DEFINING FASHION: Suiting VS Shirting

Heard people throw around shirting and suiting to describe clothing categories?

That’s not really right.

“Suiting” is a bit of an ambiguous term. It actually refers to the fabrics that suits and tailored clothing might be made from, think wools or tweeds. However it’s been picked up by marketers to use when they describe the clothing category of suits, probably because its links to artisan fabrics and tailoring does add that je ne sais quoi that makes their suits sound luxurious and special by implication.

Similarly to what ‘suiting’ is meant to mean, ‘shirting’ refers to the fabrics used for making shirts (your cottons, your linens, etc.)

Shall we use it in a sentence? “Hey, Scarlet can you go to the haberdashery today and pick up the suiting we need for that order?”

I have read some etymological thinking around why marketers, and often fashion writers use these terms incorrectly. Maybe it was a conscious choice to make products sound more bespoke and special with some of that old-world tailoring language. But maybe it was just a misunderstanding - a lot of tailors sell suits and well as fabrics so it’s pretty easy to imaging that telling customers the ‘spring suiting’ was in might make customers think they were referring to the literal spring suits.

Either way - now you know, and you can flex that fashion knowledge politely correcting some man (always) who’s bragging about his expensive new ‘suiting’.