Wear Heavier Trousers

It is a curious but well established fact that a man does not feel the warmth of heavy trousers to the extent that he does when he wears a jacket made from the same cloth. And, since trousers are all about drape - we want them hanging in a straight line from the waist - heavier cloth makes for a better-looking pair. That means it is a good idea to wear trousers that are a few ounces heavier than the accompanying jacket.

Of course, this practice is not very practical with suits but it does make for better looking odd jacket pairings. Reserve twelve ounce/360 gram flannels to wear with a mid-weight blazer. Don the 16 ounce/480 gram stuff (Minnis offers it and Holland & Sherry has some worsteds that are even heavier) to look like the man to the left in the Apparel Arts illustration. The pipe is optional.

Wear heavier trousers.

The State of Things

Expect things to be a little different around ASW early in December. A number of distinguished guest authors will be taking my place for about a week, which will have the benefit of raising the quality of the prose for a few days. At the same time the store will indeed be open (you will know when the advertising appears on the site), with the caveat that we have had a setback with the design so the presentation will be less than the standard to which I aspire. The products are of course unaffected.

With luck, ASW itself should be back to normal by December 10.

A Selection of Squares

Well-dressed men wear cotton and linen pocket squares with worsted suits and silk versions with odd jackets and tweed or flannel suits. The sheen of the silk is best against textured jackets. Both the pattern and the ground color of the square should differ from the day's necktie.

A cream printed silk with blue and yellow flowers coordinates ever so discreetly with a light blue shirt.


A combination of colored squares on a steel blue ground complements a navy necktie.


And large gold paisleys are comfortable on a navy ground against gray flannel as well as brown tweed jackets.

Each square has hand-rolled edges and is 16 1/2" (42 cm) on a side so it remains visible in a pocket. $90 for one, including shipping in the continental United States, from A Suitable Wardrobe.

Book Review: The Fall of Huntsman

Richard Anderson, author of Bespoke: Savile Row Ripped and Smooth, tells the tale of his career on Savile Row, from his years at an apprentice at Huntsman through his time as a cutter and eventually on to the founding of the house that bears his name.

Known for its clean, military influenced one button cut, for most of the post-War period Huntsman was the most expensive tailor on the Row. It justified its position by being the only firm to keep all production in house instead of using outworkers. Rather than the common practice where a coat was made by a single tailor from start until it was ready for trimming, Huntsman had experts dedicated to each individual stage of the make. The result, as anyone who has been the recipient of two jackets with significantly different looking internal construction can appreciate, was a more consistent product.

The book can be divided into three sections in chronological order. The tale of Anderson's years learning the trade is rich with observations about customers (the names have been changed due to Britain's strict libel laws) and the trade itself. The story of Anderson's own firm is of course the reason the book exists. In between we learn the story of how new owners put Huntsman on the road to its eventual bankruptcy. The book might easily have been titled The Fall of the House Of Huntsman.

Richard Anderson, the firm rather than the author, is one of the more interesting houses on or near the Row, and the tale of how it came to be is worthwhile for any man who bespeaks his clothing or hopes to one day.

A Lesson Learned

The best of all worlds - for the customer rather than the tailor - is that the customer should live within walking distance of his tailor. Those of us who don't get the short end when it comes to fittings.

Over the course of more than a century and hundreds of thousands if not millions of suits, jackets and overcoats, the world class tailoring houses settled on three fittings as the ideal interaction between customer and tailor. There is the basted ftting of the jacket pieces held together by basting thread, where major changes to the pattern can be accommodated. That is followed by the forward fitting, where the coat is usually (this step varies from house to house) substantially complete but missing details such as buttons. It is at the forward fitting where misunderstandings between tailor and customer are easiest to identify before they can no longer be changed without a great deal of delay. And then there is the final fitting, where the customer can usually expect to walk out of the shop with his new clothing.

It is when tailors travel to their customers, as they do for most of the things they make these days, that this sequence begins to break down. If the tailor visits twice a year, three fittings would mean as much as a two year wait between order and delivery and that is clearly not a viable option. So the usual process is to do away with the final fitting, and to offer a basted fitting for the first garment only, if at all. That means that a repeat customer can choose his cloth in November, have a fitting in March, and receive his completed clothes in time to wear them once or twice before his tailor returns and can discuss any required adjustments. Most of the time there are none.

In an effort to hold costs to the absolute minimum, Hong Kong's W. W. Chan goes so far as to dispense with fittings altogether unless the customer requests them. A fitting adds three months to the delivery cycle but I consider the step a necessity, particularly for the first two jackets when one's pattern is still in flux.

Chan's usual practice is to provide a basted fitting (that's Patick Chu of the Hong Kong shop removing padding from the shoulders of a basted jacket in the photo), and this is the best practice for new customers. Its downfall is that mis-interpretations of the order will often not be identifiable at this stage, or at least they were not for my first suit, an otherwise very satisfactory summer suit that was delivered with a different button arrangement than I ordered. But I found that the firm will provide a forward fitting instead, as it routinely does in Hong Kong, and I am adopting this practice going forward.

Lesson learned.

Tweed Shopping

The visit of tailors W. W. Chan to San Francisco this week meant another opportunity to go tweed shopping. Merchant W. Bill has a lovely book of hairy Donegal in a 14 ounce/420 gram weight that is about as good as a man can find. Of course, it does have an extra mark-up or two built in compared to the prices in Ireland.


Donegal comes as a plain weave, a twill or a herringbone and typically has slubs of color randomly woven into the pattern. The tan, in the photo at the top, makes a fine odd jacket that is a perfect foil for leather buttons, and the black and white (it resolves to gray from a distance) an excellent casual city suit. In navy blue (not shown), it makes up as an interesting odd jacket that works like a blazer.


W. Bill is also the principal source for tattersall plaids, the stuff that originated as horse blankets at London's Tattersall horse auction in the nineteenth century. It is also 14/15 ounce (420/450 gram) cloth for winter wear, and its best use is probably for odd vests. The blue on white check would work nicely under a blazer if only the climate here made vest-wearing practical more than one or two days a year.

Chan's departure brings the autumn's visiting season to a close, leaving us an interregnum until January when the London tailors will have their items ready for fitting.

A Carefree Scarf and Status Update

Scarves may be tied any number of ways, and perhaps the most carefree is the simple loop worn low around the neck. This one is not about the scarf's body heat retention. It is purely a look at me look, and sometimes that is the wearer's intention.

In the photo I am feeling somewhat carefree for a Sunday spent hard at work. The small storage and fulfillment space in the background is now operational and I am happy to report that the ASW web store should be up by December 1.

When open, the store will offer products from, in no particular order, Drake's London, Cravate Royale, Simonnot-Godard, E&G Cappelli, and Vanners along with a great Astrakhan hat. Gaziano & Girling shoes, Innis Meain knitwear, Albert Thurston braces and a few exotic hide belts will follow shortly thereafter, and there will be a couple more lines in the Spring. More than half of the items will be ASW designs that are exclusive to the store.

I have no plans to offer shirts or tailored clothing since, as regular readers know, I believe those should be made for the individual. But, to the best of my ability, everything that will be on offer will be worthy of your time.

In Memoriam

The photo shows the late President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, on the day of his assassination, November 22, 1963.

Kennedy was wearing one of his typical two button suits. Like the also deceased Duke of Windsor, JFK's single breasted jackets had buttons 2" above and 2" below the waist rather than the more common button on the waistline. This style looks best when both buttons are closed while standing, as compared to a conventional two button suit where the bottom button can literally not be closed without distorting the line of the jacket.

Some have speculated that Kennedy wore this design to conceal the brace he required because of his back problems but I have more than one photo of a pre-War JFK wearing the same style before he was injured. More likely it was simply his personal choice.

Photo: LIFE

Cool Weather Staples

Keep cool air at bay with a classic printed silk scarf with hand knotted fringed ends. In dark red with antique white dots, it measures a generous 12" wide by 67" long (30 CM wide by 170 cm long) so it can be tied in any of the classic scarf knots under an overcoat or worn with a jacket instead of a necktie. $335 from A Suitable Wardrobe including sales tax and shipping in the continental United States.


A butcher blue silk scarf with antique white dots may make the perfect gift, especially when you are the recipient. But for the color it is identical to the dark red version above, and also $335 including sales tax and shipping in the continental United States.


Of course, when the temperature plummets silken elegance may not be enough. Combine elegance and warmth with a superfine lightweight worsted cashmere scarf with pin fringed ends in black with gray stripes. 18" wide by 71" long (45 cm by 180 cm), which means it is also sized so it can be tied in any of the classic scarf knots. $335 including sales tax and shipping in the continental United States.

To order or ask questions, email will at dynend.com.

History On Sale

A number of items from the wardrobe of the late Duke of Windsor will be auctioned this coming December 8 at Kerry Taylor Auctions in London.

Lots 120-123 include shirts, ties, shoes, a cream silk dinner jacket by Metzel and a cream linen suit by H. Harris. Everything on offer was apparently in the original 1997 Sotheby's sale of the late Duke's effects.


Special buttons graced much of the Duke's wardrobe, and the buttons on the linen suit are no exception with the Royal Yacht Squadron emblem etched in gold.

The sale is an opportunity to own a bit of clothing history for what is expected to be about the cost of comparable bespoke items today. There is no need to attend in person as bids may be arranged in advance.

Photos: Kerry Taylor Auctions

Henry Poole & Co

Simon Cundey and Alex Cooke (that is he in the background) of Henry Poole & Co. visited San Francisco's Huntington Hotel this week. In the second half of the nineteenth century Poole was perhaps the greatest society tailor that ever has been, and it remains a pillar of Savile Row. Cundey's suit in the photo exemplifies Poole's middle of the road house style that lies mid-way between London's soft drape and hard military-style extremes.


For this visit I had in mind a Norfolk jacket for winter days out of doors but, after perusing half a dozen of tweed merchant's W. Bill's books, realized my heart was set on a cloth seen in Scotland the previous summer and decided to locate that fabric number in order to commission it at a future date.


Instead, I elected to order a classic English blazer in a 14 ounce/420 gram hopsack. It will be double breasted, with Poole's dark red signature lining, six gilt Nelson buttons on the front and four on each sleeve, and slanted pockets without flaps. The blazer is to my mind a most useful jacket for evenings in these casual times and a wardrobe can usefully contain several of them.

We will see the first cut of this coat in London in January.

Fancy Shirts

Joe Hemrajani of MyTailor.com is in the City this week and we spent a pleasant afternoon talking about fabrics and shirts, particularly David and John Anderson's Zephir 170 Lino. The Lino is a 50/50 cotton and linen mix with a great hand and an open weave for warm weather.

Joe has been wearing the Lino these past spring and summer, and was enthusiastic about how well it does all the warm weather things it is supposed to do while resisting wrinkles. And indeed, an orchid gingham came out of his suitcase and unfolded without the well-defined creases that all linen shirt-wearers become accustomed to.

Further attracting my interest, the Lino offerings include an assortment of stripes and checks in identical dye lots, which offers the adventuresome an opportunity to do unusual things. I had been thinking about a blue on white striped shirt with vertical stripes for the body and horizontal stripes for the collar and cuffs, and I will probably complement one of those with another where the body is candy striped and the collar pencil striped in the same color.

Fancy shirts!

The House of Elliot Lives On

Near the end of several enjoyable months spent viewing thirty-some episodes of the BBC television series The House of Eliott, about a London couture house in the 1920's, I was sent publicity materials for Stowers Bespoke. Stowers is a Savile Row tailor presenting couture for ladies.

Now, the English tailors of my acquaintance will all make clothing for ladies. Unfortunately, most of that looks disappointingly (at least for those of us who like our women to look like females) like their clothing for men. The Stowers pieces do not suffer that disadvantage.

The highlight of the collection in my opinion is the bespoke two piece grey houndstooth skirt suit in the photo that reminds me of the on camera daywear of the Eliott sisters - high praise indeed. And at £3,000 (about $4,250 ex VAT) it is pricey but hardly exorbitant compared to the cost of, say, Valentino ready to wear at the neighborhood department store. Especially considering that it is the kind of thing that should be wearable for decades.

Photo: Stowers Bespoke

High Gloss Was Hard Work

Polishing shoes was a considerably more arduous task before the Second World War and the development of modern tanning processes. The standard leather used for bespoke men's shoes pre-war was waxed calf, which is the rough reversed side of the hide that is now used for suede.

Waxed calf can be brought to a high gloss similar to that of patent leather but the cost is literally weeks of polishing with a deer bone. Indeed, the late Diana Vreeland joked that her husband's pre-war shoes would be polished by his valet for five years before they were suitable for wear. Without a valet, few men would voluntarily subject themselves to the task.

Much tougher than the leathers currently used for good quality shoes, waxed calf is today used for work shoes and for riding boots like the pair of bespoke boots by London bootmaker Henry Maxwell in the photo. Scratches in the surface are boned out until the boot looks as good as new.

Photo: Henry Maxwell

Take Care With Accessories

Accessories are perhaps the most important part of a wardrobe, and to the extent possible should always be of the highest quality. For not only do they vary the look of a jacket from wearing to wearing, great neckties, squares and scarves improve the look of the tailored clothing they accompany. The opposite may be even more true.

Scarves in particular offer opportunities to add variety to one's dress without attracting the extra attention that may accompany neckerchiefs, ascots and silk squares. In the photo, a printed silk scarf with fringed ends disguises an open necked shirt worn sans necktie (on cooler days substitute merino or cashmere for the silk). A warmer chest is a fringe benefit.

Take care with your accessories.

Red, White and Blue

Red, white and blue felt appropriate a few days ago for Veterans Day (Remembrance Day or Armistice Day outside the United States). As I dressed, the combination felt like it might be too common, but I saw no-one else wearing anything similar.

Chestnut Edward Green semi-brogues, cream flannel trousers by Salvatore Ambrosi and a University of Pennsylvania necktie that is awfully similar to that of the Brigade of Guards, worn with a navy blazer. Light gray birdseye socks coordinate with a gray and cream linen pocket square.

Après Ski

An antique white on dark navy silk scarf printed with skiers to wear tongue in cheek, or, less likely, after skiing. Constructed as a tube of thirty ounce silk with hand knotted fringe, 30 cm by 170 cm (12 inches wide by 67 inches long).

$325 from A Suitable Wardrobe (email will at dynend dot com), including sales tax and shipping in the continental United States. There are only three of these available.

(I should note that this was intended to be tomorrow's post, however I misplaced my camera to computer connector this week and have been scrambling for photos. ASW will hopefully be back on track tomorrow.)

Tuck in Your Scarf

When a man wears a silk scarf with a jacket instead of a necktie, tucking the ends into a sleeveless vee necked sweater vest reduces the flamboyance of the combination considerably.

When when one chooses to eschew a necktie this look is probably a less risky choice than an ascot (yes, there are those in the United States who continue to believe that they would be pummeled within an inch of their lives were they seen on the street with an ascot - and we honor their concerns). Like the ascot, it closes the neck, eliminating any glimpse of unsightly undershirt or that hollow at the base of the throat. But the scarf is more common, and unlike the ascot fulfills the practical task of keeping the chest warm at the same time it imparts a bit of silken elegance to the area.

Tuck in your scarf!

The Temperature Gap

Temperate climates may have four seasons but wardrobes benefit from three, despite the clothing business's division of the year into two. Clothing's autumn/winter and spring/summer seasons do not quite do the trick when it comes to tailored clothing, for jackets wear comfortably within a range of perhaps 25 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees C).

Men's jackets are worn without additional outerwear between freezing and perhaps 90 degrees F (32C). Since that range is considerably greater then may be accommodated by two jacket weights, there are going to be temperatures at which a man is going to be uncomfortable with a wardrobe built for only two seasons.

Many men choose to span this temperature gap with a topcoat. This is practical. Wardrobe building is easiest when a man acquires mid-weight items first, and then expands to cover his summer requirements with light-weight stuff. He dons his topcoat when the mid-weight cloth is no longer warm enough, and a single coat may substitute for several heavy suits or odd jackets. The challenge with this approach is that walking any distance outdoors on very cold days means the lower legs can become uncomfortably cold. The solution of course is to wear heavier trousers, which leads the wardrobe into the third season, that of heavy cloth.

For climates with perhaps two very cold months of the year, four heavy suits (14-16 ounce/420-480 gram cloth is about as warm as most men can wear in heated offices) are likely to cover the temperature gap. In addition to more flexible temperature control, heavier suits mean that on many days the topcoat can be left at home, simplifying one's personal logistics considerably.

A first heavy suit should probably wait until a man has at least six suits for summer and six more in mid-weight cloth. But that is the time to begin considering how to bridge the termperature gap.

Modelling the Day's Clothes

Whether done the night before or first thing in the morning, modelling the day's clothing can help a man visualize how his ensemble will look to others before he gets dressed. A doorknob and a suit hanger are all that is required.

It may be easiest to put the suit or jacket and trousers out first. This can also be a good time to place the trousers in a press while choosing shoes, shirt, tie and pocket square. Then all that is left is some experimentation with the elements.

In the photograph, I was seeking a combination to coordinate with the burgundy square I showed yesterday. The blue grenadine necktie provided a contrasting texture and I felt ready to meet the day.

Gray, Black and White

Since gray cloth as you know is woven from a combination of black and white threads, a reliable way to complement a gray city suit is with the same colors. Or, technically, the same color and lack of color.

In the photograph, a gray herringbone suit combined with a light blue Chambray shirt, white dots on black knit necktie, and a gray-blue silk square with black dots. The hidden button down collar of the shirt is the day's sprezzatura.

Blazer Buddies

On occasions when a necktie might be too much, accompany a navy blue blazer with a Pacific blue ascot with navy dots and a paisley silk pocket square in gold, navy and green on a burgundy ground. A blue royal oxford shirt, gray flannel trousers and brogued brown bluchers complete a perfect picture.

Tasty

Thanks to Jesse Thorne at Put This On for introducing me to INVENTORY, perhaps the tastiest contemporary clothing scene I have so far encountered on the Web.

Inventory has been working with a few smaller manufacturers, such as American tie maker Alexander Olch, to produce an edited selection of items for sale. My personal favorite is a brilliantly conceived pair of blue suede shoes with red brick soles. $350.

New Pents

The mail brought a new pair of mid-weight worsted flannel trousers the other day. Or pents, if you will. That is what the Neapolitan maker, Salvatore Ambrosi, calls them and, since his English is much better than my Italian, I am happy with that name.

Dormeuil's worsted flannel is usually for spring and fall but our cool Bay temperatures should permit wear during much of the summer as well. Cream trousers of course are a traditional look with navy blazers as well as other lighter weight odd jackets.

The pents in the photo were copied from a pair that I sent to Naples in lieu of measurements, with the caveat that Salvatore was to make them his way. And his way they are, from the contrast waistband with two watch/change pockets to the eight button fly and the bit of lining in the crotch. The other details are my customary ones, including 1 3/4" high cuffs, two inward facing pleats on each side, no rear pockets, and a split waistband.

Sr. Ambrosi is about to travel to London to see clients and plans to return to the United States before the end of the year. He invites potential customers to contact him at salvatore.ambrosi@virgilio.it. The strong Euro may yet have an effect but Ambrosi's usual price has been $700 per pair for standard cloths like moleskin, flannel, mohair, Irish and Italian linen, and cotton drill.

That is good value for hand made bespoke pents in any language.

If This Is JFK It Must Be Tuesday

The public face of tailoring is the thirty minutes that client and cutter spend together once or twice for each jacket or suit order. The rest of the year may be mostly introvert's work, but part of the cost of bespoke clothing is the measurement and fitting time, when the external face of the tailoring firm has the job of imparting confidence that the client will be getting the professional outcome he's paying for.


A couple weeks on the road twice a year is hard work for travelling tailors. They tend to move about in pairs consisting of a cutter and a sales person or an assistant, which provides companionship for dinner as well as help with the cases of cloth samples and the hundred or more works in progress that must be negotiated through Customs and then carried from city to city.

The lifeline for the firm is usually email these days. New orders are written up electronically and sent to the home office, where cloth and fittings can be ordered before the person who will prepare them for tailoring has had time to check the next stage of his itinerary.

For no sooner are the trunks unpacked than it is time to load everything up and head back to the airport.

Buttoning Up

The 6x2 overcoat, by which we mean a coat that has six buttons on the front with two of them functional like the camel colored version worn in the photo by HRH Prince Charles, is probably the most common double breasted style.

Compared to coats with three or four working buttons it exposes more shirt front, so, despite the example set by the Prince, a scarf is desireable lest a stream of cold air cause chills.

Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

The Brown Glen Check

Heavy tweed takes a few wearings for the shoulders and collar to settle in and until it does the jacket to this 15 ounce/450 gram suit will keep coming off the back of my neck. The weather is a little too warm for the full regalia, so here is the jacket during the break-in process.

Brown glen check jacket with red overcheck worn with brown bluchers, gray flannel trousers, a blue royal oxford shirt, a silk square and a navy cashmere knit necktie.

The Least Formal DJ

The least formal but still correct dinner jacket that a man can own is the double breasted shawl collar. Colored black, midnight blue or even dark brown like the one Noel Coward wore with matching brown trousers, the shawl DB is one small step up from a smoking jacket, and two big steps down from white tie and tails. That is because the shawl comes directly from the smoking, which took it from the dressing gown. And the DB jacket evolved from the single breasted coat, which was in turn descended from the single breasted tailcoat.

The double breasted DJ was trailblazed by the late Duke of Windsor and his set when he was Prince of Wales. Its closed front means a man needs not bother with waistcoat and cummerbund. The man who wears one with a soft shirt with turndown collar is as close as he can publicly come to the clothes he would have worn at home years ago, when the men had retired for brandy and cigars.

Photo: James & James for the Men's Fashion Council