In Praise of Albert Thurston

Men should not need to pull their trousers up several times a day.

That's the principal advantage of wearing braces with suit trousers. You put them on once and your trousers stay in place. They hang better too.

Adjustable Albert Thurston braces like the blue ones pictured on the left are the world standard for quality. They made from wool boxcloth with white hand stitched ends. The advantage of white is that you can wear them with brown or black shoes instead of maintaining a separate wardrobe for each color shoe.

The ends used to be made from a natural material called cat gut (and fortunately wasn't) which aged to a cream color, but they are now made from an unnatural material. It's too soon to tell whether they'll become equally mellow over the years .

All braces should be sized, rather than one size fits some, and that is the purpose of the metal adjustors. Properly fitted braces mean that the adjustors sit where they are supposed to, near the waist. They can be distracting if they are up by the face.

In addition to boxcloth, lighter versions made from barathea are made for warm weather wear. These should also have white ends.