Smith Woollens was founded in London in 1921 by Herbert Smith and Claude Graham, and it is one of the last of the old West End merchants still working from warehouses within a few minutes of Savile Row. It is a merchant house rather than a mill: cloth specified by them, woven in England, sold to tailors. Two things bring us back to it. Solaro, which they trademarked and which was designed in the first place for hot countries. And Finmeresco, their high-twist summer suiting. Both are unusually relevant to a customer in Chennai, which is not something you can say about most British merchant books.
Founded 1921, a West End merchant
Herbert Smith and Claude Graham started the business in 1921 in the heart of the London cloth trade around Golden Square, a few streets from Savile Row. Smith left early on and Graham built the firm. Through the 1930s it grew on European exports, and from 1945 onwards it traded heavily into Japan, Italy and the United States.
They are still where they started, with warehouses close enough to the Row that deliveries go out daily on foot. That physical closeness to the tailors is part of why the range reads the way it does: it was assembled by people getting direct feedback from cutters rather than from a marketing department.
Smith Woollens is a merchant. They do not run looms. They specify the cloth, have it woven in England, and put it in a bunch under their name. The firm is now part of the Harrisons of Edinburgh group, which also holds H. Lesser, W. Bill and Porter & Harding. Their cloth turns up regularly in fashion house collections and in film wardrobe departments, which is a decent proxy for how good the colour and finish are.
Solaro, a cloth invented for the tropics
Solaro has a better origin story than any other cloth we sell. It was developed in the early 1900s by Dr Louis Sambon of the London School of Tropical Medicine, on the theory that a fabric with a red underside would block harmful rays in tropical sunlight. The medical theory has not aged well. The cloth has aged beautifully.
What you get is a 3-and-1 twill with a khaki face and a brick red reverse. Because the two colours are woven together, the surface shifts as the light moves across it, so a Solaro jacket reads olive from one angle and warm rust from another. It is often worn unlined so the red back shows at the cuff and inside the front.
Smith Woollens created and trademarked it, so their book is the original rather than an imitation. For Chennai it makes a great deal of sense as a jacket. It is a summer-weight cloth built for hot sun, and the colour sits naturally against the light here in a way most British greys do not. We would call it a weekend and daytime-event cloth rather than a boardroom one. It is not a quiet garment and it should not be your first jacket. As a second or third, it is one of the most enjoyable things you can order.
Finmeresco, and the rest of the book
Finmeresco is Smith's high-twist summer suiting, made in England, with the breezy open-weave construction that makes this family of cloths work in heat. The bunch runs across several qualities, from a light one around 8.5oz, about 240 grams, that is noticeably soft for a high-twist, up to core suiting weights around 10 to 11oz. Worth knowing: not every piece in the Finmeresco book is a true high twist. Some are conventional summer cloths. We check the reference before ordering rather than assuming, and you should ask any tailor to do the same.
Botany is their merino collection, named after the Botany Bay wool trade, and it is the straightforward answer when you want a well-made merino suiting without a story attached.
The Formal & Dress Wear book is the one we go to for weddings and black tie. Smith have a long reputation in barathea, the fine twill traditionally used for dinner jackets and formal wear, and if you need a proper evening garment made in Chennai, this is the right shelf.
Their Luxury Flannels and the tweed and cashmere jacketings are cold-weather cloths. Order them for travel or for a winter wedding somewhere north, not for here.
When Smith Woollens is the answer
Two briefs send us straight to this book. The first is a summer jacket with some personality, where Solaro is hard to beat and nothing else does what it does. The second is formal evening wear, where their barathea and dress cloths are as good as it gets and the occasion justifies the spend.
For a plain working suit we would usually point you at a Fresco or a Dugdale tropical first, simply because a plain navy is a plain navy and there is no reason to pay for a name on it. Smith earns its place when the cloth itself is doing something specific.
We can order across the Smith Woollens books. If you are curious about Solaro, come and look at a piece in daylight at the door rather than under the shop lights. The colour shift is the whole point and it does not photograph.