Solaro is the cloth menswear enthusiasts learn about long before they see it worn well. It was woven with a red underside that never actually worked as sun protection, and it has spent over a century failing at its original job while succeeding at almost everything else. In this video we trace Solaro from a doctor's flawed theory to a suit length gifted by an Italian mill, and work out where it belongs in a modern wardrobe.

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A cloth with a strange origin story

What Is Solaro Cloth and Where Does It Come From?

Solaro is a worsted wool cloth with a khaki or olive face and a brick red reverse, woven so that the two colours shift into one another depending on how the light hits it. It has held cult status among menswear enthusiasts for decades, and almost none of that reputation has anything to do with what the cloth was originally designed to do.

Solaro was invented in 1907 by Dr Louis Westenra Sambon, an Italian-born physician associated with the London School of Tropical Medicine. Sambon set out to solve a genuine problem: British soldiers and colonial administrators posted overseas were suffering in the heat, and contemporary medical thinking held that ultraviolet light was partly to blame for the fevers, fatigue and nervous complaints so often reported among Europeans stationed in the tropics. Writing in the Journal of Tropical Medicine that year, Sambon proposed a fabric woven from two colours, a pale upper surface to reflect heat and a dark red underside to absorb the harmful rays before they reached the skin. The theory was taken seriously enough that the resulting cloth, beige or olive on the outside with a red underside, was adopted for military and colonial uniforms.

The science did not hold up. Solaro offered no meaningful protection from ultraviolet light, and later research suggested the heavy worsted weave was, if anything, uncomfortable in properly hot climates. Sambon's theory quietly failed. The cloth he left behind did not.

Solaro's trademark has been guarded closely, and rightly so, by Smith Woollens, the London cloth merchant now part of the Harrisons Group. To buy genuine Solaro rather than one of the many imitations sold under generic names like "sun cloth" or "sunburst", it has to come from Smith Woollens. That exclusivity is part of what has kept the cloth's reputation intact for well over a century, in a market where most historic mill names have long since been absorbed, renamed or forgotten altogether.

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An English cloth, an Italian following

Why Solaro Has a Cult Following Among Italian Tailors

Solaro's popularity in Britain has always been fairly modest. It is rarely seen off the peg and has long been associated with made-to-measure and commissioned tailoring rather than anything more accessible. Its real following is in Italy, particularly in Milan and Naples, where tailors and their clients have prized it for generations, partly out of an appreciation for English heritage cloths and partly because Solaro simply performs better in Mediterranean light. The red and beige read beautifully against strong sun, and the cloth tends to suit warmer, deeper complexions particularly well, which may be part of why it found such devoted admirers south of the Alps.

There is also a practical tension at the heart of Solaro that keeps it from ever becoming an obvious choice. It is a properly heavyweight cloth built to a summer design, which means it can look wrong in winter and feel like too much in a real heatwave. Knowing exactly where a cloth like this fits is part of the appeal for people who enjoy that sort of puzzle, and part of why it never quite crosses over into the mainstream. Its narrow window is precisely what keeps devoted wearers coming back to it season after season, rather than treating it as a passing curiosity worn once and forgotten in the wardrobe.

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A modern reinterpretation

The New Solaro: How VBC and Smith Woollens Reinterpreted the Cloth

One of Solaro's most committed advocates in recent years has been Francesco Barberis of Vitale Barberis Canonico, the Biella mill known simply as VBC. Barberis has long championed the cloth, and the collaboration between VBC and Smith Woollens has produced an updated collection of Solaro cloths, seen through an Italian lens and reworked into lighter, fresher weights than the original. VBC took the classic ingredients of Solaro and reinterpreted them for a cloth that behaves more comfortably as a genuine summer weight, rather than the dichotomy of the original.

Francesco Barberis gifted a suit length in one of the most historically prized Solaro patterns, a fine diamond weave in olive and beige with a pink undertone, rather than the more familiar red. The lighter handle and fresher weight make the VBC interpretation considerably easier to wear through a genuine summer, even for someone who might otherwise prefer the heft of the original.

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Suit or separate

Solaro as a Suit vs a Sports Jacket: Which Works Better?

The dichotomy at the centre of Solaro, a heavyweight cloth cut to a summer design, is exactly why so many people who buy into it choose to wear it as a sports jacket rather than commit to a full suit. As separates it pairs easily with lightweight grey flannels, cream gabardine trousers, or even dark jeans, which gives it a working life well beyond the narrow window a full suit demands. It looks entirely at home as a jacket in its own right, which is one of the more practical routes into the cloth for anyone tempted by it for the first time.

Solaro also works well in a far more casual register than its formal reputation suggests. Cut as a field jacket rather than a suit, it leans into its original colonial purpose without the earnestness, and it pairs naturally with a plain merino polo shirt and jeans for a spring or early summer look that owes little to the cloth's tailoring pedigree. This is arguably closer to Solaro's intended job than any suit ever was. For a similar approach elsewhere in the wardrobe, a Solaro field coat worn in a smart casual context makes the same case with a different garment.

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Cutting a suit worth having

How to Have a Solaro Suit Made: Construction Details Worth Knowing

Choosing what to actually have made in a cloth this distinctive is a genuine question, not a formality. The obvious routes, a button-three roll-two jacket or a classic double-breasted suit, are both perfectly sound. An equally compelling option is to lean into the cloth's original character and commission something closer to a 1930s travel suit, with elements of a field jacket or safari suit worked into a proper tailored garment.

Construction choices matter more with Solaro than with most cloths, largely because the reverse side is worth showing off rather than hiding. Having a jacket only half lined does two things. Practically, it makes the garment considerably more breathable, which matters in a heavyweight worsted built for warmer months. Aesthetically, taking the jacket off reveals the rich, saturated colour of the fabric's inside face, detail that gets lost entirely in a fully lined garment.

Some tailors and designers use the reverse cloth on the outside as a trim, on a turned-back cuff for example. It is worth trying before committing to it, since it can tip the balance from classic into something more fashion-led than the cloth deserves. A more restrained nod is to use the reverse colour on the underside of the collar, in the way Melton is traditionally used, so that a popped collar reveals a small flash of the cloth's other side without shouting about it.

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Getting the trousers right

What Trousers to Wear With Solaro Cloth

Trousers cut to lean into the 1930s reference work particularly well with Solaro: high waisted, double pleated, with a straight leg, a generous hem and a deep turn-up. One detail worth borrowing from that period is leaving the trousers unlined. Lining has traditionally been treated as a given on most trousers, aside from the obvious exceptions like cotton or linen, but on a lightweight or summer weight cloth an unlined trouser is noticeably more comfortable and considerably more breathable. Unless the cloth in question is a properly heavy tweed that would be uncomfortable against bare skin, unlined trousers in the Savile Row tradition are worth considering far more often than they typically get credit for.

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A genuine styling challenge

How to Style Shirts, Ties and Pocket Squares With a Solaro Suit

Solaro is not a cloth you can pair with the nearest shirt and tie to hand. Its pattern, colour and texture demand a level of intention that most suiting simply does not require, and getting the accompaniments wrong reads as an oversight rather than a choice. One approach that works well is to keep the shirt as the starting point when the suit itself is doing most of the talking, then bring in a small amount of interest through the pocket square rather than layering on pattern everywhere at once. Two chest pockets do not mean two pocket squares belong in them, however tempting that might sound.

An off-white shirt with a dark navy knitted tie is a dependable pairing against Solaro, letting the cloth carry the colour while the accompaniments stay quiet. At the other end of the scale, an extreme cutaway collar with a large knot leans into an old-school Italian look, closer to the conservative tailoring that first made Solaro fashionable in Milan and Naples. It is a strong look rather than an everyday choice, and worth trying even if it is not the version you reach for most often.

There is also an interesting, slightly contradictory pairing between Solaro and madder silk. Madder is usually thought of as a winter fabric and Solaro as strictly spring and summer, but the two work together surprisingly well, which is arguably in keeping with a cloth that has never comfortably belonged to a single season. Finishing a look with a second pocket square that draws in cooler blues alongside the cloth's warmer tones is a straightforward way to bridge the two.

Solaro relaxes considerably further into a late summer or early autumn look once you take the tie off altogether. Worn open-necked with a chambray shirt, ideally under a jacket rather than as a suit, it pairs comfortably with lightweight grey flannels and suede loafers on a cool, bright day. A chambray shirt is one of those pieces that goes with almost anything in a wardrobe like this, and Solaro is no exception. It is worth treating this as the cloth's most forgiving register: no tie to get wrong, no collar shape to overthink, just texture and colour left to do the work on their own.

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Finishing the look

The Best Shoes and Accessories for a Solaro Suit

Shoes and socks are, by some distance, the easiest part of dressing with Solaro. Burgundy leather and brown suede both work well against the cloth's warm tones, and two-tone shoes in particular sit naturally with a suit this distinctive. If the shirt and tie represent the real challenge of styling Solaro, the footwear is where the cloth does most of the work for you.

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Where Solaro fits

So, Is Solaro Cloth Worth Wearing?

Solaro is a cloth built on a scientific theory that turned out to be wrong, sold almost exclusively by one merchant for over a century, and properly difficult to wear well. None of that has stopped it becoming one of the more quietly coveted fabrics in menswear, particularly among people who enjoy the sort of puzzle a cloth like this presents. Whether it arrives as a full suit, a separate sports jacket, or a field coat worn with jeans and a polo shirt, Solaro rewards anyone willing to think carefully about where it belongs, rather than reaching for it without a plan. Few cloths ask this much consideration before they even reach the tailor's table, and fewer still repay the effort so visibly once they do.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Your Questions Answered

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