Why Tweed Still Turns Up on the Rails

There is a particular pleasure in finding a proper tweed jacket wedged between a novelty Christmas jumper and a waterproof anorak. It happens more often than you might think. Charity shops in market towns, cathedral cities, genteel suburbs and university neighbourhoods are the richest seams, and the reason is straightforward: tweed was bought to last, and it largely has.

A jacket made in the 1970s or 1980s from a decent Scottish or Yorkshire cloth has often been worn a dozen times a year and hung up carefully in between. When its owner downsizes or dies, it goes to the charity shop because nobody in the family wears a 42 regular any more. That is your opportunity. What cost the price of a week's wages then can be yours for the price of a round of drinks now.

Read the Cloth Before the Label

Pick up a jacket and do three things in the first ten seconds: look, feel, and hold it to the light.

• Weight and handle. Proper tweed has substance. A good jacket should feel cool, slightly dry and surprisingly heavy in the hand. If it feels papery, springy or slippery, you are probably holding a wool-and-polyester blend that will never drape properly.
• Weave definition. Herringbone, houndstooth, glen check, barleycorn, estate check. Whatever the pattern, it should be crisp and clearly defined rather than blurry or flattened.
• The reverse. Turn back a corner of the hem or the inside of a cuff. Real tweed shows a clean, tightly twisted yarn. Fluffy, loose, fraying yarn suggests a low-twist cloth that is already well worn.

Hold the cloth against a window. Even light through the weave is fine; patches where light floods through are not.

Labels, Makers and the Small Clues

Look inside the chest pocket, along the inside seam, and around the collar. A cloth label in the seam is a very good sign: an orb symbol, a mill name, a weight given in ounces, or words such as pure new wool, handwoven or 100% wool. These indicate a jacket made from cloth worth caring about rather than a fashion item cut from a cheap mixture.

Then examine the construction. Working buttonholes on the cuffs, a ticket pocket, a lapel that rolls softly rather than pressing flat, pattern matching across the seams at the shoulders and centre back, a half-lining in the sleeves: these are the marks of a jacket made for someone who expected it to last a decade. Do not worry about the shop's own name on the label. Plenty of excellent jackets were made for small country outfitters whose names nobody remembers.

Inspect the Lining, Seams and Moths

• Underarms. Hold the lining up to the light. Sweat eats through silk and acetate faster than anything else. A split seam is a small repair; a stained, perished lining means a full reline, which is rarely worth the money.
• Moth damage. Look for small round holes and grazing, where the nap has been nibbled to a thin haze. Check the lapel fold, the back of the collar, the cuffs and anywhere the jacket has been folded in storage.
• Shoulder seams and armholes. Tug gently. If the cloth has gone at the shoulder, the jacket is finished.
• Buttons. Horn, leather and corozo are worth keeping and replacing. Cheap plastic is a warning about the rest of the jacket.
• Smell. Damp, mildew or heavy mothballs. Airing will shift cigarette smoke and light mustiness. Rot and damp will not go away.

Fit, Measurements and Alterations

Take a tape measure. Vintage sizing runs smaller than modern sizing, and a 40 from 1975 may fit like a 38 today. Note four figures: pit to pit (doubled), shoulder seam to shoulder seam, sleeve length from the shoulder seam, and back length from the base of the collar.

Shoulders are the one thing a tailor cannot realistically alter. If the shoulder seams sit past your natural shoulder line, walk away. Sleeves, waist suppression, hem length and even a small amount of chest can usually be adjusted. Weigh the alteration cost against the purchase price honestly: a jacket at £12 with £30 of tailoring is still a bargain if the cloth is genuinely good, but not if you are rescuing something mediocre.

A Routine Worth Keeping

Go on weekday mornings, when stock has been sorted and the rails are tidy. Ask the volunteers when new donations go out, and be specific about what you want: tweed jackets, wool, around a 40. Staff remember faces and hold things back for people who are pleasant and clear about their interests.

Visit the same six or eight shops regularly rather than touring the whole county once. Buy little, buy well, and be prepared to leave empty-handed. Keep a couple of spare wooden hangers and a stiff brush at home, and air every purchase for a day or two before wearing it.

The jacket you want is almost certainly not on the rail today. Given patience, a little knowledge and a willingness to look past the plastic buttons, it will be there in three weeks.