Merino Baselayer Weight Guide

The three bands as described on the banner

The company website banner presents its merino wool base layers in three bands: a light band described as 140, a medium band described as 200, and a heavy band described as 260, with the figures written in grams per square metre on the banner. Those three figures are banner wording from the company website, and they are repeated here with that source labelled, because the banner is the only place in the range that states them. They are not repeated on any category page as a specification, and they should not be quoted in an inquiry as if they were a guaranteed figure for a particular style.

Reading the bands as a set, rather than as three isolated numbers, is the useful part. The light band sits at the thin end of the range, the medium band in the middle, and the heavy band at the thick end, and a buyer who thinks in those three positions can describe a range — for example, light styles for milder days and heavier styles for colder days — without claiming a precise measurement for any one garment. The bands organise a conversation; they do not settle it.

How to use the bands in an inquiry

Use the bands to describe the shape of the range you want, and then ask the supplier to confirm the styles that belong to each band in your order. A message that says 'light styles for the mild part of the range and heavy styles for the cold part' gives the supplier a shape to match, while a message that says 'supply the 140 style' assumes that a banner figure is a style name, which it is not. The supplier reply should name the styles for each band you described, and those style names — not the banner figures — are what the order should then be built on.

This approach also protects a buyer against a common misunderstanding: that a heavier band is automatically the right choice for every cold-day order. A range usually needs more than one band, because the same buyer group wears different layers on different days, and because a base layer is worn with other layers whose weight also matters. Describing a range across bands, rather than ordering a single band for everything, is usually the more accurate inquiry.

What the bands do not tell you

The bands do not tell you the size range, the colour set, the cut or the construction of any style, and they do not tell you which styles are available in which band for a particular order. Those facts belong to style-level confirmations, and they must be asked for separately, per style, in the inquiry. A buyer who treats a band figure as a complete description of a garment will be disappointed, because the figure was never a complete description — it was a banner summary of a range.

The bands also do not tell you anything about a style's performance when worn. No warmth rating, no durability figure and no care parameter follows from a band figure, and this guide does not invent any. If performance or care information matters to your order, ask for it for the exact styles you choose, and treat any answer that is not tied to exact styles as an answer that still needs a second round.

A worked example: describing a three-band range

Consider a buyer who wants base layers for an outdoor range covering mild, medium and cold days. A useful inquiry would describe the range in bands — light styles for the mild days, medium styles for the middle days, heavy styles for the cold days — and then ask the supplier to confirm which styles belong to each band, in which colours and sizes, and with what labelling. That inquiry uses the bands for what they are good at (describing a range shape) and asks for style-level confirmation for everything else.

The same buyer should also state the wearer groups for each band, because a band shape for men, women and children is three shapes, not one. A light band for one wearer group is not automatically the same set of styles as a light band for another, and the inquiry should keep the wearer groups on separate lines, each with its own colours and size wording, so that the supplier reply can confirm each line separately.

Weight bands in this guide are company website banner wording, repeated with their source labelled. They describe a range shape, not a specification for any single style.