Gabardine



Gabardine is a durable twill worsted wool. It is a tightly woven waterproof fabric, and used to make outerwear and various other garments, such as suits, overcoats, trousers, uniforms, and windbreakers. It is often associated with the Burberry fashion house and their trench coats. The name is related to "gaberdine", a type of long, cape-like dress worn during the Middle Ages.

History
The word gaberdine or gabardine has been used to refer to a particular item of clothing, a sort of long cassock but often open at the front, since at least the 15th century. In the 16th century the term began to be used for outer garments of the poor, later narrowed to a rain cloak or protective smock-frock.

The modern use to describe a fabric rather than a garment dates to Thomas Burberry, founder of the Burberry fashion house in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, who invented the fabric and revived the name gabardine in 1879. It was introduced by Burberry Clothing, and patented in 1888.

Compared to fabrics which preceded it, gabardine was lightweight, durable, and breathable. Its ability to shed water and break wind helped revolutionize outerwear.

Production
The original fabric was worsted wool, sometimes in combination with cotton, and was waterproofed using lanolin before weaving. Today the fiber may also be pure cotton, texturized polyester, or a blend.

Gabardine is woven as a warp-faced steep or regular twill, with a prominent diagonal rib on the face and smooth surface on the back. Gabardine always has many more warp than weft yarns.



Gabardine is tightly woven and water-repellent but more comfortable and breathable than rubberised fabrics.

Applications
Burberry clothing of gabardine was worn by polar explorers, including Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, in 1911 and Ernest Shackleton, who led a 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica. A jacket made of this material was worn by George Mallory on his attempt on Mount Everest in 1924.

Gabardine was also used widely in the 1950s to produce colourful patterned casual jackets, trousers and suits. Companies like J. C. Penney, Sport Chief, Campus, Four Star, Curlee, Towncraft, and Oxford Clothes produced short-waisted gabardine jackets, sometimes reversible, commonly known as "Ricky jackets" or "Gab jackets," along with the famous Hollywood leisure jackets that had been made since the 1930s.

Cotton gabardine is often used by bespoke tailors to make pocket linings for suits, where the pockets' contents would quickly wear holes in flimsy pocket lining material.

Clothing made from authentic wool gabardine generally requires dry cleaning.