How Heavy Should a Winter Coat Be? Cloth Weight Explained

Most winter overcoats are cut from cloth weighing roughly 530 to 750 grams per linear metre, which is about 350 to 500 grams per square metre. Below that, from about 400 grams, you are in topcoat territory, for autumn and spring. Above 800 grams you reach greatcoat cloth, made for real cold. But the number is a clue, not a verdict. Two cloths of the same weight can wear very differently, and how a cloth was finished often matters as much as what it weighs.

When we choose pieces for our wool and cashmere overcoat archive, the cloth is the first thing we handle, before the label or the cut. This guide explains what the weight figures mean and what they leave out.

Why the numbers never seem to match

Cloth weight is quoted in three different ways, and most of the confusion comes from mixing them up.

• Grams per linear metre. The weight of one metre cut from the bolt, at the cloth's full width. Fox Brothers, the Somerset flannel mill, quotes its cloths this way, and Vitale Barberis Canonico lists a suiting at 230 grams per metre at 150 cm wide.
• Grams per square metre (g/m²). The weight of one square metre, whatever the width. It is the only fair way to compare two cloths. The Austrian loden mill Loden Walker gives both figures side by side: its cloth loden weighs about 460 grams per linear metre, or 300 g/m².
• Ounces. The traditional British figure, usually meant per linear yard. Here is the catch: on Fox Brothers' own listings the ounce figure simply follows the grams divided by 28.35. Its Great Coat cloth is listed at 820–850 g and 29–30 oz, its covert cloth at 530–550 g and 18–19 oz. That is the weight of a metre expressed in ounces, and because a yard is about 9% shorter than a metre, it reads about 9% heavier than a true ounces-per-yard figure.

So treat a bare "18 oz" as a label, and ask which length or area it refers to before you compare it with anything.

To convert	Use
1 oz per linear yard	31.0 g per linear metre
1 oz per square yard	33.9 g/m²
Grams per linear metre to g/m²	Divide by the cloth width in metres (÷ 1.5 for 150 cm cloth)
Example: 20 oz per linear yard, 150 cm wide	About 620 g per linear metre, or 413 g/m²

Typical weights, from suit to greatcoat

These ranges are compiled from mill listings. They are a practical guide, not an industry standard, and every mill draws its own lines.

Cloth	Per linear metre (≈ g/m² at 150 cm)
Suiting	230–320 g (≈ 155–215)
Jacketing	290–430 g (≈ 195–285)
Topcoat, autumn and spring	400–550 g (≈ 265–365)
Winter overcoat	530–750 g (≈ 355–500)
Greatcoat and heavy coating	800 g and over (≈ 535 and over)

Real cloths show how wide the range runs. Fox Brothers' covert coating is listed at 530–550 g, and its Great Coat cloth at 820–850 g. Loden Walker's lodens run from about 460 g per metre (300 g/m²) for classic cloth loden to about 900 g (640 g/m²) for its thick bouclé loden.

Why weight is not the same as warmth

Fox Brothers puts it plainly: weight is an important reference point, but not the only thing that decides how a cloth wears. Yarn, spinning, weave and finish all change how a cloth feels and performs, and two cloths of similar weight can wear very differently.

A coat keeps you warm in two ways. It holds still air close to the body, and it stops the wind from blowing that air away. The second job depends mostly on how dense the cloth is, and that depends on the finish.

The key finish for coating is fulling, also called milling. The woven wool is wetted, warmed and worked until the fibres lock together and the cloth shrinks, thickens and closes up. A heavily fulled cloth stops wind that would pass straight through an open tweed of the same weight. The lining, the interlining and the fit play their part too: a coat with room over a jacket traps more air than one pulled tight.

The fibre matters less than people think, but it matters. A cashmere coat can feel as warm as a heavier wool one, which our guide to cashmere vs wool explains.

Melton, loden and double cloth

Melton is a wool cloth fulled so heavily that the weave almost disappears under a smooth, felt-like face with a very short nap. It is the classic cloth for pea coats and military overcoats, and it is hard to beat against wind.

Loden is also always fulled. The German mill Gebrüder Mehler calls it a collective term for dense, heavily milled woollen cloths, mostly of sheep's wool, with different surface finishes. Our article on what loden means covers the cloth and its makers.

Double cloth is woven as two layers joined together at points across the cloth. It gives a thick, stable cloth with two good faces, which is why it is used for unlined, reversible coats. "Double-faced" is used loosely: it can mean true double cloth, or a single cloth finished to look good on both sides.

How to judge a vintage coat with no weight on the label

Vintage coats almost never state their cloth weight, so you judge it by hand.

• Look at the light. Hold one layer of the cloth, at the hem or a pocket flap, up to a window. If light shows through the weave, the cloth is open and will let wind in, whatever it weighs.
• Feel the face. On a fulled cloth the weave is hard to see and the surface feels compact and smooth. On a loosely woven one you can feel each yarn.
• Check the inside. A quilted or wadded interlining adds a lot of warmth to a modest cloth.
• Read the composition label. It tells you the fibre, and the fibre tells you what to expect from a given weight.

If you buy online, ask the seller to describe the cloth: dense or open, fulled or crisp. A good seller can answer that from handling the coat.