The Lining Nobody Sees
The Lining Nobody Sees
The quietest luxury in a coat is a cloth made from the fuzz on a cotton seed.
A lining is the part of a coat only the owner ever touches. Which is exactly why it is worth caring about.
It starts as a leftover
When cotton is ginned, short downy fibers stay stuck to the seed. They are called linter, and they are a byproduct of making cottonseed oil. For most of history they were waste. Cupro is made from them. The linter is cleaned, dissolved in a solution of copper and ammonia, and spun out again as a fine, smooth, almost perfectly round filament. That copper and ammonia process is where the name comes from, and it is why the cloth was once sold as ammonia silk.
Japan, 1931
The chemistry was developed in Europe, but it was in Japan that it was refined into something consistent enough for fine clothing. Commercial production started there in 1931, and one Japanese company still makes nearly all of the cupro in the world. There is something very Japanese about that, taking a difficult process nobody else could run properly and simply refusing to let it go.
What it does inside a coat
A round filament is a smooth filament, so a cupro lined coat slides over a sweater instead of dragging on it. It breathes better than most linings and it absorbs and releases moisture rather than trapping it, which is what keeps a heavy wool coat from feeling clammy indoors. It takes color deeply, which is why a good cupro lining looks rich rather than shiny. It is also cellulose, which means it comes from a plant and goes back to one.
Ours
The Black Bear Brand peacoat is lined throughout in blue cupro made special for us in Japan. Nobody who passes you on the street will ever see it. You will see it every time you put the coat on, and you will feel it every time you take it off.
A Way Of Life.
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