A plain weave worsted, like the one worn by Hugh Laurie in the photo from the Jeeves and Wooster television series, makes the perfect gray suit to my eye.
Smith Woolens has a 15 ounce (450 gram) version of that cloth in its Whole Fleece book, and it calls to me.
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Perfect Gray Suit
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10 comments:
A perfect suit from a perfect television program, I hope to replicate it myself some day.
The costumer for that series really did a fine job. While I know it could be described as being a sentimental anachronism, I so much prefer the cut of Laurie’s costume to almost anything I see today in RTW, or even most bespoke. And while I might wish to change a few details, I would happily adopt, as is, the essential SB/peak with a DB waistcoat, and the cut of the trousers.
Are you sure that's a plain weave? It looks like a solid herringbone to me.
It's very pixellated when I enlarge it but plain weave is what I wrote about so I call it that. :-)
I have the Jeeves & Wooster series on DVD, and as far as I can tell, that particular suit is a plain weave. If it isn't, the pattern is too small to show on TV.
I love that suit, as well as almost all the others Hugh Laurie wore for J&W. I, too, have fantasies of getting it reproduced for myself someday....
I've noticed that grey is often very unforgiving if the fabric isn't of high quality. Mid to low quality grey fabric looks noticeably worse than other colours.
Interestingly this picture shows how well black shoes go with a grey suit and how elegant this is. There is a place for grey suits with oxblood shoes, and possibly in the daytime in more structured fabrics with brown footwear - but only if another part of the outfit reflects that, like Will's shirt and Fedora in the last New Year's Eve blog here. These non-black shoe colours give a grey suit a more casual slant, whilst black shoes make it a more elegant and urban outfit. The colour grey in a suit is very versatile.
THe most perfect grey suit at the moment is in Charles Tywitt.Its a Prince of Wales three pèiece.
Will - I wanted a gray suit like that so badly (peak lapels + db breasted) I had one made (first time I've ever done than). Mine's just a tad darker (not charcoal though).
Your friend Joe H at My Tailor took care of me.
Will,
What do you think of the Brooks Bros. Mad Men suit? Seems like further selling out of a noble brand.
Best,
VR
PS You can see it here: http://brooksbrothers.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=575&Product_Id=1431762&Parent_Id=418&default_color=GREY&sort_by=§ioncolor=§ionsize=
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