Since the early 19th Century cotton moleskin has been a popular fabric choice for manufacturers of durable, comfortable, good-looking workwear. And it’s no surprise. Densely woven, but with a luxuriously soft hand-feel, it’s extremely hard-wearing and usefully windproof. The downside of cotton, however, is that once it gets wet, it loses its insulating properties—and takes an age to dry.

Ridgeline’s new Moleskin Tech-Knit Supreme, by contrast, offers all the benefits of cotton moleskin—with none of the functional downsides. 

It’s a knitted fabric made from 47% cotton—as you’d expect. The difference, though, is that we’ve added 7% Nylon and 46% polyester to the blend and produced it in a substantial 380gsm weight.

Compared to ordinary cotton moleskin, it’s harder wearing, quicker drying, more wind resistant and, for its weight, considerable warmer. In short, it’s better. By a country mile.

Our new Monarch Gilet makes full use of the remarkable properties of this revolutionary new fabric: it offers a supremely comfortable, traditional feel in conjunction with all the performance of a technical polyester fleece.

By any standards, our Monarch Gilet, made from Moleskin Tech-Knit Supreme, represents a huge stride forwards—and a new benchmark in performance country wear.