A single reference table for tailored menswear. All figures are shell cloth for a size 40, plain, in yards. Lining and canvas are listed separately, and pattern matching is added on top. These are standard sizes on default settings. For anything bespoke, the calculator works from your own measurements and draws the cutting layout.
| Garment | 60″ | 58″ | 54″ | Lining | Canvas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two-piece suit | 3.45 | 3.70 | 4.10 | 1.89 | 0.75 |
| Three-piece suit | 4.25 | 4.50 | 4.90 | 2.29 | 0.75 |
| Sport coat | 2.10 | 2.25 | 2.30 | 1.89 | 0.50 |
| Trousers | 1.40 | 1.45 | 1.85 | 0.88 | none |
| Waistcoat | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.68 | 0.25 |
| Dress shirt | 1.75 | 1.75 | 2.15 | none | 0.30 |
Size 40, regular length, plain cloth, flat-front trousers, no turn-ups, waistcoat backed in lining. Round up when ordering, since cloth is sold in whole and half yards.
Each garment is costed on its own lay. A three-piece is laid out garment by garment and the lengths added, which is why 4.25 yards is almost exactly a jacket, trousers and a waistcoat ordered separately (4.30). A cutter working one continuous length will beat that, because a waistcoat front can sit in width left over beside a sleeve. Read these as a length to order against, not as the tightest lay possible.
| Garment | 36R | 40R | 44R |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-piece suit | 3.35 | 3.45 | 3.75 |
| Three-piece suit | 4.10 | 4.25 | 4.60 |
| Sport coat | 2.05 | 2.10 | 2.30 |
| Trousers | 1.35 | 1.40 | 1.50 |
| Waistcoat | 0.80 | 0.80 | 0.85 |
| Dress shirt | 1.70 | 1.75 | 2.15 |
Size affects yardage far less than most charts imply. Eight inches of chest costs a two-piece suit four tenths of a yard. Cloth width and pattern repeat both move the number more than two sizes do; nap and style details do not.
This is the table that a conventional yardage chart cannot give you, and it is the reason this site exists. Yardage does not rise smoothly as cloth narrows. It holds flat while the pieces still fit across the width, then steps when one of them no longer does, and every garment steps at its own widths.
Below is what each garment costs at four widths, at size 40, and the width at which it first rises above its 60-inch figure.
| Garment | 60″ | First step | 54″ | 50″ | 46″ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trousers | 1.40 | 58″ | 1.85 | 2.40 | 2.50 |
| Two-piece suit | 3.45 | 59″ | 4.10 | 4.85 | 5.35 |
| Three-piece suit | 4.25 | 59″ | 4.90 | 5.65 | 6.15 |
| Sport coat | 2.10 | 59″ | 2.30 | 2.45 | 2.85 |
| Dress shirt | 1.75 | 57″ | 2.15 | 2.25 | 2.30 |
| Waistcoat, lining back | 0.80 | no step anywhere in the normal range | |||
| Waistcoat, self-backed | 1.55 | no step anywhere in the normal range | |||
Size 40. The steps are frequent and mostly small, a twentieth to a quarter of a yard each, rather than one cliff. Trousers take almost all of their climb between 56 and 50 inches and are flat again below 49, since by then the legs are already on separate lengths. A waistcoat never steps at all, backed in lining or in cloth.
The lesson is that the width matters most where the pieces are longest. Trousers cost three quarters again at 50 inches what they cost at 60, and a suit, which is mostly trouser leg in layout terms, moves almost as much. A jacket on its own barely notices, and a waistcoat does not notice at all. Knowing the width of the piece matters more than knowing the size being cut.
| Cloth | Add to shell |
|---|---|
| Plain | none |
| Stripe | +15% |
| Check or plaid | +25% |
| Large repeat | up to +50% |
Applied to shell cloth only, since lining never needs matching. Plain cloth is folded and cut two layers at a time so mirrored pieces come free. Patterned cloth is cut single-layer to keep the repeat true across every seam.
Those flat rates apply when you do not know the repeat. When you do, the allowance tracks the repeat directly, at roughly one repeat lost per seam zone:
| Repeat | 2″ | 4″ | 6″ | 8″ | 9″+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allowance | +11% | +22% | +33% | +44% | +50% |
Capped at 50 per cent. Past about nine inches you are already buying a full extra repeat at every seam and a larger one costs no more.
Velvet, corduroy, moleskin, brushed flannel and directional prints must be cut with every piece the same way up, or panels shade differently once made up. Tapered pieces can then no longer be nested head to toe.
The cost falls almost entirely on trousers, and it is an amount rather than a percentage — the lost nesting is a fixed length of leg, whatever the size:
| Garment | 36R | 40R | 44R |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trousers | +0.20 yd | +0.20 yd | +0.20 yd |
| Two-piece suit | +0.25 yd | +0.25 yd | +0.25 yd |
| Three-piece suit | +0.25 yd | +0.25 yd | +0.25 yd |
| Sport coat | none | none | +0.05 yd |
| Waistcoat | none | none | none |
| Dress shirt | none | +0.05 yd | +0.05 yd |
At 60-inch cloth. Waistcoats are unaffected at every size and jackets and shirts nearly so, because they have no long tapered pieces to nest in the first place. A quarter of a yard is the whole nap allowance for a suit, which is less than most trade rules of thumb assume.
Yardage is not a fixed quantity of cloth. It is a length of a particular width, and what decides it is how many pattern pieces fit side by side across the cloth before you have to start a new length.
That is why yardage does not scale smoothly with size. Add half an inch to a trouser leg and nothing happens for several sizes, then one leg stops fitting across the width, moves onto a second length, and the requirement steps. Any chart that gives a single number without naming a cloth width is hiding this.
It is also why the most useful thing you can ask a merchant is not the price per yard but the width of the piece. Two cloths at the same price, one at 60 inches and one at 49, are not the same cost per garment. On trousers they differ by three quarters, 1.40 yards against 2.45.
Every number on this page comes from the same procedure, applied garment by garment. Each pattern piece is drawn as its real outline from the measurements, not as a rectangle, then laid onto the cloth against the pieces already placed — lowest and furthest left it will fit, turned end to end only where the grain allows, with a working margin around each piece. The yardage is the length of cloth the finished lay occupies.
Those lays are computed in advance across the whole range of sizes and widths, and then made monotone: a running maximum along every axis, so no larger body and no narrower cloth can ever be quoted less than a smaller one. That guarantee is the reason the figures are trustworthy in the small, and it costs a little tightness in the large.
That is also why this chart can tell you where the steps fall and a conventional one cannot. A table built from allowances per garment has no way to know that a 44R trouser lay is already past its first step at 60-inch cloth while a 36R is not, because it never modelled the leg.
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 remain estimates: seam allowances, house style and a cutter's own habits all move them, and an experienced cutter working a real length will usually beat an automatic layout. What they will not do is guess.
Size 40 here means these body measurements, in inches: chest 40, stomach 37, waist 34, seat 40, shoulder 18, sleeve 25, nape to jacket hem 30, nape to waistcoat hem 23.5, outseam 42, inseam 31.5, thigh 23, leg opening 16.5, nape to shirt hem 31.5, neck 15.5. Sizes 36 to 44 step the girths by two inches and the lengths by a quarter to a half inch. The calculator takes your own figures instead.
Calculate your exact yardage →