DJs On A Sunday

Frank Sinatra once said that men should not wear dinner jackets on Sunday evenings, substituting dark suits instead. There is no record of how he arrived at this conclusion, but perhaps it was from observing his peers clothing on the Sunday of the Academy Awards. Those of us interested in dress, and who reading this is not, will find it worth while to page through the photos of the Vanity Fair Oscar Party (hereafter VFOP) on the Vanity Fair web site to see all the ways Hollywood black tie can be interpreted. Or mis-interpreted as the case may be. But, irrespective of their clothing, most of the males were classically accessorized by a beautiful woman (or was it vice versa?), including a properly attired (despite Mr. Sinatra's belief) George Glasgow Jr. of G. J. Cleverley , who was accompanied by Miss Nathalie Walker.

Even as the Awards ceremony began, celebrities and would-be celebrities were streaming into the party. Hosted by Graydon Carter, it is one of the toughest tickets in a town full of them. The VFOP starts at 5:30 PM on Awards night with a dinner for the early guests to watch the show on television (attendees are invited in shifts so that more people can be accommodated) and remains crowded until sometime Monday morning, with the Awards winners piling in around 11. Many of the women who actually went to the Awards changed their clothing between the ceremony and the party itself. Some of the men might have been better off had they followed that example.

Photo of Mick Jagger and George Hamilton: Getty Images/VF

Moe Gah Door

I recall that when I was an undergraduate striped neckties were more common than any other style, a state apparently still true today. Like many men's clothing customs, we can blame that on the British, whose ties often tell something of the organizations to which they belong. For the striped tie was introduced after the British army changed from colored uniforms that identified a man's regiment to plainer, more (ahem) uniform cloth that was a somewhat less obvious target for the enemy. Striped neckties in those regimental colors came shortly thereafter as a male bonding thing, followed fairly closely in time by school and club ties until it got to be that neckties said a great deal about the life of an entire class of British men (this predilection meant that those same men had a relatively small number of neckties and compensated with wardrobes of patterned shirts for variety).

Viewed by men for whom ties are mere decoration, stripes are probably a little too casual for suits most of the time. Solids, semi-solids and small prints tend to be more formal in that context, to my eye anyway. Where stripes shine is with blazers and odd jackets, particularly solids and semi-solids that benefit from the visual interest added by a strong stripe.

Twill weaves with their ridges lend themselves to stripes. Silk repp is the most common of course but another is mogador (pronounced Moe Gah Door). A mix of silk yarn in the warp and cotton in the weft, Mogador ties have more vibrant color than do the repps, as the cotton takes dye better, and a little less sheen. That gives them just enough contrast to be worn next to silk squares, and of course silk is best worn with those same odd jackets so we come full circle.

In the photo, a lambswool and angora jacket, chambray shirt, paisley square and, of course, Mogador necktie.

Old England's Obit

Recently, Will asked me if all I wanted to be known for was writing book reviews and obituaries. I have begun to branch out, but nontheless thought it important to comment on the death of Old England in Paris. Reports of its impending death are not exaggerated. As it has not yet shut its doors to my knowledge, consider this a chronicle of a death foretold. It closes this year.

For decades, continental Europe and some parts of South America manifested a particular type of middle-class Anglophilia. The great and the good wore the conservative and hoary and shops in expensive areas of town bore names intended to evoke the Britishness of their owners or their merchandise. The wearers put their own stamp on the look, creating a style anglais distinct from the real thing – to the extent it ever existed. As recently as 15 years ago, a luxury department store like Le Bon Marché in Paris contained endless rows of Burberrys (with pre-relaunch genitive “s”) and stank with the oil of innumerable Barbours. I envied the French, Italians and Germans who could wear the latter new without the metaphorical stench of British class presumptions upon them (Le Bon Marché is now owned by LVMH, which has modernized its clothing floors with designer shop-in-shops and the like, while smaller boutiques specializing in Scottish woolens have been pushed out or hang by the cobwebs of their merchandise).

Old England, dominating a dark wood-paneled corner of the boulevard des Capucines, was the cathedral of this retail Anglophilia. It wasn’t until I began preparing this piece that I was reminded it was founded in 1867, a full ten years before Queen Victoria became Empress of India and decades before Zola penned his novel about those newfangled department stores, Au Bonheur des Dames. In other words, Old England preceded the recognition of the British monarch as head of an empire and had existed for years before large-scale retail emporia became a phenomenon. It’s no accident that it was founded under the Second Empire of Napoleon III, whose return from exile in England had been financed in part by the Savile Row tailor Henry Poole (no joke).

Old England's merchandise was similarly informed, and presented in surroundings of baronial splendor: three sprawling floors with wood-paneled walls, discreet display cases for smaller items and tables groaning with cashmeres from the best knitters standing on expanses of Oriental carpets. While it didn’t maintain the livery department advertised in its 1920s catalogs, for over a century Old England stood as an embassy for goods more British than the British themselves. Its staff may have been as fusty and diplomatic, but were refreshingly knowledgeable about their product, which came to include Chester Barrie suits, Brigg umbrellas with a variety of handles, Turnbull & Asser shirts and Drakes ties, along with own-label handstitched gloves and leathergoods, all in an enormous selection of sizes, patterns and colors. For decades Old England maintained a dedicated corner for Edward Green, the best British ready-to-wear shoemaker, which was so comprehensive Green treated it as its only shop outside of London. However, clothes were only part of the Landseer-esque picture: Old England also prided itself on its Fortnum & Mason teas and sundries, its Penhaligon perfumes, its whisky selection and its Smythson stationery.

The sun set slowly on Old England. French Anglophilia conflicted with younger generations’ neophilia. Classicism is good and well, but tweedy conservatism no longer sold on the women’s floors and by the end of the 20th century Old England was part of the brand stable of Richemont, a luxury conglomerate owning Dunhill, Montblanc, the gunmaker Purdey, Cartier and a host of watch names. Although Richemont attempted to update Old England while retaining its atmosphere, it also sacrificed some of the more expensive quality offerings in favor of more cheaply-made items from its own portfolio.

Anglophilia dies out slowly. Mentioning Hugh Grant to even the most branchée and blasée French girl still elicits a strange melty reaction and a coo of “Ewe Grant… he is soooo Briteesh!” As it happens, So British is the name of Old England’s 2002 vanity book, a pudding of fashion syncretism that intersperses close-up pictures of the tweeds, knitwear, and duffel coats in every color sold at Old England with images of the sort of person we are supposed to think shops there: 1950s upper-class London toffs shot by Burt Glinn, a young Malcolm McDowell in stills from If… and Oh! Lucky Man!, the elegant subjects of paintings and fashion illustrations by the likes of Boutet de Monvel, and past paragons of style such as the Duke of Windsor and Leslie Howard, without regard for the adopted Englishness of the one and the abdicated Englishness of the other. Hugh Grant’s current charm lies in his tarnish, his ability to manifest the ignoble and brazen behind a gilded façade, but the Françaises’ conception of Grant is arrested in the floppy-haired, blinking glow of his first rise to prominence. Similarly, Old England reflected, and its book documents the French idealization of an England of Ascot Royal Enclosures and Monty’s duffel coat, Malcolm McDowell’s early films minus their subversion, shooting parties on grouse moors and Wimbledon cream teas. Or is it strawberries? My acquired cultural references forsake me. It’s very difficult to see pictures of a young Malcolm McDowell without thinking of A Clockwork Orange, which depicts a very different England where one isn’t Singin’ in the Rain because of a Brigg umbrella.

A clothing brand coming out with a book is the equivalent of dealing the Death card in tarot: if not death, then major change is in the air: relaunch, expansion and dilution, or indeed a last gasp. New owner Albert Goldberg, unable to make a profit, took a payment from Richemont to vacate the space. Goldberg, who founded the French brand Façonnable, had attempted to use Old England as a base for his new brand Albert Arts. Instead, the store which spawned so many pretenders that its ads used to trumpet proudly “Aucune Succursale” (“No Other Locations”) will be turned into a gigantic multi-brand watch store with, according to the papers, the goal of attracting large groups of Chinese tourists. As every jeweler and watch brand imaginable has shops within a few blocks of Old England, I was surprised there was a niche for this, but (according to La Tribune) nearby department stores already pay kickbacks to Chinese tour operators who bring their charges to find all the watches they want under one roof.

A smaller world makes us confront our ideals. The Eurostar and the Internet made the real England a lot easier to get to and comparison shopping on Old England’s merchandise possible. It isn’t quite true that Old England became too expensive to live. However often my friends complained about the price of their scarves or how much I overpaid for a bottle of Scotch that turned out not to be an exclusive, there’s clearly a clientele out there willing to pay many times more for a cheap ETA watch movement attached to a flashy logo. The shell of Old England will reopen as the watch store Bucherer at the end of 2012. I expect many a tourist will walk by and momentarily think that the big watch store has a nifty façade. They’ll then end up at a palatial nearby Starbucks and wonder what that used to be (it used to be a bank).

The makers Old England carried, those that still exist, will carry on: Edward Green and Penhaligon opened their own Paris shops recently; Swaine Adeney Brigg umbrellas sell at a few umbrella shops; Fortnums tea is not hard to come by.

Why care? The market will decide. But nothing like it existed before, and nothing like it will again, a monument to an ideal, as mongrel and bastardized as that ideal was. The materials and labor to make Old England – or some of its merchandise - would be too expensive today.

What is left? Years ago, a beautiful, conflicted girl paused on the Champs-Elysées and said to me, “C’est la frime, baby.” She was right. It’s all for show.

-Written by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Out On Her Own And Coming To America

Unusually among the Savile Row tailoring elite, bespoke tailor Kathryn Sargent has a degree in Fashion Design. It was while studying for her BA at Epsom School of Art that she became fascinated by how clothes are constructed and so found her way to Savile Row. Her entry point was Denman & Goddard, a long-established small firm in New Burlington Street, run by Peter Day and David Cook. Day in particular was to be her mentor and in 1996 he persuaded Gieves & Hawkes to take her on as a trimmer – the lowest rank in the tailoring hierarchy. Kathryn’s rise at G&H was speedy and by 2000, barely three years after she had joined, she was seeing customers as a cutter. It is not unusual for some tailoring folk to wait 10 years to progress to this level.

Kathryn was made head cutter at No 1 Savile Row in 2009. She is a popular and familiar figure around The Row, rarely seen in anything but one of her own tailored suits in a lively check. Since January, having left Gieves after 15 years’ service, Kathryn has been her own boss.

Kathryn Sargent Bespoke Tailoring is located within the premises of the historic Meyer & Mortimer firm at No 6 Sackville Street, an address once regularly visited by Beau Brummell. Steeped in the traditions of fine English tailoring as she is, Kathryn declares herself very at home with the several other independent tailors and shirt makers that share space with Paul Munday and Brian Lewis, the owners of Jones, Chalk & Dawson, the main firm at No 6.

In her newly independent position, Sargent believes that she can appeal to more women to try out true bespoke. “Once I started designing and making suits for myself, I became very stimulated by creating pieces for female clients. I have designed and made entire working wardrobes for business women in New York and in London. I want to pass on to more females my passion for sharp-tailored women’s garments. Women who have tried it enjoy the bespoke experience just as much as men,” she says.

She is certain her very many regular clients, male and female, keep coming back because of her less-than-dictatorial approach. She insists: “I don't believe in house styles and I don't have one. My approach, my craft, is pure bespoke. The beauty of my work is that no two garments are the same. My skill is to facilitate and to realise my clients' visions.”

In my case, Kathryn was a patient and confident collaborator when I took to her some handsome Robert Noble “Gamekeeper” tweed and a length of Fox Flannel trousering. I was determined not to have yet another classic sports jacket and after several consultations and fittings we agreed on a 1-button SB with centre vent and patch pockets with pleasingly swelled edges, a neat waistcoat with revers, and some simply comfortable trousers. I am delighted with the results, not least as they disguise a backside and stomach that are not as small as they used to be.

Kathryn Sargent regularly visited the USA twice a year with Gieves. Her first solo trip will take in Chicago on March 2 and 3 and New York on March 5, 6 and 7 (morning only on the last day). For more information and to contact Kathryn, her website is www.kathrynsargent.com. Her work is priced from about $5,100 (£3,230 ex-VAT) for a two-piece suit and from $3,200 (£2,000 ex-VAT) for a jacket.

-Text and photos by Eric Musgrave

For Novitiates And Hobbyists

Like most men, what I first learned about clothing I learned by observing others. In my case, observation took me to Brooks Brothers and its cousins, where I remained for many years. It was only after I began travelling internationally with some regularity that I took a wider interest in men's dress, beginning to read everything I could find on the subject, both in and out of print. There was a lot of dross, but a couple dozen volumes were of enduring value and I continue to return to them again and again.

There are at least two reasons to collect books on men's dress: the novitiate may seek guidance while the clothing hobbyist can never have too much information. I hope to give value to both of them by offering a series of the titles that have been the most useful to me, autographed by the author (this means that though they may no longer be stocked by Amazon there are still a few copies in a warehouse somewhere, and of course that the author is still walking around). The combination makes them true rarities, but for the moment still reasonably priced.

The first two offerings along this line are Nicholas Storey's History of Men's Fashion and History of Men's Accessories. There were fewer than half a dozen of each of these still available at wholesale in North America, and ASW has them. Storey writes about dress from a classically English perspective, with all that that implies. I enjoyed learning from them, and so will the few men who acquire these copies.

Some Advice For Sunday

Should any man planning to attend the Academy Awards this Sunday be uncertain as to what he should wear, I have a few words of advice. From top to bottom:

-Wear a black or midnight blue dinner jacket.
-The lapels should be shawl or peaked.
-The side pockets should not have flaps.
-There should be a silk or linen square in the jacket's breast pocket.
-Your shirt should be white, with either a pleated or pique front.
-Three shirt studs are far better than three buttons.
-Tie your own bow tie.
-Show half an inch of shirt cuff.
-Cover your waist with a double breasted jacket, vest or, if you must, a cummerbund.
-Your trousers should break no more than an inch.
-Silk socks please.
-And proper patent leather oxfords or calf opera pumps.

The rest of us may wear black tee shirts while watching from home.

The Final Outerwear Layer

What we wear usually has its antecedents in sport or underwear, and sometimes, like the tee shirt, both.

The tee shirt that is, with his denim, the urban hipster's standard garb began as a gym shirt for athletic wear in the 1930s, and morphed its way under the dress shirt a few years later. Somewhat separately, knitted sport shirts with collars started the outerwear portion of the trend, with the polo being the father of the breed. Polo and undershirt combined into the current collarless outerwear incarnation, a trend so recent that Esquire's 1973 Encyclopedia of 20th Century Men's Fashions does not so much as mention them, and yet clothing industry sources report that tee shirts are currently by far the most popular clothing item sold in the West.

There are tee shirts and there are tee shirts of course. At one end of the spectrum is the white knitted version intended to be worn as underwear, and that is where it tends to stay. The outerwear tee shirt is anything but white, with black by far the most popular. And though a collared polo is considerably more appropriate for wear to a Beverly Hills cocktail lounge, characters such as Mr. Duchovny set a mass market precedent for the uncollared version on Californication, his made for Showtime series.

With the continued decline in Victorian influences and the spread of temperature controlled environments, our descendents' dress will be probably be reduced to body paint, tattoos and some version of the Brazilian tapa-sexo, that strip of cloth that covers the genitalia on an otherwise nude dancer. That is something none of us will see for ourselves, but as a society we have already dispensed with coats and jackets, and the dress shirt is on its way to oblivion. The tee shirt leaves us with no further layers that can be removed.

Photo: Californication

The Man In The Gray Gwlanen Suit

The Oxford English Dictionary says the etymology is uncertain, but the 15th century origin of the word flannel likely was the Welsh gwlanen, from gwlan or wool. All of which has only a little to do with the role of the mid-gray flannel suit in the winter wardrobe, where it should have a place as soon as the wearer's life allows it to have the required two (three is better) days of rest between outings.

That rest is required because that same softer finish that makes it desirable in the first place leaves flannel prone to wrinkling somewhat easier than its worsted cousins. Though it should not be the first or second suit in a weekly rotation, the stuff functions perfectly when it is worn only once a week.

What makes the mid-gray flannel suit suit such a prize are its combination of the aforementioned softness, its warmth and its flexibility. Dressed up with a white shirt and dark four in hand, the gray flannel works in the boardroom, and is equally appropriate dressed down for suburbia with a checked shirt and wool challis necktie. Indeed, the only thing I would not recommend is wearing the gray gwlanen suit for travel as Mr. Bond is doing, at gunpoint or otherwise. That propensity to wrinkle you see.

And Mimmo and His Daughter

Although he is in Rome, just an hour’s train ride north of Naples, Mimmo Siviglia’s tailoring style could not be much further from that of Anna Matuozzo (see yesterday’s post). Matuozzo and her daughters make shirts with mappina sleeves and decorative, nubby stitches. These are not only beautiful artisanal details, but also a way to show a shirt’s provenance to those in-the-know. Some men approve, and for others the details are over the top.

Siviglia also makes shirts with his daughter, but otherwise his approach has little in common with Matuozzo’s. He finds puckers and pleats on shirt sleeves to be distracting and hand stitches, even when well done, to be too messy. Instead, he seeks to create the cleanest, smoothest look possible. For Siviglia, a shirt should direct a person’s eyes upwards, towards the wearer’s face, not direct attention to itself. The goal is to make an unobtrusive, flattering shirt, where all the lines are clean and the seams nearly invisible.

Of course, this is not easy to do. For example, Siviglia had to modify an old buttonhole machine in order to get just the right tension. This allows him to make perfectly clean, straight, and unwavering buttonholes. As well, side seams are executed with a good single needle stitch so that the fabric doesn’t pucker after a few washes.

Achieving a perfectly smooth look also means cutting the patterns just right. If a pattern doesn’t compensate for a sloped shoulder, there will be wrinkles around the collarbone; if it over-compensates, there will be wrinkles near the ribs. Even at the age of 80, Siviglia cuts all the patterns himself.

Siviglia’s approach demonstrates something important. It is widely believed that all things handmade are better than anything machine-sewn, but this is too much of a generalization. In reality, these approaches may serve different but equally attractive purposes. Siviglia’s shirts are clean, unobtrusive and beautiful in their own way. They sit in the background and flatter the wearer. Whether his approach is better or worse depends on the kind of shirt a man wants.

For those who are interested in Siviglia’s shirts but cannot visit Rome, Raphael Rafaelli in New York can take measurements for US clients.

-Derek Guy

Anna And Her Daughters

Shirtmaker Anna Matuozzo's Neapolitan shop is located on the quiet street of Viale Gramsci. Once outside her building, you ring the doorbell, pass through the doors, and disappear into what feels like a home from yesteryear. The antique furnishings and warmth feel welcoming, and in the main room, the highly prized shirts speak of a kind of tailoring that approaches fine art.

Matuozzo’s firm is very small. Anna does all the cutting herself and four or five family members, including her daughters, do the sewing. Each customer has his own pattern. Whereas most custom shirt makers have pre-designed cuffs and collars, Anna designs many of hers by hand once she has assessed the client’s face, character, and lifestyle.

In addition to the pattern making, there is the handwork that her family is famous for. On her most standard shirts, the buttonholes, armholes, and yoke are all hand stitched. The handmade buttonholes are stable and clean, and the sleeveheads are slightly crunched in the way that Neapolitan tailoring is known for.

A customer can request any level of handwork, however. On one shirt I examined, there were neatly picked, nubby stitches visibly decorating the collar band and yoke. Then there were finer, almost invisible hand sewn stitches that ran up the side seams, down the placket, and across the shoulders. The hems were also hand sewn with a blind stitch, but with enough stitches that you would have thought it was done by machine.

There are a handful of shirt makers left in the world who will make a hand-sewn shirt. Some aren’t any good, and the others have handwork that’s almost indistinguishable from their peers. Matuozzo’s, however, strike me as more distinguished. The stitches are more neatly done and they have gentler, more beautiful character to them. Perhaps for this reason, when I asked who is the best shirt maker in town, almost every tailor I spoke to in Naples said "Anna Matuozzo."

-Derek Guy

Dull Is For Neckties

The late Duke of Bedford, he whose name is in the International Best Dressed Hall of Fame, once wrote that a man's necktie should be dull and who am I to argue? I prefer black, gray, blue and sometimes brown ties myself, if grenadines, knits, shantungs and mogadors to name but a few are dull. Indeed, I was looking for a red tie the other day only to find that I had but two and one of them, a dark burgundy grenadine, hardly qualified.

Dull though ones ties may be, there is a place for louder neckwear and that is in the scarf. Oh, certainly a man needs quiet scarves in sober wool or cashmere. The real glory though are the silks, with tasselled fringes whenever possible. And if a man has one, he needs several since, just like a loud suit, a patterned silk scarf is so memorable that if he wears it more than a couple times a season people will think he lives in it.

Silk scarves are less impractical than they might appear. Though lightweight, the stuff is an excellent wind blocker and that same low conductivity keeps warm air next to the skin, which is why it is used for glove linings and long underwear.

Weave also needs to be considered. Directionless patterns like paisleys can be worn with virtually anything, with lustrous finishes or, like the madder scarf in the photo, dry surfaces. But let them have color. Dull is for neckties.

Badger From The Isle Of Man

The first of several new luxury wet shaving lines will be arriving at the ASW store next week, that being the Isle of Man's Simpsons badger hair shaving brushes. Shave experts consider Simpsons as either the best shaving brush maker in the world or one of them depending on who you talk to. Its brushes are entirely and slightly eccentrically made by hand, using techniques that have not changed since the firm was founded in 1919.

For more than a century, badger hair has been considered the best applicator for shaving cream and soap because of its water retention capacity, smooth sensation on the face, and unmatched durability. Simpsons brushes are filled with sustainably selected Chinese badger hair, which is imported under strict controls and then sorted, dressed and sterilised by a London firm whose origins date back to the 16th Century. Super badger is a long hair with a soft creamy white tip for the ultimate shaving sensation. The less expensive Best badger hair varies from long to medium length with a soft darker creamy tip.

Initially the store will be stocking three models:

Simpsons' Wee Scot is the smallest and if not the least expensive badger hair brush being made today then certainly one of the least expensive. Paired with a shaving soap stick it is a good way way to begin wet shaving without the discomfort of nylon or boar bristles. Only 2 3/4" (67 mm) tall with an ivory colored resin base, the hand tied knot is filled with Best quality badger hair.

Simpsons' The Major (pictured) is an "ingenious but simple" shaving brush designed for the intrepid Himalayan explorer, Major Victor Beeching. Filled with either best or super badger hair, The Major's shaving brush screws into an open ended tube, which protects the brush while allowing it to breathe in a wet pack. Only 3 1/4" (85 mm) high when packed for travel but 4 1/2" (115 mm) when assembled for use.

Finally, I will be stocking the Chubby, which has earned a legendary reputation in gourmet shaving circles. The squat 3 3/4" (95 mm) high Chubby CH2 is densely filled with hand tied super or best badger hair.

Men considering wet shaving for the first time cannot do better than a Simpsons brush and some D. R. Harris pre-shave lotion, after shave milk and a shaving soap stick.

Rambles Stimulated By A Necktie

I spent some time on the Frank Sinatra website the other day, in good part because I envy the quality of the style-related writing there. I had not visited for a while, but happened across an older ASW post called Arching The Necktie that featured a photo of Ol' Blue Eyes with his tie properly curved, and that sent me on my way.

Now an arch like the one sported by the tie in the photograph tends to be a transient thing unless it is supported by either collar pin or tab and who wears those any longer other than the occasional clothing hobbyist. But that does not mean we should not strive to be well presented. Sinatra himself was always well, if a bit flashily, turned out and men other than the most sober pillars of the establishment could do a lot worse than to use him as a model. The slightly too jaunty hats, mohair suits and orange pocket squares might not be a good image for the man who manages your money, but if we saw the normal twenty-first century celebrity in them we would give him props.

Sinatra of course purchased his own clothes, and the men who made them at Dunhill Tailors and the like knew what they were about. Unfortunately, the changes associated with celebrity these past couple of decades have hurt how we dress as a society. Tom Ford and his peers have done many good things but the distribution of badly fitted clothing for celebrities to wear to high profile events is not one of them. Jacket sleeves hanging down to the knuckles and trousers puddled on shoes do nothing for the athlete or actor and even less for the publicity seeking brand that should know better. After he or she watches a few awards shows it is hard to blame the department store salesperson who sends customers out into the street looking as though they stole their clothing off the rack.

That said, once they achieve success many celebrities learn how to dress. For example, when he first became a public figure Colin Firth attended an awards show or two in apparently unaltered clothing. Then there was a year or so when he appeared in what seemed to be the same set of properly fitted dinner clothes, and I speculate they were his first, at several consecutive events (nothing wrong with that either). Lately his photos show a man who combines fit and variety in his clothing. Good for him.

In the photo, a gray worsted jacket worn with a pink shirt, paisley madder square and that silk bouclé necktie with the palest of pink grounds.

Rancé's Le Vainqueur

I acquired a bottle of L'Artisan Parfumeur's Traversée du Bosphore the other week and though the scent itself did nothing for me the name did lead me to the French house of Rancé, where my nose developed a crush on its Le Vainqueur eau de parfume.

Le Vainqueur returned to the market a couple of years ago after an absence and is offered as both an eau de parfum as well as an exceptional triple milled soap. According to the company, the fragrance was created for Napolean Bonaparte, a man who, based on the number of scents that claim a heritage descending from his court, consumed scent as other men consume water, in 1805 (Perfume analyst Luca Turin takes exception to the claim but invented heritages are nothing new for fragrance houses). It, meaning the fragrance, is described as fresh, flowery, Mediterranean and amber-scented, and those claims are completely true. About $120 for 100 ml.

The MTO Glover

Glovemaker Chester Jeffries was founded in 1937 as a specialist in gloves from South American pigskin and carpincho. Eighty-five years later, the company is still owned and run by grandsons of one of the co-founders, and still does a significant business in pigskin.

Glovemaking has changed little this past century or so. Jeffries still cuts each glove by hand.

Sixteen individual pieces are passed to a seamstress who sews them together, and then each pair is shaped on a form.

What has changed most over the years is the way Jeffries' gloves reach the consumer. Originally a subcontractor to other glovers, today the company deals directly with many of its customers on the Internet, solving the fit issue that is the oldest problem in ready to wear clothing. One man has a hand with long fingers. Another is the same width across the knuckles but has shorter fingers. One size may fit neither of them. Jeffries is the first, and thus far to the best of my knowledge the only firm to offer a bespoke glove online. The customer measures around his knuckles and then sends the dimensions to the company with a tracing of his left and right hands. Once that pattern is on file, glove ordering is as simple as choosing a style and materials for the latest glove and lining. And they fit.

-Photographs by Christian Price

The Perplexities of Pinky Rings

Within ‘This Thing of Ours,’ guys pretty much agree on the really important stuff: artisan tailoring (which need not necessarily be bespoke), bench-made shoes (again, bespoke or top-of-the-line ready-mades), handkerchiefs with hand-rolled edges, etc. Outside of these main pillars solidarity breaks down a little bit, and there is room for, to use a word coined by Xavier Cugat, “opinionation.”

A major bone of contention is the pinky ring—whether or not it should be worn. The Duke of Windsor wore one. So did Tony Biddle. The Prince of Wales wears one now, as do André Churchwell and Alan Flusser. I wear mine, when I can find the wretched thing. But for every guy who wears a pinky ring, I can think of another well-dressed man who does not. Bruce Boyer, for example, wears his wedding band, but no pinky ring. I’ve never met Mr. Boyer, but I have a strong sense that nothing short of a gun in his ribs could make him wear one.

For some guys, the pinky ring is a bit too déclassé; a little too Cosa Nostra. I wear one because I like the idea of a guy who is otherwise dressed in perfectly good taste, yet has this shiny little touch sinister dangling from his little finger. It’s a nice counterpoint to a classic outfit, as well as being just the merest hint that maybe you have a dark side.

The pinky ring is also a good way to identify other members of ‘The Glorious Club.’ If I see a guy wearing a well-made suit and shoes, I’m not sure of his motivation—he could be dressing for the office, a woman, or both. To a slightly lesser degree, the same could be said of a guy in a good sport coat, tie, and odd trousers. But if I see a well-decked out guy wearing a pinky ring, the ring is the sure sign that the guy is dressing for himself.

Now, let’s say you were a non-believer who’s decided to take the plunge. Which hand? For some guys, this not-so-trivial consideration is a headache-maker. The prevailing school of thought says to wear it on your right hand, since the left side is already so loaded up: most men wear their watches on their left wrist, and your boutonniere and pocket square are obviously on that side. If you wear hats, even the bow is on the left, and if you wear a feather in your hat—which goes in the bow—well, the right side of your body can look almost naked by comparison. The impoverished right side has only your ticket pocket, if the jacket you’re wearing that day happens to have one.

Then there are the guys who, for reasons known only to themselves, favor a fully loaded left side. Still can’t decide? Then use the William Rhinelander Stuart Solution: wear ‘em on both hands (In case you’re wondering, Alan Flusser and Churchwell are both ‘right-handers.’ I myself am a bit of an odd duck: I switch mine back and forth, often several times during the course of a single day. There are, I hope, worse and weirder habits out there).

Now, as to what your pinky ring should look like—guess what; I’m not going to tell you what it should look like. ‘Our Thing’ has too much dogma already: guys who think a pocket square should be angled a certain way and no other; who don’t think pocket squares and boutonnieres should be worn at the same time; who consider red neckties suitable only for Mondays in July—the list of ad hoc rules is endless. We have allowed preferences to become pronouncements. Every guy wants to be a sixteenth century pope, and we are only a hairsbreadth away from starting our own fashion inquisition. Not that I don’t know where the dogmatism comes from. The intentions are actually good. There is a lot of grotesque menswear out there, and naturally we don’t want it creeping into ‘this Thing’ we’ve built up. Ugly menswear is our equivalent of a stool-pigeon, and, in order for any clandestine organization to survive, stool-pigeons must be rooted out and destroyed. We just have to be careful that, like actual mob bosses, our zeal does not turn into paranoia, and we wind up cutting each other’s throats over the wrong choice of a sock.

So the choice in pinky rings is yours. There is the standard gold or silver signet, but there are also endless variations: gold set with any variety of precious stones, silver folk rings are not out of the question, and, extra-special, solid black onyx rings edged in gold, and inlaid with gems of your choosing. The sky’s the limit. Knock yourself out.

I will, however, reverse myself slightly and make two rules about pinky rings. When you hear what they are, I think you’ll forgive me. First, make the thing considerably smaller than a golf ball. Secondly, and this is an absolute must, NO GOLD NUGGETS. You all know exactly what kind of ring I’m talking about. If I catch you wearing one of those unforgivably rococo gold nugget rings, I will be forced to assume that at some point in your life, probably in a dark, candle-lit basement somewhere (in Jersey), you have uttered the words, “May I burn like this saint if I ever betray my friends…”

-Text by Barry Pullen

RJ's Cabinet of Curiosities Part I

A recent car commercial featured various very serious-looking men earnestly rhapsodizing about their fetishized possessions, A v-neck-sweatered man describes with delicate gestures his pen’s warthog tusk barrel and solid titanium trim. Another fellow poses by his tube amplifier and states smugly, “It reproduces frequencies only dogs can hear.” And so on. While (prior to looking it up in order to write this) I had forgotten what the commercial actually was for, it absolutely nailed the mannerisms of a particular male demographic that collects and obsesses over the minutiae of the overdesigned.

Thanks to Internet message boards and forums, the obsessed now know they are not alone. Both a sounding board and an echo chamber, these communities encourage members in their mania, spread a creed of received ideas and insulate them from skepticism – but not from rationalization. Insulated though we are, those of us obsessively focused on acquiring the rarest, best performing or most prestigious widget are still only slightly less obsessed with coming up with ways to justify our possessions. (I understand some members of the audiophile forums got their thousand-dollar power cables in a bunch over tube amp man.) I come to my thesis: We become ridiculous when we try to justify luxury. I henceforth adopt the following working definition of luxury: that done well which does not need to be done at all (Commenters, feel free to quibble below, but parsing that is a subject for another article). And with this piece I open my cabinet of curiosities, little luxuries that may be interesting or entertaining to the casual internet punter. These are things that are different, amusing, that at one time or another made me happy. Stop me if I start trying to intellectualize them.

Whether it’s shaving, skiing or cooking, the best part of any new hobby is the new toys it forces you to buy. Years ago, fed up with the latest nasty shaving gels, I tried old-fashioned shaving creams and was pleased with the results. The traditional creams and shaving soaps lasted a long time, were less harsh on my skin, and seemed to make for a closer, more comfortable shave than the modern stuff in most drugstores. Of course, then I needed a shaving brush for the ritual of applying the cream. (Real enthusiasts would add a proper shaving mug to foam up shaving soap in hot water and a straight (a.k.a. cut-throat) razor, but I try to be neither pedantic nor suicidal.)

I started unassumingly enough with the sort of brush with floppy nylon bristles that comes bundled in shaving gift packs. Those occupy the bottom of the shaving brush hierarchy, along with prickly and painfully stiff boar-bristled brushes. Infinitely preferable are brushes made with badger hair (humanely removed so that he can go boating with Mole and the Water Rat afterwards). Supposedly, badger hair possesses the ideal properties (for shaving brushes and, one assumes, badgers) of being able to absorb a great deal of water while being both springy and soft at the tip in order to lather up well without irritation.

As with any obsession, there are multiple grades of badger quality, florid names, and disputes over standards of nomenclature, with various companies offering “Best Badger,” “Super Badger” (great image) and “Silvertip.” Generally speaking, Silvertip is the top of most makers’ lines, and may be conflated with Super Badger by certain makers. I worked my way up to the luxury of a Silvertip with what the catalogs call a “faux ivory” handle, which is a euphemism for off-white plastic. (That’s fine, I don’t begrudge Tantor his tusks.) The Silvertip was a hell of a lot better than the cheap synthetic stuff. However, as with all obsessions, there is no limit on how far one can go up the hyperbolic curve of diminishing returns.

After Pure Badger, Best Badger, Super Badger and Silvertip, there are a few outliers offered by a couple of companies. What I had my eye on and eventually acquired was something called High Mountain Badger, a bristle step above Silvertip and so appealingly rare (I saw a badger in the Alps last spring, but I didn’t get a chance to ask if it was high). As an added draw, the brush itself was made with polished oxhorn handles instead of the usual plastic, adding that sensual element of visual pleasure which attracts the over-thinking enthusiast. To my knowledge, horn is generally a byproduct of the food industry and comes from the common cow, so my indulgence wasn’t plundering an endangered resource.

How does it perform? The hairs are pretty dense, the brush feels very good and foams up well, and in general seems better than my late Silvertip. So in other words, the difference could all be in my head. The price? At this place on the hyperbola, nothing is worth it from a sheer cost-benefit standpoint. Quality is remembered long after price is intentionally blotted out of one’s memory. In the end, our continued attempts to justify the unjustifiable luxury aren’t just aimed at others, but at ourselves and the impending recognition that even our latest, most elaborate acquisition can’t keep the doubts away for long. Perhaps the badger brush arms race will ramp up once someone finds a way to harness the power of Internet phenomenon the honey badger. At a certain point, though, to keep your sanity you need to make like him and just not give a shit.

- Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Tie One On

Tan, gray and blue are the triumvirate of menswear colors, and they can be combined many ways. In the photograph,the usual gray jacket and tan shirt are reversed while the blue comes in the form of a navy bow tie, adding an unexpected bit of interest for a social afternoon.

Gray shirts should be more common than they are. Gray is more flattering than pure white on most men during the day and as adaptable as cream with navy jackets. I particularly like gray when it is combined with white, either in an end on end or similar weave or as a gray pattern on a white ground.

And then there is the bow tie, which would probably occupy a more important place in our wardrobes if more of us knew how to tie it. The knot is slightly more difficult to achieve than a four in hand, but the infrequent bow tie wearer can overcome his lack of practice by keeping a how-to-tie-it diagram handy. The result is a lighter hearted air, in my opinion, one that is particularly appropriate for occasions like the approaching St. Valentines Day.

Just tie one on.

The Cream Flannel Project

I am proceeding with the project (see last week's post) to offer lengths of 13 ounce/400 gram cream colored woolen flannel. That weight will work well as a suit or vest for temperatures up to about 75F (24C) as well as for trousers to be worn with ten or twelve ounce mid-weight (300-360 gram) or heavier jacketings.

The cloth will be made by Fox Brothers of Somerset, England, the 240 year old firm that originated flannel and is still generally considered the premier flannel weaver in the world. Delivery is promised for early March.

This offering will not be a pure white in color but rather the traditional English cream. The photograph's colors should be accurate on color-corrected displays.

Men who do not have an existing relationship with a tailor may elect to be measured by MyTailor during one of their visits to the nearly 200 cities they serve in the United States and Canada. MyTailor will make your garment(s) up in Hong Kong and deliver it to you. Exclusive of the cost of the cloth, tailoring prices will be:

Jackets – $595.00 for a fully canvased, hand tailored coat with sleeve button holes, inclusive of shipping charges. Most men will need 2.5 meters of cloth for a jacket.

Trousers – $200.00 – Fully or half lined slacks inclusive of shipping. Most men will need 1.5 meters.

Vests - $200.00 inclusive of shipping. Most men will need half a meter.

Pre-orders of the cloth itself will be $80 per half meter through February 18, including shipping in the United States (The ASW store's standard per order shipping premiums of $15 for Canada and Mexico and $27 for the rest of the world will apply for destinations outside the U.S.). A 50% deposit is required to hold a length and guarantee the price should the offering sell out as appears likely (the men who contacted me this past week will receive priority). After February 18, if any cloth remains unspoken for it will be priced at $90 a half meter.

Visit the ASW store to reserve your length.

Vintage Hermès Auction February 17

Our own Réginald-Jérôme de Mans, the interweb's most comprehensive cataloger of luxury goods, points out that Arcturial, the French auction house, is putting 450 lots of vintage Hermès goods under the hammer on February 17. The expected prices almost look reasonable given the declining Euro, reasonable being a totally unexpected event in France these days, at least until one calculates the buyer's premium and shipping.

Prices aside, the sale offers a good selection of Hermès printed cashmere scarves, silk squares and pochettes and those prices appear to compare favorably to what a specialist in the vintage stuff would ask (this with the caveat that my experience in vintage Hermès comes from a few eBay auctions). Unless of course they get bid up. Bidding is a competitive sport and the danger is always that one can overpay in the heat of battle.

Both telephone and online bids will be accepted from pre-registered bidders.

Tasseled Arrivals

A pair of pigskin momentos of the late Alexis, Baron de Redé, who, as I have mentioned in the past, had so many Cleverley shoes that the firm named a slip-on shoe after him (actually they named two of them after him despite the confusion that engenders), arrived this past week.

I will be the first to point out that the shoes have tassels and that detail relegates them to odd jackets and gray flannel trousers in my book. One should after all be an attorney, Nicholas Sarkozy (who adopted tassels along with much of the French right in the 1980s) or much more of a preppy than I am these days to wear tassels with suits except perhaps once in a while during the summer. But, even if the shoes were free of decoration, the pigskin itself would relegate them to informality.

Pigs are aggressive animals, with skin scarred and otherwise damaged from their social interaction. In addition, the grain side of those less than perfect skins is pitted. and the pits of the grain do not take the dye that gives them color very well (these were dyed after they were made). The result is a variegated surface, though one that is usually less obvious than it is under the spotlight used for these particular photos. It is that same variegated surface, so much more interesting than the regularity of machine-stamped calfskin for example, that is the principal reason to wear the stuff.

Cleverley did good.

Sin City

I have to make a day trip to Sin City next week (the place, not the movie despite the fact that the film of that name and actress Carla Gugino who plays Lucille are each among my personal top ten of all time, while the city is not). At any rate, that (the place again, not the film, which you should see if you have not already done so) brought travel clothes to mind. It may be true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but tailored clothing wearers should not want a place's memory of them to be one of wrinkles.

It is the business day trip where travel clothes come into play. On journeys involving six or more hours in the air, the only people who see a man after landing are the driver and the person at the desk of the hotel. For travel of that nature comfortable cloth is fine as rumples are less relevent. But, fly or drive, take a meeting and return kinds of trips with no opportunity to change clothes require things that will emerge unscathed from a couple of hours in a seat.

Other than the old 60% mohair suitings that do not seem to be made any longer, high twist cloth like Smith's Finmeresco and Minnis' fresco is as wrinkle resistant as anything natural these days. A blue jacket with horn buttons and mid-gray trousers in those materials combined with a pair of dark slip-on shoes will suffice for most occasions during the day as well as an early dinner before heading for the last flight home (I will be the guy in the bouclé necktie). Still more formal and bulletproof would be a navy or charcoal suit made entirely from the 15 ounce/450 gram Minnis stuff, but it would be somewhat scratchy and away from London and to a lesser extent New York few cities really insist on that level of formality to say the least.

Sin City (the place, not the film) is definitely not one of them.

Lifestyle: Various Obscurities

I spent my morning coffee time writing an explanation of how to wear a watch chain and fob in answer to a reader inquiry the other day only to find that, as happens all too often, he had mis-typed his email address. And though I am tempted to re-use that work, I should not subject the 99.9% of my readership that will never have a reason to wear a pocket watch to such arcana.

The exercise did however remind me of Lucius Beebe's 1935 Herald Tribune column stating that the well-dressed gentleman wore a fouet on the end of his watch chain, said device being a small whisk intended to eliminate carbonation from champagne. I do not intend to demean Mr. Beebe, whose lifestyle I only wish I could emulate, but this strikes me as an example of unclear on the concept if I have ever heard one. Originally invented to remove inadvertent secondary carbonation, the fouet may have filled a need until perhaps the start of the 20th century. But why on earth would any man go to the trouble to de-gas a modern wine that was designed to sparkle, thereby undoing all the work required to add bubbles in the first place, when he could simply order a still wine? Such are the mysteries of life.

In turn this reasoning led me to a consideration of champagne, to which I say bring it on generally. But given that we were considering Russian leather the other day, it occurred to me that I have never mentioned Hiedsieck's 1907 Diamant Bleu cuvée, 2,000 bottles of which were found in 1998 in the wreck of a freighter sunk in the North Sea on its way to the Czar during the first world war. Being still highly drinkable the stuff has come to a better end than the Romanovs and it has been sold at auction around the world, averaging a price in excess of $3,000 a bottle. That is the very definition of obscurity as none of us is likely to ever come across it of course, but it makes for a good story nonetheless.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Corthay Opens in London

Historically it has been the French who come to London for their clothes rather than the other way around, but increasingly there are swimmers against the current. Pierre Corthay has been making shoes in Paris under his own name for twenty years. Eight weeks ago he opened the doors to a new Corthay store at 12a Motcomb Street in Knightsbridge, London opposite Louboutin and around the corner from Berluti (Corthay shoes are available in the United States at Leffot in New York).  

The Corthay make is excellent and the style has some kinship with Berluti, Corthay's Paris neighbor, being pointed of toe and more colorful than the English makers. Both ready to wear and bespoke shoes are available at the store, with RTW priced from $1,100 (850 euros) and bespoke starting at $4,000 (3,000 euros). Ask for manager Francois Pourcher.

-Christian Price

RJ’s Alternative Style Icons II: Omar Sharif in Pleasure Palace

By the time he made the justifiably forgotten 1980 telefilm Pleasure Palace, Omar Sharif was known in Hollywood as a gambler with an acting hobby rather than the other way around. How did he get there, and why should we care? As Sharif later recalled in an interview, after Lawrence of Arabia launched his Western film career in the 1960s, he worked with four different prestigious directors on four high-profile but unsuccessful films: Anatole Litvak’s Nazi murder mystery The Night of the Generals, which handles the same material as Valkyrie much better; Fred Zinnemann’s bleak Spanish Civil War drama Behold a Pale Horse, Sidney Lumet’s answer to Belle de Jour; The Appointment; and Anthony Mann’s Gibbon adaptation of The Fall of the Roman Empire, which seems to have inspired Gladiator. Despite his committed performances in a varied set of roles, these flawed films’ commercially unpalatable themes meant Sharif’s career sputtered after Lawrence and Doctor Zhivago.(All but one of the films above were period pieces, so we will not discuss Sharif’s wardrobe in them – though nowadays dressing as if one cares is tantamount to costume, I have no desire to cross into that uncanny valley and urge us to wear costume clothes.)

After 1970, the film industry didn’t seem to know how to use Omar Sharif except as visiting royalty or shadowy gamblers, soldiers of fortune, and other stock characters, often satirically – deliberately underused as a cynical cruise ship captain in Richard Lester’s delightfully subversive disaster movie Juggernaut, damned with faint praise by Pauline Kael for bringing “more spirit” to his tiny role as the Egyptian Assassin in The Pink Panther Strikes Again than to his feature roles, compacted into a walking hunk of metal in Top Secret!. Even in the 1960s, positive reviews of Sharif as an “atavistic” romantic lead reminiscent of Valentino suggested that he was a man out of his time. Yet like greater actors, he had created himself in the image his audience had desired. As he notes in his memoirs, the long out of print The Eternal Male, he grew up Catholic and the child of Syrian-Lebanese parents in Egypt, speaking French before Arabic, and eventually speaking with fluency in many languages, all, however, with a slight, unplaceable accent, which resonates a little with this writer. He changed his name and his religion after starring in his first major film and grew his iconic mustache for the first time at David Lean’s request for his role as Sherif Ali in Lawrence. However, religion played no role in his gambling or romantic pursuits, and Sharif was threatened and vilified in the country of his birth for playing a Jewish gambler and kissing Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl – on and off set. After they broke up, Streisand declared that Sharif talked about nothing but bridge.

A world-class bridge player who gambled away most of his movie earnings, over time Sharif eventually settled into a suite at the Royal Monceau in Paris, which sets up the amusing premise of Pleasure Palace: in this movie, playboy gambler and rootless nomad Omar Sharif plays a playboy gambler and rootless nomad… who comes to the rescue of a saintly casino owner (!) and battles for control of Caesars Palace in a high-stakes card game. By this stage in his career, from the late 1970s through the 1990s, Sharif seemed to turn up at shooting for his mixed bag of films and miniseries in his own clothes. In this respect, he was no empty suit. Magnificent dinner jackets and sports coats, masterfully cut in beautiful materials, still look wonderful when viewed thirty years later, despite coming from the moment between two of the lowest points in modern menswear: the 1970s’ abandon of taste and proportion and the early 1980s’ rejection of fit and notch height. And Sharif looks comfortable and natural in his clothes, pointing to a good collaboration between client and cutter. I say cutter for, if Sharif was wearing his own clothes, they were made by some of the best – tailoring by Huntsman and Cifonelli, who elegantly suited powerfully built men like Sharif and Lino Ventura. And Sharif was loyal for nearly half a century to his shirtmaker, Turnbull & Asser, ever since they made Cossack-style shirts for him to wear for his role in Doctor Zhivago. Contrast his effortlessness with the trussed-up self-consciousness of stars in certain recent films with high-profile designer tie-ins, wearing their clothes as if they were not only brand new but still had cardboard and pins in them.

Other reasons to watch? Not many, apart from the odd, anachronistic bromance between Omar’s character and his BFF José Ferrer, whom he appears to have since forgiven for raping Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. Based on the strangely exhaustive tour of Caesars’ facilities the characters take, I suspect that the production was sponsored by Caesars Palace (Marvel at Caesars’ state-of-1980-art gym and Omar’s frumpy gym clothes! Gaze in wonder at the hidden ranch VIPs can retreat to!). The film does also feature a young Victoria Principal, fresh off her Playboy spread, and the final climactic gambling scene is appropriately tense and somewhat unpredictable: if my memory serves me correctly the game is baccarat, so this terrible film features characters better dressed and gameplay more elegant than Casino Royale (Texas Hold ’em, really?).But if you don’t see this film, many others from Omar Sharif’s 1970s-1990s canon offer similar wardrobe epiphanies, including:

- 1976’s Crime and Passion in which he plays a womanizing Austrian investment advisor turned on by financial risk who is oddly oblivious to the Sony Betamax video cameras a jealous client has placed everywhere (It must have seemed like a great idea at the time - Ivan Passer directing! Score by Vangelis! Karen Black fresh off of The Day of the Locust And instead fails at both black comedy and suspense.)

- 1981’s Green Ice, in which he plays a gem dealer exiled to Colombia who loses his fiancée and jewel stash to Ryan O’Neal in a hot air balloon, and

- 1992’s Sidney Sheldon melodrama Memories of Midnight, in which he plays a murderous Greek shipping magnate out to repress Jane Seymour’s memories.

Now, of course, simply by living long enough to have his failures forgotten and his talent remembered, Sharif has made a comeback of sorts, and reportedly given up gambling and T&A and moved home to Egypt. His disappointing body of work lies in the shadow of his persona. Still, according to legend, upon meeting him Peter O’Toole said, “No one on Earth is named Omar Sharif. I shall call you Fred.” Cairo Fred, this is for you.

‑ Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Feedback Wanted

I have been thinking about offering one of a kind suit and jacket cloth at the A Suitable Wardrobe store for some time, and would like reader feedback because the process needs to begin now if the stuff is to be ready in time for it to be turned into clothing for next fall.

A surprising number of men have contacted me over the years looking for cream and/or pearl gray flannel for trousers and waistcoats (or a suit like the one in the Apparel Arts illustration). I am considering commissioning bolts of thirteen ounce/400 gram woolen flannel in those colors from a world class mill, and partnering with one or more of the travelling tailors who would make things up for men who do not have existing relationships. The cost for the cloth would be in the neighborhood of $175 a meter (about 2.5 meters is required for a jacket, half a meter is needed for a Bemberg backed waistcoat and 1.5 meters for trousers).

Interested parties should send a short email to info at dynend.com letting me know of their interest. A decision whether to proceed will be based on responses received by February 11.

Richard Anderson Ripped and Smooth

After 17 years at H. Huntsman, the last of them as creative director, Richard Anderson established his eponymous business and shop at 13 Savile Row in 2001 with former Huntsman managing director Brian Lishak and Clive Gilkes. As the first bespoke tailor to open on the Row in more than fifty years, the firm is the youngest of the 'proper' tailoring houses on that hallowed street and has the reputation of being “More Huntsman than Huntsman itself."

Asked to describe his house style, Anderson said, “I still cut clothes the way I did at Huntsman, where I was taught by Colin Hammick and Brian Hall with a very old system called the Thornton system, which is based on a hacking coat. It keeps the armholes really quite high for two reasons: one is movement, so if a man’s on a horse, or he’s shooting, he can lean forward, but it also gives a long line through the sides. The great thing about the system is the balance between the back, the forepart and the sleeves - it makes every man look a little bit taller and slimmer. I try to get as much shape as I can, with a natural line through the side seam, rather than cutting it in [at the waist] and having it flair out. I like to keep the chest quite natural, and also we’re very particular about the collar being anchored onto the neck. There needs to be something in the shoulder - we build up our own pads with wadding and canvas – but there’s hardly any roping because I like to have it one continuous line. It’s what I’d call a natural shoulder” (As evidenced by the photos, Mr Anderson’s “natural shoulder” is a far cry from the “natural shoulder” as cut by Thomas Mahon, say, or by the Neapolitan tailors, yet they all confusingly use the same word).

-Words by Mansel Fletcher

-Photography by Chloë Lederman

Know How To Fold Them

According to Stu Bloom at RAVE FabriCare, about 80% of men get their shirts back from the laundry on hangers, and this is certainly the wisest course since they are free of the creases that come from having them folded. The challenge with the practice comes when it is time to pack for a trip, and the shirts must be folded anyway.

The usual way to prepare shirts for packing is to fold them in thirds, replicating the commercial laundry folding machine (see the shirt on the right in the photo). Whoever designed that machine was apparently not very clothes conscious as that fold leaves the vertical and horizontal creases it imparts placed so that they can be visible under a jacket, which might not be a terrible thing with some cloth as it will hang out in an hour or two but heavier shirtings like oxfords and twills can remain creased for much of the day, contributing to a messier look than a man ought to aspire to (here we deliberately ignore no-iron shirts on the grounds that the well dressed man eschews them).

Now, it is only natural that a man would assume that folding meant visible creases and that there is nothing to be done about it, at least until like me he noticed that RAVE's clean by mail shirts are folded so that any creases that might occur in parts of the shirt front are not visible when a man has his jacket on (the shirt on the left was folded by RAVE). The secret is to fold the shirt in half rather than in thirds. In other words, when the shirt is on its front laid out for folding, turn the sleeve sides over only a quarter of the way, leaving a space between them. Then fold the bottom up so the shirt is roughly halved into a square. Leaving all the folds loose will also help the shirt's appearance, but only marginally as the state of being packed will inevitably press it to a certain extent.

I will be the first to admit that the square shirt fold is fairly obscure advice, and has the downside that otherwise useful suitcase accessories like Eagle Creek's folders and cubes seem to all be designed to accommodate shirts folded into thirds. Nonetheless, a supply of heavy duty polyethylene bags makes for a reasonable substitute and having a supply of pressed looking shirts when one unpacks is worth a little one-time trouble.

Consider The Waistcoat

In case you were wondering, all waistcoats are vests, but not all vests are waistcoats. The name waistcoat applies to the waist length modern sleeveless vest, as opposed to the original vest which was, and sometimes still is though not as part of a man's suit, considerably longer (try saying that fast three times).

The vest rather than the waistcoat was introduced as a part of correct dress during the restoration of the British monarchy by England's King Charles II in the seventeenth century. It was derived from the long sleeveless coats seen by English visitors to the court of Shah Abbas in Persia, and was worn for most of three hundred years as an outer garment just as we wear a jacket today.

The waistcoat became the middle part of the lounge suit around the start of the twentieth century, and remained a required part of men's business clothing, and even casual dress, until the Second World War. Its ubiquity stemmed from the fact that it added an extra layer of warmth in the days before central heating. As made by Savile Row tailors from the 1920s on, it was usually cut from the same cloth as the rest of the suit, single breasted, with a six button front and a notch or shawl collar or no collar at all. In addition, linen waistcoats in shades of buff, cream, light gray and light blue were worn for semi-formal and formal daytime occasions and tattersall plaid odd waistcoats were worn with tweed in the country. The waistcoat also remains part of both white and strict black tie evening ensembles.

The ubiquity of central heating, the automobile's increased protection from the elements and strict rationing of cloth during World War II combined to make the lounge suit version of the waistcoat optional, but it still has its uses. A waistcoat can extend the months that a mid-weight suit can be worn comfortably by adding a layer when temperatures drop. And of course the combination of single breasted jacket and vest is warmer than either single breasted or double worn without, which can eliminate the need to carry a topcoat in forty or fifty degree weather (4 to 15 Celsius or thereabouts).

The gray double breasted waistcoat in the photo is worn on a cool day paired with a tan tab collared end on end shirt, a black, tan and paisley necktie and a maroon wool square with tan dots. The latter two are from the ASW store.

Consider the waistcoat.