There are three things you should look for in a quality garment - fabric, cut and a high standard of finish. In the last article in this series of three, I'll look at finish. 

Finish is where cheaper manufacturers really start to cut corners because every element of finish costs money - seam allowances, proper interfacing that enables collars, belts etc to keep their shape, seam finishes that enclose raw edges, correct pressing, and applied techniques such as beading or pickstitching. 

There are two types of finish - those that are connected with the construction of the garment, and those which are purely decorative. Construction finishes prolong the longevity of a garment - with poor finish here, your garment will simply fall apart. Decorative finishes are the little touches that are worth paying extra for - pretty buttons, beading etc. They aren't necessary to the solidity of the garment but they are often the little detail that makes it worth buying. 

Stitching

The most important aspect of finish in any garment is the stitching. If this is poorly executed, in the wrong thread etc, nothing will be able to rescue the piece. Some stitchng, such as top stitching, is meant to be visible and may even be executed in a contrast thread, but the majority of stitching in a garment is simply what holds it together. Whenever you're considering buying an item, turn it inside out and look at the stitching. Are there loose and hanging threads? Is anything ravelling?  Does the thread colour change partway down a seam? These are all very bad signs. Stitching should be clean and neat and except for when it's deliberately meant to be in contrast, should sink almost invisibly into the fabric. Usually the thread should be the same shade, or one shade darker, than the cloth.

Seams

Seams on a good garment should lie absolutely flat, with no puckering and rucking where the fabric pieces join together. One area to watch out for is bias-cut garments at low-end prices. Bias creates inherent stretch in the fabric, and you need to let the pieces hang for 24 hours or more in order to 'relax' before stitching, which many manufacturers neglect to do. If the fabric isn't fully relaxed, or isn't sewn with enough inherent stretch in the seam (usually accomplished with a slight zigzag stitch), a bias skirt will ruckle right along the seamlines, usually at either side of your thighs, right where you need it least. 

Certain seams are more complicated to sew and therefore only appear on quality garments. One is the French seam, where the seam is sewn inside out, then outside in, enclosing all raw edges. This obviously takes at least twice as long to sew as a simple seam, doubling the construction time. It's usually seen on women's dresses and skirts.  

Another complex seam is the flat fell seam, which most of us are familiar with from our jeans. From the outside, it looks like a double row of stitching, and the raw edges are contained inside it. This results in a seam that is a little bulky but very strong (the reason it's standard on the outer leg of your jeans, while the inner leg is usually simply serged). On a good shirt, such as those made by Hilditch and Key and other Jermyn Street makers, the majority of the seams on the garment are flat-felled, including the armscye (armhole), side body and under sleeve. On cheaper shirts, the seams are usually just simple seams with serging on the inside. Shirts get a lot of wear, so look out for ones with flat-felled seams. This doesn't apply to blouses, which are more lightweight than shirts in construction. 

Seam allowances

Quality garments tend to have larger seam allowances inside the garment (turn them inside out to have a look). You can particularly see this in vintage garments, where seam allowances are routinely as much as three-quarters of an inch whereas nowadays, on a chainstore garment, you're lucky to get even a quarter of an inch. Tight seam allowances of this nature considerably increase the strain on the garment, and if one of them 'goes', there's not enough fabric left for you effect a repair easily. 

Vintage garments also often have the seam allowance bound with bias binding or satin tape, to prevent fraying. Today, this is only seen in high-end assembly such as clothes by Ralph Lauren. The same applies to seam allowances that are 'pinked' with pinking shears, or oversewn by hand - all this handwork costs money.

Cheap garments usually have 'serged' edges inside, which has been sewn by a serger - a kind of sewing machine that cuts, sews the seam and binds the seam all in one step. The advent of the serger revolutionised clothing production, but it does result in a rough finish inside your clothes which many of us now take for granted. In order to cut steps, this type of seam is also rarely pressed open where it should be, such as on the long side seam of dresses and blouses, but to one side, resulting in bumps and rucks under the fabric. Again, this is something many of us are used to and don't realise is a sign of poor quality. 

Linings

Quality garments are more often lined than equivalent garments at lower price points, and more of the garment will be lined (a full lining for a jacket, for instance, rather than a half-lining that only covers the shoulders). Linings are important because they help a garment to keep its shape and reduce strain on all seams, as well as protecting the outer shell from sweat and skin oils, and providing some slip when one garment goes on over another. Linings are particularly crucial in tailored garments such as jackets and coats - here, look for full linings, and slippery linings to sleeves, in particular. Burberry's coats, for instance, have a cotton lining to the body but a very silky sleeve lining that enables you to get the coat on and off very easily over a wool jacket.

Trousers that are lined to at least the knee will not bag and sag at the knee like unlined trousers, while quality dresses from companies such as Jaegar are usually lined throughout to keep their shape, though this does also introduce a greater formality that you may not be comfortable with. Skirts that are lined, at least at the back, will not 'seat' with wear as easily as unlined skirts, nor will they cling and grip onto your tights. Look for lined skirts for work if you're office-based.

If you can't afford garments with full linings, consider wearing a full slip underneath instead - this produces many of the same effects of slip and hang. 

Linings should be as good a quality as possible, made from thick, sturdy, antistatic fabrics with a lot of slip, and at the hem on coats, they should be attached with bar tacks - long threads of stitching, spaced at intervals, allowing the lining to move independently of the outer garment without pulling on the hem. Jacket linings should either be loose at the bottom or sewn in but with a little slack - this is usually pressed into place with a little horizontal pleat.

Also look out for garments with an extra, zip-out or button-out lining. This is most often seen in coats and jackets and extends a garment from one or two seasons to three or four - my Burberry polocoat can be worn pretty much all year round because of its zip-out wool lining. 

Relining a quality coat is expensive, but can give it an extra 10 years of life, so if you see a good quality designer coat on sale with a torn lining, this is an option worth considering. 

Stay tape

Stay tapes are are put into stretch garments in order to stop them stretching where it's not desireable, for instance at the shoulder of a cardigan. Quality knitwear is where you're most likely to see some sort of stay tape - cashmere and merino cardigans, for instance, usually have grosgrain ribbon tape behind both the buttons and the buttonholes to prevent distortion, plus cotton tape at the shoulders to prevent the shoulder from distorting. You can also find stay tape at lower price points, though, including good quality t-shirts, which often have non-stretch tape sewn in along the shoulder seam between the neck and the sleeve - this is a good sign that the tee won't gape and bag after a few washes. 

These days, you don't normally see stay tape anywhere else, but couture dresses have stay tapes at the waist in order to take the weight of the skirt, which seriously increases the comfort of the garment. You climb into the skirt and do up the stay tapes, then pull on the bodice section and fasten it separately - the skirt then effectively hangs from your waist and not from your shoulders. 

Hems

Hems on quality garments are deeper than on cheaper ones, and they may be bound with bias binding or another finish in order to keep their shape. They should also be finished invisibly, with no stitching visible on the outside. This is accomplished in modern clothing manufacture by using 'blind hem stitch', which catches the hem to the garment only at intervals. This is an area where you can really see the difference between low- and high-end manufacture. In the former, the hem is often just turned up and sewn in place, with a row of stitching fully visible (as is standard on jeans - one reason that shortening your jeans can make them look slightly odd) but often no account is taken of how the fabric will stretch or if the hem turnup is longer than the skirt piece it's being attached to. This results in puckering and folding all the way along the hemline. One way to improve the look of any cheap skirt or trousers is to invisibly resew the hems by hand.

Facings

A facing is a piece of fabric used to finish the raw edges of a garment at open areas, such as the neckline, armhole, and front and back plackets or opening. On a quality garment, facings are usually deep and sometimes finished by hand: they may also be attached to a lining or half-lining. On a cheap garment there are fewer facings and at areas such as the neck or armhole, the fabric may simply be turned over and stitched down instead. Facings are important because they provide structural support to the garment as well as a clean finish, so they are worth looking out for. 

Interfacing is an extra layer of fabric that lies between the outer garment and the facing. It's often not visible because it's completely enclosed - this will certainly be the case in something like a lined jacket or coat. Sometimes you can see it, for example if you turn back the front facings of a button-down dress or a blouse. Enclosed between the two layers of fabric will be another layer - that's the interfacing.

On vintage garments and high-end garments, interfacing is usually a woven fabric that is sewn in - it might be a thin layer of cotton batiste, or silk organza, for instance, and it provides a gentle level of support for the garment where it's needed most. One area where you might notice this is in vintage tailoring, which is remarkably soft and pliable compared with modern tailoring - even the shoulder pads are built up layer by layer from woven fabrics and scrim. 

On high-street garments today, however, almost all interfacing is 'fused', that is, it's a thin synthetic fabric, usually either white or grey, looking a bit like garden fleece, that is sticky on one side, and is ironed onto one of the pattern pieces before assembly. Just like sewn-in interfacing, it provides a little more body and stability to garment edges. The problem with fused interfacing is that the glue may wash off after a while, at which point the interfacing may begin to disintegrate. Sometimes you can even turn the garment inside out and pull the interfacing out in long strips. If it hasn't been applied properly in the first place, the fabric fused to it may be puckered and wrinkled. There is no fix for this, so if you find an article with this problem, put it back. 

Another common problem with interfacing is when the wrong weight has been used - either too stiff or not stiff enough.  This is usually what makes some jackets or coats uncomfortably stiff to wear and you can't fix it without entirely taking the garment apart.  My advice, if you find a coat or jacket too stiff in the fronts or the shoulderpads, is not to buy it - don't expect to wear it in. 

Buttons

Buttons may be crucial to the construction of a garment, and they may also be decorative. Always look for good quality buttons - mother of pearl rather than plastic on blouses and light jackets, horn rather than plastic on jackets and coats (you can test if it's horn by gripping it between your teeth - horn has less slip and feels a bit warmer, but it's something you have to have some experience with).

Check that buttons are sewn on properly by giving them a good tug and twist, especially on coats and jackets. The middle button on a jacket takes the most strain.

Coat buttons should either have a shank (a metal loop at the back of the button - standard on metal buttons such as traditional blazer buttons) or should be sewn on in a way that creates a thread shank, where the thread is wrapped around itself to make a little stalk. The button should also be backed with a little button inside the coat or jacket so that when the button gets pulled, it doesn't rip right out through the fabric (I can't tell you how many times I've done this while leaning over a supermarket trolley...). 

Duffle coats and other coats based on them have toggles instead of buttons, so that you can do them up with cold fingers. Look out for real horn and proper leather loops and strenthenings, which will last longer than vinyl ones. 

Changing the buttons is a simple, quick way to update or improve the look of any garment. 

Buttonholes

On cheap garments, buttonholes are usually straight slits, edged with thread, and many people today are only familiar with this type. On quality tailoring, however, buttonholes are often 'bound' - that is, no stitching is visible at all and the hole looks like a little tight-lipped mouth. Where they're not bound, they're often 'keyhole' shaped, with a larger section at one end for the button to slot into, and entirely sewn with very strong button thread.

Look out for good buttonholes on jackets and coats, where they get the most wear - it's not so crucial on lighter weight garments, though it does result in a very pretty finish.

Zips

Zips on quality skirts and dresses are usually invisible, and the slit in the garment where the zip is inserted is not outlined by stitching. In lower-end clothing, however, the slit is usually outlined by stitching on either side, as this is an easier zip to sew. In sturdier clothing, and where the zip is part of a fly, the stitching is more visible. In some types of clothing the zip itself may even be a design feature, as on a biker jacket.

Check that all zips function on any garment you're buying and that the slider slides easily and the teeth lock together properly. Be wary of very lightweight plastic zips, especially the type that have no teeth at all - these usually go wrong very quickly and you can end up paying more to repair the garment than the garment is worth.

Zippers on outwear should have a hole in the toggle big enough to get your finger through and/or a fabric pull, to enable you to zip up in a hurry with cold fingers.

Turn the garment inside out and feel around the base of the zipper slider - it should be properly secured to the garment. If it is hanging loose, stitch it down, and also consider snipping off the reinforced plastic glued section, which can be very irritating to the skin.

Pockets

All pockets on a garment should be fit for their purpose and if they're visible, they should add to the design of the garment. Quality coats and outerwear jackets should have pockets deep enough to put your hands in for warmth. Fur coats usually have velvet pocket bags, while quality wool coats have moleskin - very warm and soft. Pockets come in for a lot of wear and tear and their fabric needs to be tough - don't buy garments where the pockets are flimsy.

Many low-end garments lack pockets altogether because they add extra steps to the manufacture, and where they do appear, they tend to be in-seam (in line with the seams) or patch pockets, added on afterwards, with or without a flap. There is nothing wrong with either design, but it is only on quality clothes that you will you see designs such as welt pockets, where the edge of the pocket is bound in a similar way to a bound buttonhole.

Always look out for interesting pockets, which add a pretty construction twist to an otherwise plain garment.

Applied finishes

Applied techniques such as sequinning, tambour-work or beading are purely decorative rather than inherent to the construction of a garment, and they still generally have to be done by hand. Either you pay a high price for this, or at the low-end, you are almost certainly exploiting child labour somewhere in the developing world, as was seen recently with companies such as Primark.

Applied stitching is a kind of halfway house because it is decorative but may also have the purpose of strengthening the garment, as you might see in collars and cuffs that are top-stitched, or the edge of a jacket which is pickstitched (it looks like a row of running stitches).

Look out for details such as this, especially any work that has obviously been done by hand.

When buying an item with applied sequins or beading, give them a good tug to make sure nothing is loose.

In brief - finishing details to look out for

Hems - flat, invisibly stitched, bound on the inside edge with tape. 

Stitching - even, invisible, no runs or loose threads.

Seams - French seams, flat fell seams, no rough edges inside, flat. 

Seam allowances - generous, permitting you to let the garment out at a future date. 

Facings - deep as possible, not skimpy. In dress bodices, look for facings that cover the whole bodice.

Buttons - quality button. On coats, sturdy buttons that have been sewn on by hand and are backed by another, smaller button. 

Buttonholes - bound buttonholes or keyhole buttonholes rather than straight buttonholes. 

Pockets - pockets that are part of the overall design, welt pockets, bound pocket, velvet or moleskin pockets

Applied details - fine embroidery, quality beading, sewn-in sequins. 

Stay tape - on shoulder seams of stretch garments and the front edges of cardigans to prevent distortion. 

Linings - the more the merrier. In trousers, linings to the knee, in skirts linings at least to the back. In coats and jackets, full linings including silky sleeve linings. Extra linings for coats and jackets to extend the season of the garment.

In part two of this three-part feature series, I'll look at how to identify a quality cut in a garment.

Every woman prefers a different style of dressing - some like a casual look, some prefer more formal, office-oriented clothes, others yet prefer glamorous clothes or eveningwear. But different styles are one thing - cut is another.

The quality of a particular cut depends largely on something that most ready-to-wear buyers aren't familiar with - ease. Ease isn't how relaxed you feel in something, it's the gap between your body and the garment. Swimwear or tight t-shirt are actually smaller than you are, and this is known as negative ease. But most garments are slightly larger than you are, and that's known as positive ease. 

Depending on the amount of ease in the garment, it will fit you tightly, snugly, loosely or very loosely, and there is no right way for a garment to feel - it's a matter of personal choice. Some women like the tight, hugging fit of jeans and bodies, for instance, where others prefer the loose, unbinding cut of palazzo pants and kimonos.

But in addition to the ease required for you to move around comfortably in your clothes - known as 'garment ease' - there is also another type of ease - 'fashion ease'. 

Fashion ease is the amount of extra fabric the designer puts into the garment, over and above what is strictly necessary for it simply to function - if you like, the 'generosity' of the cut - and it's something that becomes immediately apparent when you compare clothing at a high price point from that at a low price point.

Quality garments generally have fuller sleeves, deeper cuffs and more room at the knee, for instance. They don't bind across the back, they don't ride up when you sit down, and you can raise your arms without distorting the garment.

The problem is, adding ease to garments costs manufacturers money, and when the clothes are MASS manufactured, all those little extra bits of cloth can add up to a fortune.

Designers at every price point try to keep fabric wastage to a minimum of course, but those at the low end shave off every bit of fabric that they possibly can. This is one reason that cheap clothing often feels 'mean' or skimpy - the cut has been shaved to the bone in order to reduce manufacturing costs. One way to get around it, if you do have to shop from cheaper ranges, is to go up a size or two - but no more than this or you'll start to distort at the shoulderline.

One area where you might particularly notice a lack of generosity in cut is at the armscye (sleeve hole). Extra fabric at the sleeve head, giving the user a wider range of movement, not only requires more fabric, it also requires more skilled stitching, and possibly a worker who's paid a higher rate for the clothing assembly. All of this cost has to be added to the cost of the garment and the difference recouped from the customer. This is also one reason why cheaper clothing ranges produce more sleeveless garments. 

Another area where lack of ease can be noticeable is across the back. Removing the back seam from a pattern removes one extra step in assembly, but it also means that the garment won't fit so well, because the curvature of the spine isn't taken into account. Quality jackets and coats nearly all have a centre back seam for this reason, so this is something to look out for.

Quality blouses and shirts usually have a shoulder yoke, which permits the garment to sit neatly and flatly at the shoulderline and neck. Any excess fabric such as blousing, pin-tucking or the deep back pleat often seen on men's shirts, can then be gathered slightly below the shoulder where the fabric bulk won't be noticeable. Cheaper cuts of shirt and blouse just have the back and front meet each other in a seam right over the top of the shoulder - neither as comfortable, nor as tidy as using a shoulder yoke. 

In much the same way as the back seam on a jacket, a two-piece collar, with a seam up the back, is more tightly shaped to the neck and has less tendency to bag than a one-piece collar.

When it comes to sweaters, a quality knit should be fully-fashioned, with the garment pieces knitted to shape and then assembled, rather than being cut out of a rectangular piece of fabric as if the item was woven rather than knitted. Fully fashioning requires more steps in the production because you have to 'needle park' or change the knit from rib to interlock, etc, which tends to make it more expensive, but you also tend to not get problems like bagging every which way, and it also results in a snugger fit to the body.

At all price points, and in all types of garment, a cut can either be generous or ungenerous. For instance, I have two pairs of jeans which in a photograph look almost identical - both denim, both indigo, both bootcut, both with a 9-inch rise - in terms of style they are identical. But the pair from M&S are so straight in the leg as to be virtually shapeless, like boilersuit trousers, while the pair from Next are much longer in the rear rise than in the front, roomier in the butt, tighter on the thigh and wider at the hem. Altogether more womanly in shape, the latter pair take 10 pounds off me because the CUT is flattering.   

While we're on the subject of jeans, jeans with the outside leg seam set slightly towards the back will give you more ease in movement and a relaxed fit, while ones with the side seam set slightly forward will introduce a slimming, vertical line that can be very flattering. Depending on your preferences, both of these cuts are readily available from a wide range of manufacturers.

Exaggeration

In any wardrobe, you'll get the most wear out of cuts that are simple and 'clean'. These won't date easily. Avoid exaggeration at all costs - huge collars, huge floppy lapels, outsize patch pockets, big pocket flaps, daft sleeves (currently plaguing the ready-to-wear market), deep turnups (more than 1in), ridiculously tight clothing, wide shoulders. In blouses, jackets and coats, look for a shoulder that comes as close to your shoulderline as possible, and for overcoats and raincoats, consider a raglan sleeve, which fits more easily over a standard sleevehead.

Details

Quality garments often display detailing that you don't get on cheaper garments. I'll look at applied detail such as topstitching in my article on 'finish', but with regard to cut, look out for extra but telling details such as turnups on trousers, French (turn-back) cuffs on blouses, four cuff buttons rather than three and the use of multiple-weight fabrics such as a wool coat with velvet trim, or a silk blouse with chiffon sleeves. Sewing together two fabrics of different weights requires greater skill and shows that the manufacturer has more faith in the garment.

Age and weight

Many women continue to show loyalty to particular brands even when they are no longer suitable for their age and weight range. This is a mistake. Once you hit 40, forget the juniors departments, where the cuts are aimed at teenage girls with small boobs and not much waist definition. You now need missy cuts, with more generous allowances for your bust and butt. This doesn't mean that you have to look like a full-on matron of course, but it should also ensure that you're not constantly squeezing yourself into clothes that you haven't a hope of fitting into. Missy ranges also tend to have more sleeves on items like dresses, which is a godsend for those of us who prefer to cover our arms. In the UK, I would hit shops like Jaegar first and work my way out from there. 

The same rule applies if you're outsize - shop in the manufacturers who design for your weight range first, don't just buy ordinary clothes in bigger sizes - there is no quicker way to look like a frump. When women gain fat, they gain it in specific places, they don't just get bigger all over as if their bones were growing. Your frame remains the same, but you'll gain on your hips, thighs, bust, belly and the tops of your arms, and the cuts of the garments you wear need to take that into account. 

How to choose garments with a quality cut. 

When you try on a garment, give it some hammer before you buy it - don't just hold it up against yourself and look. If it's a skirt or trousers, squat down in it - does the waistband poke out at the back, is it too tight on the knee? Does it give you enough room in the rear? In trousers, in order to get a good fit you usually have to pay more money than you would for a skirt of equivalent quality - you're paying not just for fabric but for the comfort of a properly cut rise that won't slice your crotch in half every time you sit down. 

If there isn't a chair in the changing room, ask for one, and sit on it in front of a mirror. How high does the skirt ride when you cross your legs? This is as much to do with the cut as with the length - if you have a tummy, a pencil skirt will ride higher than a 'pegged' skirt, which has slight gathers into the waistband and is more accommodating to a pot belly. 

When you try on a jacket, reach above your head and watch how the front revers rise. Do they threaten to come up and chop your ears off? Now do the garment up and see how far you can reach upwards - dos it pull at your ribcage? Bend your elbows - how tight is the sleeve? Does the 'stance' - the bit where the front edges meet - fall at a flattering place on your bustline and the collar sit flat against your collar bones? This is crucial for a jacket to look and feel good. Now reach around and hug yourself from both sides - is there enough room in the back?

How does it look when it's open? Most of us don't wear our jackets closed all day, and double-breasted jackets in particular often stick out like boards if they're worn undone. Can you reach behind you and pretend to scratch your back? If you can't, take it off and put it back on the hanger - if you have to wear this thing all day it will drive you nuts.

To tell if a knit is fully fashioned, turn the item inside out and look at the seams - if they look ravelled or are sewn over with interlock stitch, the pieces may well have been cut from bolt knitted fabric, but if they look clean or like a solid braid of yarn, the pieces were probably knitted to shape, which means the item will retain its shape better. 

Above all, when it comes to clothes, try on things you know you can't afford in high-end shops where you have no intention of buying anything. It costs nothing and you will quickly get your eye in for what is meant to constitute a quality garment - then you can use your newfound knowledge to shop at a lower price point.

A reader asked me yesterday how, exactly, do you recognise a quality garment?

Well, there are several things to look out for. I mentioned in a blog that you should focus on fabric, cut and finish, so let's look at the first of those three areas - fabric.

Fabric is made from fibres, of which there are two types - natural and man-made.

Man-made fibres

Man-made fibres include completely synthetic fibres (such as nylon) which are usually petroleum byproducts, and 'man-made' fibres (such as viscose) which are reconstructed from natural materials such as wood pulp. The advantage of man-made fibres is that they're cheap to produce, but their disadvantages are that some do not wear well, and because they aren't natural, they don't 'breathe', allowing you to sweat. Many are also cold to the touch, which can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. They may also have implications for the environment in that they don't biodegrade (polyester is an exception to this, as if destroyed at high temperature, it results in carbon and water, making it quite eco-friendly).  

All man-made fibres begin life as a kind of 'soup' of molecules which are then stuck back together to form filaments. These are then twisted together to make threads. This enables man-made fibres to be produced in vast quantities, but it can also leave them inherently weak. Viscose is one of the worst, and has a tendency to pill and fracture - no viscose garment will be long-lived. On the other hand, microfibre filaments are among the strongest fibres available, creating fabrics that are smoothy, drapy and hard to put a pin through. Synthetic fibres can now also be produced with permanent crinkle finishes that produce an alluring texture - the Japanese manufacturers such as Nuno are the world leaders in these specialised fabrics. 

Natural fibres

Natural fibres, in contrast, are produced from either plant (cellulose) fibre such as cotton bolls, flax stems or hemp stalks, or created from animal (protein) pelts such as sheep wool, alpaca and cashmere. There is also one very specific animal fibre that is produced in a different way - silk, which is made from the cocoon of the silk moth in a way not dissimilar from untwisting a spider's web. Sericulture - silk production - is a specialised skill that for centuries was kept secret by its discoverers, the Chinese.

The length of the natural fibre varies - the longest is silk, a single filament of which can be over a mile long, and the shortest is 'short-staple' cotton - the lowest-quality cotton, whose tufts may be half an inch long or less. Linen lies somewhere in between, with filaments about three feet long, and wool is shorter, at several inches for the longest 'staples'.

The simple rule  with natural fibres is, the longer the staple, the better quality the resulting fabric will be. Egyptian cotton, for instance, has tufts that are about three inches long, which means that when they're twisted together to make thread, and later fabric, they lie very smooth and flat. This is why you pay a premium for Egyptian cotton but it is also why the fabric lasts longer. I have bedding and towels nearly 20 years old made from Egyptian cotton, which is still going strong and has seen off many cheaper rivals in the meantime. 

In silk, long, unbroken lengths are only produced when the silk cocoon is boiled with the grub still inside, at which point the cocoon can be unwound like a reel of thread. If the grub should hatch out, the threads are broken, but many silk fabrics are produced using exactly this method, which results in slubs and breaks in the fabric that give a very attractive texture - examples include tussah and shantung. 

In wools, the longest staple is found on animals like Merino sheep, which produce a wool that is flat, silky and very hard-wearing. Again, you pay a premium for it, but with care, a merino sweater will last virtually a lifetime. However, there are other qualities in wool that we find valuable, such as 'loft' - lightness and fluffiness that traps air and keeps you warm, and simple softness. For loft, few wools are better than Shetland, which is amazingly lightweight for the warmth it gives, while for sheer softness, you're looking at premium-price fibres such as angora, camelhair, alpaca and cashmere. 

What to look for

For practical purposes, most of us wear fabrics that are mixtures of natural and synthetic fibres, but when you're looking for quality in a garment, you should generally look for the highest percentage of natural fibre you can afford (the exception is if you wear garments made from the very modern, high-end synthetics produced by firms such as Miyake, which carry a premium for their rarity and exclusivity).

For daily wear, a pure cotton blouse will wear much better, and feel more comfortable on the skin than a blouse that is 30 per cent polyester, and if it's Egyptian or Sea Island cotton, it will feel smoother and silkier too. A pure cashmere coat is a serious investment that you would expect to wear for 20 years or more, but it is both warm and beautifully soft.

If your budget won't stretch to pure fibres, look for at least 80 per cent natural fibre, such as 80 wool/20 acrylic in knitwear or 80 wool/20 polyester in a coat fabric. An addition of a few per cent of elasthane (Lycra) is also often useful, as this gives the fibre enough stretch and 'give' to allow it to recover after wear without adversely affecting the other qualities of the fabric. Most quality men's trousers today contain about 2 per cent lycra, for instance, to prevent them giving at the knee. Cotton t-shirts with 2-5 per cent elasthane will often wear better than pure cotton jersey, which becomes stretched out and baggy, and if you're fond of viscose t-shirts, you really need them to contain 5 per cent elasthane to last any time at all and even then, they will pill on the inside.

Price and production

Methods of production also affect the price of a fabric. The wider the fabric, for instance, the more money is usually costs (broadcloth) because the wider loom costs more money to set up. The more threads there are to the inch, the more it will cost, because you're actually getting more fabric for your money - one example would include Tana lawn, which is made from extremely fine cotton threads, but many, many threads to the inch, resulting in a fabric that is very thin, light, smooth and hard-wearing.

The smaller the quantity of fabric produced, the more you will pay, because there are no reductions for volume - this affects suiting wools such as worsted which are not produced in large quantities. The more handwork that's involved right along the process, the more you have to pay - this is one factor that affects fabrics such as cashmere, because even today cashmere wool has to be hand-combed out of a goat's belly, rather than being sheared off by electric trimmers. Handwork also affects linen and fabrics such as horsehair, still used for quality furnishings. 

Woven fabrics usually cost more than prints, because a loom has to be set up for the purpose, but they are generally considered to be more desireable because the design goes all the way through. Examples include herringbone weaves, tartan and pinstripe suiting, but also more complicated weaves such as jacquard, which require special looms. Even denim, which is a twill weave, should cost more than ordinary plain woven cotton that results in a thinner, less hardy fabric.

In printed fabrics, the number of colours in a print affects price, because you're paying for each pass of the fabric through the printing rollers. Therefore complex fabrics with over 10 colours can end up costing a fortune. But even a plain colour can affect price - when gentlemen's hunting jackets are made by hand in Saville Row, there is an extra premium for having them in red, because it is very hard on the tailor's eyes!

Lastly, price is affected by desireability, and that is a factor that is constantly changing. The minute that a new fabric or fibre appears on the scene, it becomes desireable, as we all saw with pashmina some years ago. If it can then be produced in quantity, its desireability falls (as again we saw with pashmina once cheaper mixes of silk and cashmere were woven with near-identical results). 

Desireability is the joker in the pack to watch out for when you're buying clothes, because really it's a gimmick. What you need to look for in a fabric is quality - threads per inch, staple length of the fibre (which is why you can expect to pay more for linen than for cotton), and the amount of handwork involved in its production.

How to check fabric quality in a garment

OK, the above is all very theoretical, but when you come to actually buying clothes, how do you tell a quality fabric?

Firstly, look inside. If there is a fabric manufacturer's label in addition to the garment manufacturer's label, this is a good sign because it means they're proud of their product - you will always, for instance, find the Harris tweed label in any garment made from it. Fabrics such as Tana lawn, hand-woven Irish linen and Egyptian cotton will always be mentioned separately on the label because you're expected to pay more for them.

Next look at the label that tells you the fibre breakdown. Look, in general, for 100 per cent natural fibres (this might be a mixture, such as wool and angora, but they're both natural). Generally speaking, the higher the quantity of synthetic, the less you should pay for it, as the garment won't wear as well.

Look at the position of the fibre label. Labels for high-end fibres or fabrics are always placed somewhere prominent, while those for poor-quality fabrics such as cheap synthetics and cottons are usually not sewn in a prominent place, such as the back of the neck, but tend to appear lower down the body of the garment. 

A word about wools - when a garment is made from a premium wool such as merino, alpaca or cashmere, it will be labelled as such. If it's labelled 'lambswool', this is the first shearing, which is softer than subsequent shearings - be prepared to pay a bit extra for it. If it's labelled 'Pure New Wool' this is a mixture of wools of varying quality, but all of which are from fresh shearings - the price should not be so high as lambswool. If it's simply labelled 'wool', this is a mixture of wools, some of which are from new shearings but some of which may be reused wools, collected from old fabrics - it will not wear very well, as much of the tensile strength has been lost. Pay only a low price for it or avoid it altogether.  

Now take a section of the fabric and hold it up to the light, and tug the threads in opposite directions. Are there lots of threads per inch? How much give is there? How much light can you see? A thin, cheap cotton will have lots of give and let through lots of light, whereas a thickly woven dotted Swiss is a tough fabric that you have to pay a premium for.  However, a thin, cheap cotton may be just what you want for a beach holiday - you still need to think about the purposes to which you're going to put the garment. 

Run your hands over the fabric and check it for quality and smoothness. Scratch it with your fingernails - does it pill or come up, has it got a nap that can be combed one way or the other? A nap is a good sign on quality coats, which are almost like an animal's pelt in their finish, and the deeper the pile on a velvet, the more expensive it should be. 

Now take a sleeve or leg of the garment and crush and twist it tightly in your hands and hold it, keeping it warm, for 20 seconds. It's obviously not a good idea to do this when a sales assistant is watching! Now release the fabric and see how well the creases fall out. My advice is, if the creases are still severe, don't touch it with a bargepole unless you want to spend all your time ironing it. However, you personally may like a crumpled look, such as with linen.

Quality fibres cost money to produce, so you are unlikely to find them cheap - if you find, for instance, 'cashmere' going cheap, be wary. So remember the adage: "When you buy quality, you only wince once."

Some common fibres and their price points:

Cashmere £££££

Pashmina £££££

Alpaca £££££

Vicuna £££££

Camelhair £££££

Egyptian cotton ££££

Merino wool ££££

Linen ££££

Hemp £££ (due to low amount of production)

Shetland £££

Tana lawn £££

Lambswool £££ - ££

Microfibre ££ 

Pure new wool (a blend of different wools) ££

Wool (re-used wool from unspecified sources) £

Cotton (unspecified sources, probably India) £

Viscose £

Nylon £

Polyester £