The weight of a good hoodie

Most hoodies on the high street sit between 240 and 300gsm. It is a sensible number if you are shipping millions of units — cheap to weave, quick to dry, forgiving on a production line. It is a terrible number if you want the thing to still look like itself in two years.

We settled on 400gsm loopback cotton after building the same hoodie six times. Below 350gsm the shoulder seam starts to roll after a dozen washes. Above 450gsm it stops being a hoodie and starts being outerwear — too stiff to layer, too warm for anything but January.

Loopback matters as much as the weight. The unbrushed inner face means the fabric breathes instead of trapping heat, and it keeps its structure rather than pilling into fluff. It is the reason a good hoodie feels broken-in rather than worn out.

The cost of this is real: fewer units per roll, a longer finishing time, and a price that sits above what most people expect to pay. We think that is the correct trade. You should buy one of these, not four of something else.