |
| 58″ | 1.35 yd | 1.45 yd | 1.70 yd |
| 56″ | 1.35 yd | 1.45 yd | 2.00 yd |
| 54″ | 1.45 yd | 1.85 yd | 2.30 yd |
| 52″ | 1.70 yd | 2.15 yd | 2.45 yd |
| 50″ | 2.05 yd | 2.40 yd | 2.45 yd |
| 48″ | 2.40 yd | 2.45 yd | 2.50 yd |
Each size holds flat, climbs over a span of six to eight inches of width, then flattens again near 2.5 yards once the legs are on separate lengths. A 44R starts climbing at 61 inches, a 40R at 58, a 36R not until 55.
So the useful thing to know about trouser cloth is not a yardage figure but where your size sits on that climb. At 60 inches every size is at the bottom of it. At 54 a 36R has barely moved while a 44R has already gone up more than half a yard. And 45-inch dress goods, quilting cottons and many linens sit at the top of it, where a single pair wants two and a half yards whatever the size.
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 a real cost, and it is an amount rather than a percentage: about 0.20 of a yard at every size from 36R to 44R, taking a 40R pair from 1.40 to 1.60 on 60-inch cloth. What you lose is the head-to-toe nesting of the legs, and that is worth roughly the same length of cloth whatever the size.
So a nap allowance for trousers is a fifth of a yard, not a percentage of the order. It is the largest single style or cloth penalty on this page after pleats, and unlike pleats it applies at every width. If you are cutting corduroy, moleskin or velvet, set the one-way option in the calculator before you order.
| Option | Size 40R at 60″ | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Plain, flat front | 1.40 yd | none |
| Stripe | 1.61 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 1.75 yd | +25% |
| 1½″ turn-ups | 1.60 yd | +0.20 yd |
| 2″ turn-ups | 1.65 yd | +0.25 yd |
| 2″ waistband | 1.40 yd | none |
| Single pleat | 2.35 yd | +0.95 yd |
| Double pleat | 2.50 yd | +1.10 yd |
Turn-ups add depth twice over at the hem, which is why a 1½-inch turn-up costs more than 1½ inches of cloth. A wider waistband is free, because the waistband is cut from a strip that is already there.
Pleats widen the trouser fronts by three inches for a single pleat or five for a double. On a lay where four legs only just fit across the cloth, three inches is enough to push one of them out, and the pair then needs the better part of a second length.
That is what the table shows: a 40R at 60 inches goes from 1.40 yards flat-fronted to 2.35 with a single pleat and 2.50 with a double. It holds at every size and width tested — roughly a yard, in other words, for a styling decision most yardage charts do not mention at all.
Practically, pleated trousers cost about what narrow cloth costs, and for the same reason. If you are ordering pleated, order as though you were cutting on 48-inch cloth.
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 how many legs fit across the width — four, three or two — and the answer changes with the size, the cloth width, the pleats and whether the cloth can be cut both ways up. Every figure on this page sits somewhere between about 1.35 yards, with four legs across, and about 2.5, with two.
The leg widths come from the seat rather than the waist, since the widest point of a trouser piece is the seat, and they follow Aldrich's block directly. Those panel dimensions were cross-checked against Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Menswear and Alan Poulin's Tailoring Suits the Professional Way. The legs are then laid as their real outlines, which is what lets a wide seat sit against a narrow ankle the way a cutter would lay them.
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 cloth width from 42 to 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 | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 |
| 38R | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 |
| 40R | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 |
| 42R | 0.85 | 0.85 | 0.85 |
| 44R | 0.85 | 0.85 | 0.85 |
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 | 1.55 yd | +0.75 yd |
| 58″ | 0.80 yd | 1.55 yd | +0.75 yd |
| 54″ | 0.80 yd | 1.55 yd | +0.75 yd |
| 48″ | 0.80 yd | 1.55 yd | +0.75 yd |
Size 40R. Neither figure moves with the cloth width, and the gap between them does not either.
Self-backing a 40R waistcoat costs 0.75 yards, nearly doubling the order, and it costs that at every width from 48 to 60 inches. At the other sizes it is 0.70. This is the one choice on the page that changes the number, and it does not interact with anything else.
The reason it costs so much is that a waistcoat back is a full-height piece, the same depth as the front. Two of them will not fit alongside the two fronts at any width the cloth actually comes in, so they need a length of their own, and that length is the full height of the garment. There is no gradual version of this: you are either cutting two panels or four.
So if you are ordering a self-backed waistcoat, do not add a token tenth of a yard. Order a yard and three quarters, whatever the cloth width.
| 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 by three quarters of a yard. 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, the waistcoat costs about the same either way: roughly 0.80 yards on top of the two-piece figure. The three-piece page explains why, and has the combined figures.
A waistcoat is small enough that its whole lay is the two fronts side by side with the facings and welts filling in around them, which is why almost nothing changes the total. The interesting question is not how much cloth it takes but what makes it need a second length, and for a waistcoat there is exactly one answer: putting the back panels in shell cloth.
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 laid out as real outlines against the chosen cloth width.
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 1¾ to 2¼ yards of shirting, or roughly 1.7 to 2.2 yards at 58 or 60 inches and 1.7 to 2.3 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 | 1.70 yd | 1.70 yd | 1.70 yd |
| 38 | 1.70 yd | 1.70 yd | 2.05 yd |
| 40 | 1.75 yd | 1.75 yd | 2.15 yd |
| 42 | 1.80 yd | 2.15 yd | 2.25 yd |
| 44 | 2.15 yd | 2.20 yd | 2.30 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″ | 1.75 yd | none |
| 58″ | 1.75 yd | none |
| 56″ | 2.10 yd | +0.35 |
| 54″ | 2.15 yd | +0.40 |
| 48″ | 2.30 yd | +0.55 |
| 44″ | 2.35 yd | +0.60 |
| 42″ | 2.40 yd | +0.65 |
Size 40, plain cloth. The two real steps sit between 58 and 57 inches and between 57 and 56; everything below that is a slow creep of a twentieth of a yard at a time.
A shirt behaves differently from trousers here. Trousers climb by more than a yard across the range and keep climbing. A shirt does most of its climbing in two steps just below 58 inches, then flattens out, because it has pieces of many different sizes rather than four big ones and the small ones keep finding space.
The width to watch is 57 inches. Plenty of good shirting is woven there rather than at 58, and it is the first width at which a size 40 shirt needs more cloth. Below about 54 inches the figure is near enough 2¼ to 2½ yards whatever the width, so the difference between 48-inch and 44-inch cotton hardly matters.
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 | 1.75 yd | none |
| Stripe | 2.01 yd | +15% |
| Check / plaid | 2.19 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 flattens out where the trouser table keeps climbing. 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 laid out as real outlines against the chosen cloth width.
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.
↑ All garments