broadcloth

thumb|Wool broadcloth jacket, . LACMA M.65.8a-d thumb| The dark purple broadcloth and gold outfit of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden|Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632 thumb|Littoinen broadcloth factory, Finland

Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50 to 75% wider than its finished width) and then heavily milled (traditionally the cloth was worked by heavy wooden trip hammers in hot soapy water) in order to shrink it to the required width. The milling process draws the yarns much closer together than could be achieved in the loom and allows the individual fibres of the wool to bind together in a felting process, which results in a dense, blind-face cloth with a stiff drape: highly weather-resistant, hard-wearing and capable of taking a cut edge without the need for being hemmed.