Lifestyle: All That Sparkles Is Not Champagne

Champagne is one of the world’s most famous wines, beloved by connoisseurs and laypersons alike. It enjoys a glamorous reputation, and it is of course de rigueur when it comes to celebrating anything. However, it doesn’t require a special occasion: it’s just as good to drink on an average weeknight as it is on New Year’s Eve.

When speaking of Champagne, it’s important to remember that the word refers exclusively to wines made in the Champagne region of France. This is not snobbery, nor is it an insistence that one drink only real Champagne. There are plenty of excellent sparkling wines made in other regions of the world: I would personally recommend those by Roederer Estate and Iron Horse in California; Gramona and Raventós i Blanc in Catalunya; or Bründlmayer and Schloss Gobelsburg in Austria, for example. Yet as good as these sparkling wines are, they shouldn’t be called Champagne. Why? And why does it matter?

As with other French wines, such as Bordeaux or Burgundy, Champagne is named for a specific place. Wine from the Champagne region exhibits a particular and inimitable character, derived from where it is grown and how it is made. The late Pascal Leclerc, proprietor of Champagne Leclerc-Briant, liked to explain it this way: “Champagne can only be made in Champagne. Why? First, we have very bad weather. Second, we have our three grape varieties, and chalky soil and all that. Third, we have 330 pages of regulations.”

The joke is funny because it’s true: strict regulations detailing authorized grape varieties, accepted viticultural practices or minimum length of aging all play a role in shaping Champagne’s character. But most fundamental of all is the geographical location of the Champagne vineyards themselves. No matter how faithfully and diligently one applies the same winemaking techniques, a sparkling wine made outside of the Champagne region can never achieve an identical character—it will not necessarily be inferior, but it will be distinctly different, due in large part to differences in soil and climate.

For many people, this is entirely trivial. Most consumers pay little attention to what’s in their glass, so long as it’s fizzy. But for those who are interested in the details of things (and you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you weren’t), a little exploration into the subject can be intriguing. It’s often true that the more you learn about what it is you’re engaged in, the greater your enjoyment of it becomes. Knowing the specific properties of Neapolitan tailoring or Northampton shoemaking, for instance, allows one to better appreciate these things (and, I might add, makes one more willing to pay the price that they command). In the case of Champagne, you may be a partisan of a particular brand, and indeed, the marketing of Champagne has historically been heavily brand-oriented. It’s rewarding, however, to go beyond the brand and discover what makes a particular Champagne special, and to learn how good Champagne differs from the merely ordinary.

I encourage you to explore the world of sparkling wines, including both those from the Champagne region and those made elsewhere. Just be sure to call them by their proper names.

Photo and words by Peter Liem

Pour Le Sport

Sport is the only occasion when mid-calf socks have a place, in my opinion. As you know, visible calf between trouser and sock is perhaps the most heinous sin a man can commit in his dress, and said sin is obviously more prevalent when seated (or when wearing shorts with shoes other than trainers, though that is a special case and one for which anklets were made). It could also happen lying down I suppose, but that should be relatively rare. On the other hand, there is essentially no chance of exposing bare leg when a man is standing, and that is the time for mid-calf socks which wear cooler than their longer brethren while shooting or walking 18 holes. And for those occasions I have just the ticket(s).

Complementing my linen sport socks and stylish cotton anklets are several new styles of quality mid-calf leisure wear hose by Bresciani, perhaps the world's best maker. There is a wide ribbed cotton with contrasting heel and toe, a sturdy ribbed wool, and the ultimate sport socks: mid-calf baby alpaca socks that are lighter than wool but five to seven times warmer. Check them out.

The Start Of The Commute

Today is a work day, and having had my coffee I am about to embark on my morning commute from the balcony in the photo. Pin stripe suited, I will walk downhill for ten minutes to a taxi stand. The cab will careen through narrow streets for another ten minutes before delivering me to a hydrofoil, which will in turn spend forty minutes getting to Naples where I will be met by a car and a driver/interpreter who will take me another half an hour to the Cravattificio that is my destination.

I have been looking for a Neapolitan necktie maker since I parted ways with E&G Cappelli six months ago, and hopefully today will be the formal beginning of a new relationship. I shall save the name of the house for now, however the plan is that they will be providing the ASW store with those unlined three-fold foulards that are so uniquely Italian. Or so I hope.

Once business is concluded, there is lunch to be eaten, and afterwards a visit to tailors Napolisumisura before the return to Capri for dinner. I would not want to do it every day but as commutes go it has its moments.

Nothing To Grouse About

One of the special things about London in September is that the shooting season opened mid-August, affording the visitor the opportunity to eat roasted birds with some of the buckshot still in them. The only thing that seems to have changed over the years is how much better the preparations have gotten. It may not be Paris but a man can eat very, very well here these days.

Eating has been on my mind since my fitting at Davies & Son the other day, for though I have not gained weight, the pounds continue to attempt to redistribute themselves around my middle to the dismay of my trousers' waistbands. Once providing ample room, they have shrunk to the point that I could wear them with a belt if they had belt loops. Time to take action.

The pieces that Peter Harvey was kind enough to have ready for my visit reflect the current trends in my wardrobe, those being suburban clothes and city odd jackets (you thought I was going to say tighter waistbands didn't you?). There was a conservative dark brown jacket and trousers from H. Lesser's Golden Bale for travel, and though it remains to be seen how appropriate they will be for Petaluma I will definitely be able to wear them around Florence and the rest of Italy. And then there was the gray odd jacket in the photo that was commissioned for informal wear in town.

The gray is the result of my resolution to limit my city jackets to that color and to blues, and the coat is made from some of John Hardy's 10 ounce/300 gram glen checked cashmere. Unless we are having one of our rare brilliant days, when San Francisco looks as if it is set in the Mediterranean, gray blends best with concrete and overcast skies.

This particular coat was close to perfect, needing not much more than an adjustment to the length of one sleeve. Unlike my waistline, I had nothing to grouse about.

Photo by Chloe Lederman

Video: Take "Ivy Style"

A short video of the Ivy Style exhibit at The Museum of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. In the Special Exhibitions Gallery from September 14, 2012 through January 5, 2013.

Video by Andrew Yamato for A Suitable Wardrobe

A Bit Of Character

It was a parody of a London day yesterday, which is to say that when it was not raining it was drizzling or at least threatening to drizzle. It is of course relatively easy to affect the weather in one's immediate vicinity: closing one's umbrella causes the rain to begin, opening it has the opposite effect, and attempting to share the canopy with another lets the wind know it is time to change the angle of the rainfall to something approaching horizontal.

Despite the wet, we, meaning myself and photographer extraordinaire Chloe Lederman, were out and around Savile Row and Jermyn Street yesterday, visiting a selection of shoes and tailored clothing that will appear in these virtual pages once Photoshop has been given the opportunity to perform its magic. There was another pair of the late Baron de Redé's shoes to ooh and aah over at Cleverley (bespoke shoes in the fifties were made with roughly double the labor that goes into them today and the quality of the stitching is extraordinary), where I was told that my Russian Calf cap toes had developed a small crack across the upper. This may or may not be a problem - that Russian reindeer hide from the wreck of the Catherina von Flensburg is nearly 250 years old after all and somewhat prone to splitting - but we will not know until the shoes are worn for a while and we can see whether the crack grows larger. At this point it simply adds a bit of character.

After returning to the hotel, several hours of work and a short nap the day ended at Galvin's Bistrot de Luxe, a very good English-owned place that has somehow managed to employ, at least the other night, a wait staff with spoken English that is actually worse than that found in the typical Parisian brasserie. The language barrier is only a challenge because, in spite of the integration of the EU and the easy movement between London and Paris afforded by the EuroStar, the concept of gin shaken over ice continues to be alien to the French. Words fail.

Photo by Chloe Lederman

Mr. Reagan's Suit

Then California governor Ronald Reagan wears a suit of silk dupioni in the photo, and that is something seen all too infrequently these days. Dupioni used to be for summer, but is better for warm spring and fall, which means it is just coming into season. Ten ounce (300 gram) cloth with a tight weave, it wears too warm for the depths of summer but is perfect for moderate temperatures.

The principal reason to consider dupioni for tailored clothing is for the surface interest of its slubby texture. Dupioni is woven from the threads from two different silk worms that spin their cocoons close together. The fibers get tangled up and the resultant thread is rougher than regular silk, with bumps and irregularities where the fibers from the two cocoons are combined.

The challenges with dupioni are its cost, which is comparable to linen, and finding the stuff in suiting quality in the first place. When I asked Thomas Mahon to make up an elephant gray dupioni double breasted last year, he told me he had never sourced a length. I have not thought to ask but since he has said nothing about it I am hopeful that his version of Mr. Reagan's suit will be ready for fitting later this fall.

The Custom Shop At Paul Stuart

If you walk around in Manhattan for four or five hours, how many people do you think you’d pass on the street during that time—a thousand? Tens of thousands? Last Wednesday, in town on business, I passed fewer than ten well-dressed men the whole day. It’s almost enough to make a grown man cry. Which is why I am glad a place like Paul Stuart exists.

I had not planned to linger in the store. As it stood, I was late for an interview, and only had time to grab the fall catalog and use the men’s room. Or at least that’s what I told myself before I went in. On the way back down from the men's room, I noticed Paul Stuart’s brand-new custom shop tucked into a mezzanine. Now for those of you who think I’m confusing it with the made-to-measure department they’ve always had—I’m not. The word ‘custom’ has been tossed around a lot lately in places where it has no right to be used, but that isn’t the case here.

The shop is headed up by Mark Rykken, easily one of the best-dressed men in New York, and for years Alan Flusser’s right arm. And yes, this is true bespoke—unlike the made to measure that usually passes for custom in the United States, each customer receives his own individual paper pattern. The fabrics, mostly English, are sumptuous. The house style (which, having your own pattern, you can obviously make adjustments to), is what I call ‘Savile Row Plus,’ meaning it looks more like golden-age Savile Row than most modern Savile Row does. Instead of blindly following the drunken fashion masses, Mr. Rykken’s discerning eye has clearly picked up only what is best from both modern and classic fashion, and mercilessly discarded the rest. This is swank, girl-getting, aristocratic stuff.

Be prepared for at least three fittings (it’ll be worth it). Also be delightfully prepared for a bill that is likely to be not much more than four grand (for a two-piece suit; price depending on fabric). The reasonable pricing is a good excuse to order a second pair of trousers, which is always advisable when buying bespoke. Unless you’re under thirty, it’s like purchasing a guarantee that the suit will last as long as you do.

The playwright George Kaufman once famously said, “I will always remember the year 1937, because in that year I received a suit from a tailor exactly the way I asked for it.” If what I saw last week was any indication, you can get that feeling at the Paul Stuart Custom Shop year-in and year-out.

Words and photo by Barry Pullen

The Italian Necktie

I write this while sitting in a London hotel room waiting for the maintenance man to arrive and fix the shower, which we did not notice was broken until after he departed the second time, having fixed our thermostat the trip after he unplugged the bathroom sink. Once I can shower we will head over to the Wolselely on Picadilly for an early dinner to be followed by an early bedtime. Jet lag you know.

Should we eventually get out, I will be wearing an Italian necktie, that being the silk foulard in the photograph. I call it that not because you will find it in Italy - indeed, you would be as likely to find it at the ASW store, or Drake's Clifford Street store in London as you would be to find it at Marinella in Naples. Tie makers around the world use the same English silks just as they use the same Italian grenadines.

Tie makers are making many of the same neckties, but the proportions of what their customers wear is dramatically different. The English are seen in quite a few woven ties while on any particular day the majority of necktie wearing Italian males will have chosen small patterned foulard printed ties with navy grounds. I do not know why this is, but walk through the business district of Naples and take an informal poll. You will find that the blue foulard is the Italian necktie.

And that really tells the tale. Forget lined, unlined, tipped or untipped. Just have a navy blue foulard.

A Touch Of Evening Color

It is black tie season once again and one way to add a discreet touch to evening clothes is to wear a pocket square that reflects a color in the evening's dress set. In the photo, a maroon square complements the stone in the visible stud.

Solid squares are safest but patterned squares may be considered. I have been of two minds about them for evening wear over the years however Britain's Prince Charles often wears a patterned silk in the breast pocket of his dinner jacket. If one were to follow in those royal footsteps, a black and gold silk with a white ground would complement onyx on gold studs, for example.

Buttons on the shirt front of course invalidate this particular trick, but they mean only that a colored square is unsupported on the shirt front. That is hardly a problem. After all, a man can always wear white silk twill.

If It Was Good Enough For Tiberius

Blog posting for the coming two weeks may be even more erratic then usual, for I will be holidaying in Italy where the WIFI can be and usually is hit and miss to say the least. Most of that time will be spent on Capri, the island in the Tyrrhenian Sea that was the home of Tiberius when he was emperor of Rome and that is all the recommendation a reasonable man needs.

One of the many good things about Capri is that when a man tires of views and small cafes he can get on a hydrofoil and be in Naples or Sorrento in less than an hour, where he can enjoy views and small cafes (this means that you may expect the occasional post having to do with views and/or small cafes). The trip will not be entirely pleasure of course, as there will be fittings at Davies & Sons and George Cleverley in London as well as Napolisumisura in Naples.

I admit that the trip is principally self-indulgent but I hope to be able to share enough of it to keep you interested.

Brown Suits

Tobacco brown is a jacket color all its own. I like it best with a maroon/brown necktie or a purple one and that is perfectly understandable when I look at a color wheel, where crimson is only two shades counter-clockwise from purple.

I resisted tobacco suits for many years, no doubt influenced by the adage against brown in town and/or Charles Revson's more recent (and pungent) comment. Now that I spend more time outside the city, those days have passed, and I realized the other day that I have not one but two brown suits in the works and neither of them is tweed. One is a tobacco gabardine double breasted and the other a single breasted worsted with one of H. Lesser's subtle glen checks on a dark brown ground.

I have always worn tan, and the odd brownish tweed, but the cotton suit in the photo was my first recent venture into brown. I realized that it was not enough when I found myself meeting a supplier for the second time and he pointed out that I was wearing the same suit I'd worn to see him the week before. That got the brown thing going, and purple ties have followed close behind.

The Cashmere of Cotton

The cashmere of cottons has been grown for 300 years in the West Indies. That is of course Sea Island, the cotton with a 50% longer staple length and a finer, more uniform texture and greater overall strength than more common varieties. These days the entire annual harvest of the stuff, representing a small fraction of 1% of the world's production and carefully monitored to insure that is not diluted with lesser fibers, is shipped to Brescia, Italy where it is spun into a very fine, lightweight yarn that is strong, lustrous, and possessed of an exceptionally soft hand.

Sea Island cotton is used much like any other fine cotton, in handkerchiefs, underwear, dress shirts, polos and socks among other things. Its relative rarity commands exceptional prices that are often double the price of good but not great commercial grades, just as the cashmere to which it is often compared commands a substantial premium over wool of comparable quality. But, like a restaurant with three stars in a red Michelin guide, Sea Island cotton offers a far better than ordinary experience. Worth a special journey.

The Internet Necktie

The internet has done a number of very positive things for menswear (where would the travelling Hong Kong and Neapolitan tailors be without it?), and it has had as many unexpected effects. Take, for example, color. Online merchants report that colored neckties are the ones that sell online, the brighter the better, which makes perfect sense considering that the customers are looking at photographs that give little or no sense of texture, hand, finish, or whether a tie is pressed flat and lifeless. But color is easy to see.

The sad thing about this of course is that it is the most elegant neckwear that suffers, if neckties can be said to feel pain. Grenadines, cashmeres and madders lose out to brightly colored silks, irrespective of the fact that a man's command of texture has more of an impact on how well he dresses. Just as Mr. Clark Gable's tweed jacket is more interesting than a black twill, so his subdued madder necktie complements it better than a bright silk reppe might.

Inevitably our computer and phone displays will eventually become capable of showing texture but for now the internet necktie is a brightly colored thing.

It Is Good To Maintain Standards

One wonders what the interior decorator that selected the decor for his private railroad car was thinking, but the late Mr. Lucius Beebe, chronicler of society in his New York Herald Tribune and San Francisco Examiner newspaper columns, bon vivant and one of the best dressed men in America, maintained the practice of dressing for dinner throughout his lifetime. A long-time customer of Henry Poole, he most likely introduced Herb Caen, perhaps the last well-dressed San Francisco journalist, to that house. Beebe here combines a gray smoking jacket with iced champagne.

It is good to maintain standards.

Scarf Season Approaches

It will be time to think about scarf season soon, lest cold air make itself all too well acquainted with our chests. Fortunately, the first shipment of scarves and mufflers for Autumn has arrived at the ASW store, including half a dozen cashmere, silk, wool and silk and lambswool and angora combinations from Begg of Scotland and Drake's London.

The principal difference between scarves and mufflers of course is a foot of length. Mufflers are fine for tying ascot style in the vee of a jacket or overcoat. The extra length of a scarf encourages other sorts of looks, including the braided knot that is the warmest of them all.

Joining the scarves this week are several new styles of cashmere knitwear that will accomplish similar cold resistant things to related portions of the torso. A look In New Arrivals will be rewarded.

On Single Sided Cufflinks

I had an email telling me I must be wrong about cufflinks the other day. The writer's argument was that since all the links he had ever seen had the easy on easy off cross bar on one end, links with a cross bar must be perfectly acceptable (they are of course, in the same sense that an uncanvassed jacket is acceptable - they have their place but well dressed men can and do do a lot better).

Mentally replace the inner side of Harrison Ford's links in the screen capture from the 1995 re-make of Sabrina and observe how the world becomes a less elegant place.

Blue

Blue. Particularly midnight blue. It is better than black for evening clothes, so why not for a hat that will principally be worn under the stars?

Save The Date

At 16,000 feet (5,000 meters) altitude there are 40 degree temperature differences over the course of 24 hours. To cope with this, the South American alpaca has evolved a lightweight covering that wears cool in the heat and warm in the cold. The mystery, at least to me, is why with those qualities it is no longer used for tailored clothing.

I have had a mild fascination with alpaca since I first read of it used as a tropical suiting in John le Carré's The Tailor of Panama. That had some credibility for me because I have seen an alpaca lined tweed from the late Duke of Windsor's wardrobe. But there is no alpaca in the cloth books, nor has anyone I have spoken to seen it in living memory. There are Peruvian knitwear makers however their use of the stuff for clothing is limited to cardigan sweaters and the like. Puzzling, and Mr. le Carré' has never replied to my letter asking him about it.

All this is preamble to the events of September 29 and 30, which are National Alpaca Farm Days in the United States, an opportunity to visit alpaca farms across the United States.

You know you want to. Save the date.

Is It Bespoke?

I had a conversation with Joe Hemrajani of MyTailor about laser measuring for shirts and tailored clothing the other day, and it raised an interesting if somewhat obscure point in my mind. Now by this we are not talking about the in-store booths at Levi Strauss and others that scan you to tell what ready to wear models will best fit someone with your waistline, chest and inseam. Some of those programs also offer made for the individual clothing with customized features, but the product is clearly not bespoke.

There is however another level to this technology, where a man strips to his underwear and is scanned for up to a hundred individual measurements (which is ten times as many data points as are taken by the typical bespoke tailor). The measurements are entered into a computer-aided design program that - and here is the heart of the matter - creates an individual pattern for the shirt, jacket or other garment in question. And that individual pattern, my friends has historically been the thing that differentiates between bespoke and made to measure clothing.

There can be process differences of course. The bespoke tailor takes fewer measurements expecting to modify his pattern and the garment over the course of several fittings. Most scanner users hope to dispense with fittings altogether by virtue of the laser's increased accuracy, but to me the question arises when a tailor takes the garment produced by that scan and makes any required adjustments. That is of course the bespoke process to a metaphorical tee.

Scanning technology is probably better suited for shirtmaking than it is to tailored clothing at this time, shirts being considerably simpler than jackets. But the principal cost in the bespoke process is the usually very well paid man who makes the pattern, and the advancing age of many of those men is the principal reason that bespoke tailoring is becoming rarer every year.

There is another element to this of course, which is that someone has to design the garment to be made in the first place. An Anderson & Sheppard pattern has to be different than one from Huntsman if it is to accommodate that house's style. But once designed, perhaps by a specialist, the pattern could be converted into garments indefinitely without the aid of a traditional cutter.

Is it bespoke? Sure sounds like it to me.

What A Difference A Shoe Makes

André Churchwell wears a nicely accessorized linen suit that becomes dandy's garb when worn with brown and white spectator shoes.

Change out the specs for a pair of chestnut oxfords and ordinary mortals could wear the ensemble without drawing anything other than appreciative glances.

Book Review: On Tour

For about two hundred years, the movements of the English Royal family defined that country's social season. They were in London from April through July and from October through Christmas and during those months well-bred young women were launched into society with a formal introduction to the monarch and six months of parties, balls and other events. Over time, some of those events ranging from concerts to horse races bacame milestones on the British social calendar.

The kiss of death for the formal social season occurred in 1957 when Queen Elizabeth ended the practice of debutante presentations at court, but many of the events, such as Royal Ascot and Wimbledon, live on. And in 2009 Debrett's, the publisher of Peerage & Baronetage, the genealogical guide to the British aristocracy, attempted to define a modern social season with the publication of On Tour: Debrett's New Season from Glyndebourne to Glastonbury. Instead of social occasions built around debutantes, Debrett's redefined season is comprised of dozens of European events that are worth attending because they are interesting of their own accord.

On Tour was sponsored by Mercedez Benz so it is perhaps no coincidence that each of the events is within driving distance of London, and the descriptions of many of them include driving directions with points of interest along the way. But, rather than a distraction, this adds to the book in my opinion. Where there are no directions, there are recommendations for complementary activities, so that, for example, the pages on The Grand National horse race include recommendations for a hotel, restaurant and a complementary weekend activity or two in Liverpool. Who would have known?

There is something for everyone in On Tour, ranging from auto races to food festivals to the Vienna State Opera Ball and the book will be useful to remind the reader of opportunities for variety on trips that might otherwise be spent only in hotels in various capital cities. For that it is highly recommended.

192 pages and about £25.00 in the UK or $30 on Amazon in the United States.

Autumn Will Be Worthwhile

Thank you to the several hundred subscribers who were kind enough to complete a survey of how they felt about the ASW story this past week (one of them won three of my Best Jacket Hangers).

Among other things, I learned that 85% of the respondents rate our service as excellent, and that they want us to carry unlined Neapolitan neckties once again (that has been a long road but we will have them as soon as the tiemaker's ASW labels arrive). The feedback will result in several new lines and improvements that will be rolled out in the coming months, beginning with a new telephone ordering system.

Speaking of new, autumn begins next week at the store, a little later than planned due to a few small logistical nightmares. But please stop by as there will be dozens of new neckties, scarves, socks, knitwear and interesting new items online as quickly as we can complete the photography. And if I do say so myself the stuff is little short of spectacular.

Autumn may be a few weeks late but I think you will find it worthwhile.

Searching For Francois Pinton

Aristotle Onasis wore them. As did Cary Grant. Them being Francois Pinton sunglasses. I have a pair and want more, so I find myself back in Las Vegas at some sort of international eyewear expo. But Pinton has apparently stayed home in Paris this time.

Las Vegas has more to offer than eyewear fortunately. There is baccarat at the Bellagio, food at Michael Minna's and O, an aquatic spectacular by Cirque du Soleil.

Paris is next. The search continues.

Holiday Clothes

Unless the holiday is in a major city where all the usual customs apply, the ideal clothing for a not-too-hot holiday in my opinion is a safari jacket over fresco trousers worn with saddle shoes. The combination has it all. The jacket has plenty of pockets for everything from passport to sunscreen. It can be worn over a polo or a tee, and dressed up with a scarf when the occasion calls for it. Or not. The trousers wear cool and resist wrinkles, and the saddles keep looking good with polish or without.

With those in hand man needs little more than a duffle with his underwear, swimwear and a change of shirts; a companion; a straw hat; a motor scooter and a locale like the Mayan or Amalfi coast.

Goodby Panama Hat

September 15 is the end of what once was straw hat season in the United States. As I wrote a couple of days ago in another context, since civilization spread beyond London and New York most of these traditions have been replaced by the requirements of local weather; nonetheless tailored clothing has a darker palette for the new season and a felt hat just seems to complement things a bit better.

Hats shield the head from sunburn and light rain of course, but in my opinion they also look better than sunglasses with a suit, perhaps because the suit and the hat are contemporaries while sunglasses are relative latecomers. Horn and tortoiseshell frames can be OK but the combination of dark lenses and shiny metal frames seems out of place with tailored clothing somehow. But I digress.

Conveniently for warm weather hat wearers, beaver felt is offered in a lightweight version and so this week I will be taking out my pork pie. Goodbye Panama hat.

Be Overdressed

Forget the old saying that it is wrong to be overdressed. That adage was promulgated before sweats and trainers became the lowest common denominator and denim the trouser for better occasions.

Now it would be too much to wear a suit when everyone else is in cut-offs and tees, but dressing one step more formally than the majority of people at any social gathering is definitely more in than out of place. That is the time for something like Mr. Grant's glen check suit (perhaps worn with a rollneck instead of a necktie) when others are in blazers and cotton trousers. Just make it an ensemble that would obviously not be worn to the office.

Be overdressed. It is so easy to do.

Continue Wearing It

Labor Day used to be considered the last day of summer as well as the end of the summer white or seersucker clothing season. That latter custom has departed, as has much of the day's end of season connotations. Children no longer return to school at the start of September and men can wear their summer clothing for as long as the weather permits. Even Emily Post's Etiquette, a relatively conservative auuthority, gives the OK in its 17th edition.

Most seersucker is blue or gray of course, but André Churchwell's is pink. And he will continue wearing it.

For Walking With Garbo

A man needs more than one overcoat, assuming he lives in a climate that requires coats to begin with, and it is time to begin thinking of one should you be in need. A first coat should usually be a tan or khaki raincoat with a zip-out lining, and the second something to wear to and from the office, such as a herringbone or a guard's coat in dark brown, mid-gray or navy blue. And if there is a third, that might well be a Chesterfield in charcoal gray or midnight blue (either color is fine so long as it is different from coat #2).

Invented in the mid 19th century by George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield (it was the 4th of that line who wrote the famous Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman), the popularity of the Chesterfield rose in parallel with the spread of the lounge suit. Replacing as it did the frock and other body coats, it has a relative lack of waist suppresion in the classic cut and a made to measure or ready to wear (if you can find one) Chesterfield is nearly indistinguishable from its bespoke cousins, which makes it a good value as well as good looking.

That is not the only positive to the Chesterfield of course. A plain or herringbone Chesterfield is the most appropriate thing to wear on solemn cold weather occasions and in the evening, and also does double duty as day wear in a city whether or not one is called upon to walk with the most famous actress of her generation.

Typically a three button fly fronted single breasted, the Chesterfield may or may not have a black velvet collar (those had a practical advantage before men washed their hair - when the collar got dirty only the velvet needed replacing) and can sport either notch or peak lapels with peak preferred if the coat is to be worn with black tie. And it should ideally fall a couple inches below the wearer's knee.

Gray suede or yellow chamois gloves are the smartest choices to accompany a daytime Chesterfield in my opinion, as is a silk scarf. Choose black gloves for evening and a white scarf with white or black and white fringed ends will make a good partner at night so long as it is removed when the coat is checked. Oh, and a homburg hat. The time for Mr. Beaton's Coke in the photo has passed.

Are You Ready For The Rain?

The ASW store is newly stocked with SWIMS overshoes for the coming rainy season. SWIMS do a great job of protecting fine leather shoes from rain, snow and mud and are offered in colors that (mostly) blend with your shoes so you don't look silly by, for example, wearing black overshoes with brown oxfords.

Choose from dark brown for brown shoes, black for black shoes, a dusty olive that goes with either black or brown, navy for wearers of navy raincoats and general lovers of blue, and orange (orange goes with nothing but is highly visible should you be stuck upside down in a snow drift).

Are you ready for the rain?