Lemaire Raglan Jacket Liner

The liner is a genuinely useful garment category that almost nobody makes properly any more. The idea is a layer built specifically to go underneath outerwear, which means it has to solve a problem a sweater does not: it must add real warmth without adding bulk at the shoulder and the underarm, where a coat is already close. The half-raglan sleeve is the answer. A set-in sleeve puts a seam and a small amount of gathered fabric right at the point of the shoulder, which is where a coat presses; a raglan runs the sleeve seam diagonally from the underarm to the neck instead, leaving the shoulder itself a smooth uninterrupted surface. A half-raglan does that at the front and keeps a more conventional line at the back, which gives most of the smoothness without the softness of a full raglan. Fifty percent alpaca and fifty percent wool is the right blend for the job. Alpaca is a hollow-cored fiber, so it insulates better than its weight suggests and has more drape and less spring than wool, and cutting it with wool gives back the resilience and the memory that pure alpaca lacks. Corozo buttons, which are cut from the nut of a South American palm and are dense, cool, and slightly grained, so they take a knock the way horn does rather than cracking like a cast button.

A garment made to go under a coat is a real thing that has mostly disappeared, and the half-raglan sleeve is the detail that separates it from a cardigan. The alpaca does the warmth and the wool keeps its shape.

Making the layer that goes under the thing everyone else is making is a very Lemaire proposition.

A woven cloth of 50% wool and 50% alpaca, lined in 100% cotton. V-neck, corozo buttons, relaxed boxy silhouette with half-raglan sleeves. Made in Romania, in brown. Woven rather than knitted is part of why it reads as a soft jacket rather than as a cardigan, and it is what decides how it is stored.

Cut relaxed and boxy so it layers, worn under a coat or on its own. The half-raglan is the reason it does not bunch at the shoulder under outerwear. We do not hold measurements, and there is no Lemaire size chart on this site.

It is designed to go under the Dispatch Peacoat or the Utility Jacket, and the V-neck means a shirt collar sits cleanly above it. Worn alone it reads as a soft unstructured jacket rather than as a sweater, which is the more interesting way to use it. Brown against black outerwear is the pairing that shows it is a separate garment rather than a lining.

Alpaca and wool want airing and brushing far more than cleaning, and a soft brush lifts the surface after wear. Do not over-clean it. Hang it, do not fold it. It is woven rather than knitted, so a drawer will crease it across the front, and a broad hanger with room around it is the right home. Our fabric care guide covers mohair, alpaca, and other hair fibers, and the multi-material section applies.

The Dispatch Peacoat and the Utility Jacket are the outer layers this is drawn to go under. In knitwear, the Relaxed Twisted Cardigan. Everything we carry from Lemaire is listed together.