In the course of this sartorial pursuit I discovered Ventile®, a wonderful natural weatherproof material made of tightly woven, 100 percent cotton.

British heritage
Ventile® was developed in England during World War II specifically for the immersion suits of Royal Air Force pilots protecting merchant shipping against long-range German bombers and submarines. Flying Hawker Sea Hurricanes catapulted from the bows of converted merchantmen, the pilots had no place to land back on deck and either bailed out or ditched their planes near the convoys. The new suits, made with the watertight and thermally insulating cotton, provided the precious extra minutes needed to survive the frigid waters until rescue.

Woven in Switzerland
 Today, the successor to this unique fabric is woven exclusively in Switzerland. The Swiss process takes cotton from the world’s finest extra-long staple US Pima yarns and softly

   spins, doubles, and weaves it to give the fabric its incredible strength and density. A finishing treatment provides excellent durable water repellency, causing rain to bead like water off a newly waxed car. In prolonged exposure to torrential rain the fibers expand making the weave tighter still. Too tight in fact to let water in, yet still allowing body vapor to escape.

Hand-tailored in the USA
I didn’t need a survival suit and figured that for everyday travel, a single layer of the densely woven cotton would do quite well. It all came together about two years ago when I was introduced to a very fine tailor in San Diego, who, before coming to California, had headed-up both Southwick and Hickey-Freeman tailoring operations on the East Coast. He, too, was fascinated by the remarkable quality and properties of the fabric and fully embraced the concept. We’ve worked together since then through numerous prototypes to create the Voyageur Travel Jacket offered here. The quality and perfection of his workmanship are second-to-none.