One Design To Rule Them All

I have always found it interesting that though there are different sizes and constructions there is essentially one shape of four in hand necktie. Contrast that to the bow tie, where speaking generally there is but one size and construction and several different shapes (I include the skinny bow as a shape rather than a size but I will not hold it against you if you hold a contrary opinion). Butterflies, diamond points and skinnies are perhaps the most common of those shapes, with the butterfly by far the most popular.

The butterfly's very popularity is reason for a change of pace of course. The shape of one's tie is one of the few variations allowed with the dinner jacket (the other being the shoes, socks pocket square, style of shirt and type of waist covering), so there is good reason for the man who dresses for dinner more often than rarely to own at least two styles. And then there is day wear, where Sir Winston Churchill popularized the white on navy dotted tie.

The Churchill spot as that design is known is to the bow tie roughly as white moiré braces are to the suspender market post Daniel Craig, which is to say that Churchills may well outsell every other design and colorway added together. The nice thing about the Churchill of course is that it goes with most of the classic suitings, whether navy blue, tan or gray as well as blazers and many other odd jackets. Those men who wear the bow, most of whom are doctors, architects and other professionals who are bending over into their work constantly as well as dandies seeking a change of pace, should own the Churchill in a couple of shapes. For one design rules them all.

Photo: Le Noeud Papillon

The Extravagant Neck

It was cool the other day, but not to the point of requiring a topcoat, and that called for a paisley silk scarf. When a man is wearing flannel trousers and a tweed jacket as I was, most of him stays warm enough until temperatures fall below 50 degrees (10 Celcius). The exception to this is of course the vee of his jacket opening, where only the cotton of his shirt may protect him from the elements. That is where either a waistcoat, sleeveless sweater or scarf comes in handy. Of those I prefer a scarf.

Easier to remove when entering heated rooms, the scarf, that precursor of the necktie, may as you know be made for warmth from wool, cashmere, angora and blends thereof. The best looking of them in their odd jacket complementing context are however silk printed with dots or paislies, which by the way is nearly as warm as its woolen relations. Tied in a loose four in hand with the front blade thrown over the knot, they give something of the look of an extravagant necktie to the day's clothing (remember, we are pairing silk with tweed in this context and not business worsteds where a more conservative solid cashmere may be a better pairing with navy pinstripes).

The best silk scarves today are made from heavy printed silk which is either pressed into a tube, so that the printed side is always visible, or backed with cashmere for extra warmth. They can be pin fringed, meaning there is half an inch of light thread at each end, or hand fringed with three inches of knotted silk. The latter is a richer look, in keeping with the sporting textures and colors of tweed.

The scarf wardrobe need not have as diverse an assortment as the neckties in a man's closet, but there ought to be a reasonable amount of variety. Perhaps two solid cashmeres for the office, white for evening, and a pattern or two for less formal occasions. If at least one of the latter can be a richly colored silk, all the better.

All That Is Needed

Semi-solid gray suit, shirt with turnback cuffs and a respectable pair of cufflinks, foulard necktie tied in a four in hand and a white linen square in the breast pocket are all a man needs to be well dressed during the day, as the late Noël Coward demonstrates. The boutonniere is optional, being better suited for social occasions than business.

Contrast the blended ease of this ensemble with a high contrast black suit and red necktie combination, or even the standard politico's navy suit and red tie. Mr. Coward is more comfortable looking in his clothes, and that is as it should be.

Black Gloves

Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush wears gray suede gloves to play the lead in the Giuseppe Tornatore movie The Best Offer. And that is a good thing for, as I have preached in the past, black gloves are like black suits for day wear. A man can and should do better.

It is only partly with tongue in cheek that I declare that black gloves are foist upon an unsuspecting public by retailers who want more than anything beyond a good marriage for their daughters to reduce inventory. And if a man is going to have but one pair, black gloves complement his black suit. The trouble with all of this of course is that the majority of men wear their semi-formal clothes to the office during the day, and that is when black is at its least complementary. Far better, in my opinion, to have one pair of gloves in a gentleman's gray or yellow and look at one's best more often.

Men with more than one pair of dress gloves in their wardrobes do need a pair of black of course, for evenings and funerals. Those should be leather, as they usually are, because the polish of calf is at its best in the evening. Just leave them at home before dark.

Francesco Smalto And French Tailoring

The 60-year career of the Parisian tailor and designer Francesco Smalto spans French tailoring from its last great heyday in the 1950s and 1960s to the current era of confusion between tailor and designer, between increasing rarefaction and increasing banalization. The publication of Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine, a hagiography of Smalto’s 50 years in business on his own account, provides an occasion to revisit the evolutions in that world.

Smalto’s own perspective is telling from his career path: a talented tailor who initially spurned conservatism and embraced fashion-forward designs, later also embracing designer ready-to-wear when it became clear that bespoke tailoring (and its sister, haute couture) were parting ways with the retail (and cultural) sweet spot of bold design and accessible prices and distribution. Now, at the tail end of his career, as bespoke tailoring has a rearguard resurgence, the circle is complete, and the time is perfect for Smalto’s last bow, reclaiming the guise of tailor.

Smalto’s biography, recounted in Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine, involves most of the important French tailors since the end of the Second World War. Instructively, it shows that the currents of fashion and of bespoke tailoring were not always in conflict. Bespoke tailoring did not always stand for defiantly timeless elegance as so many current scribblers would have it. Smalto was drawn to Paris from his native Italy, inspired by the reputation for innovation and design of the couturiers Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Dior and Jacques Fath. Arriving in 1951, he took an apprenticeship at Cristiani, a leading bespoke tailor described in Gay Talese’s Unto the Sons whose goodwill was purchased by Charvet around the beginning of this millennium. From there, Smalto moved to the tailoring firm of Joseph Camps, where he stayed for six years, becoming head cutter.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Camps to French tailoring at this period. The premier tailor of the time, Camps set the midcentury French tailoring silhouette that Michael Alden of the London Lounge has lauded and described much more knowledgeably on his site with the visual aid of Jean Gabin in Touchez Pas au Grisbi: long, unpadded shoulders with roping at the sleevehead, slightly drapey but with a degree of structure. The cut conveyed ease and comfort while remaining masculine and powerful. Many Camps alumni from the period, including Henri Urban, Claude Rousseau, Gabriel Gonzalez, Dali’s tailor Francesco Rovito, and, of course, Smalto himself, went on to become famous tailors in their own right. Camps was also a founding member of the Groupe des Cinq, a group of five leading tailors in Paris who set the seasonal styles for men’s fashion in the 1950s and 60s. It included Camps and Max Evzeline, whose tailoring houses still exist, along with André Bardot; the fourth and fifth members, depending on one’s source, included Gaston Waltener, Socrate, Charles Austen, Gilbert Feruch or Mario de Luca (who later merged his firm with that of Camps to create Camps de Luca). It is utterly amazing in the present day to consider that bespoke tailors were setting fashion not so long ago. Yet back in that day, as the tailors of Savile Row attempted to interest men in the neo-Edwardian look and Huntsman dressed the English World Cup team, French pop singers could name-check top tailors the way that hip-hop artists do with their favorite designers and Cristal today. Witness Claude François in “Ce Soir Je Vais Boire” (“Tout d’abord je vais bien m’habiller, costume Camps, cravate Cardin… Je visiterai avec méthode tous les clubs de St. Germain”). Cloclo, as he was sometimes called, would also become a customer of Smalto, along with Charles Aznavour and (somewhat unexpectedly) Julio Iglesias.

Smalto’s experiences in Paris left him feeling that while women’s fashion was dynamic in Paris, men’s clothes never changed. A visit to London to view the products of Savile Row led him to feel that English tailoring was heavy and rooted in the past, lacking the finesse and modernity of Italian tailors. (This is a rather stereotypical complaint, usually from Italian designers trying to sell us factory-made ready-to-wear.) In 1961, he left Paris for the New York outpost of the tailors H. Harris, where he was exposed to and (surprisingly) impressed by both the sacklike ease of American suits and the quality product coming out of American ready-to-wear clothing factories. Returning to Paris and finding a backer in the form of a Franco-Italian Camps customer, Smalto opened his own bespoke shop in 1962 with a philosophy of cutting close to the body. He spurned the Groupe des Cinq, and by the mid-1960s was showing his designs alongside those of Courrèges (a bizarre A-line men’s bespoke suit with contrasting turtleneck detail, cuffed shorts and light-colored thigh-high boots pictured in the book does indicate some shared inspiration). Smalto’s American visit and his stated prescience about the decline of bespoke tailoring inspired him to enter ready-to-wear in 1967, after having dressed American astronauts (off duty) and collaborated on fashion shows with Balenciaga. He reportedly designed his ready-to-wear line himself until 1991. The 1970s saw him continue to play with unexpected designs and materials (including velvet, jersey, and a crêpe de chine from which he cut the “world’s lightest dinner jacket”)), while opening satellite boutiques around the world, including Rabat and Tokyo. And in 1987, he hit the designer’s jackpot of launching licensed perfumes, eyewear and accessories. In 1989, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, and, more recently, his business designated an entreprise de patrimoine vivant, a national distinction awarded to prominent artisans. At the beginning of this millennium, Smalto sold his business to an entrepreneur, supposedly to ensure its survival after his retirement or death. And the survival of the Smalto house, of course, would be based on the Smalto legend.

All this drove me to consult Francesco Smalto: La Passion d’un métier 30 ans, published in 1992 as the catalog and monograph for a retrospective at the Hôtel de Sully in Paris celebrating Smalto’s 30 years in business. Francesco Smalto: La Passion d’un métier 30 ans is very much of its time, with a preface by Françoise Sagan and special “patronage” by Mitterand Minister of Culture Jack Lang. This was a time, lest we forget, when bespoke tailoring and any clothing formality in general were in sharp retreat, faced with post-1980s reaction against conspicuous consumption, economic recession, the rise of business casualwear and the grunge fad. As such, Francesco Smalto: La Passion d’un métier 30 ans is full of gorgeous pictures of clothing, but those pictured post 1980 are generally ready-to-wear, while the pictures of bespoke creations (many of which also ended up in Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine 20 years later) appear to have been chosen for their creativity rather than the undoubted excellence of their tailoring. And, in a sign of changing times, the 1992 book refers to each bespoke garment as “haute couture,” a term most men would consider irrelevant to their clothing, while the 2012 book calls the same clothes “grande mesure”, a slightly precious term for “full bespoke” (in French, the term sur mesure is usually employed for custom clothing, but can mean both bespoke and made-to-measure (i.e. from adjustments to a stock size pattern)). Still, whatever one calls them, Smalto’s 1960s bespoke designs are enjoyably complicated and beautiful to contemplate if impractical to wear outside of one’s Roman Coppola fantasies – consider two dinner jackets, one double-breasted in grain de poudre with ghillie-collar and a broadtail astrakhan front, the other single-breasted in alpaca with vinyl braid and a metal buckle closure instead of a button, each reflecting a marriage of fashion-forward design and men’s bespoke tailoring before their divorce became socially acceptable.

Both the 1992 book and the 2012 book also make much of Smalto’s forays into costume design and wardrobing, including Jean-Paul Belmondo in many movies and Sean Connery in The Great Train Robbery, as well as his love for Proust’s writing and affectation of wearing an orchid in his buttonhole. Indeed, Smalto even commissioned a fabric in orchid fiber (fibre d’orchidée) mixed with cashmere and silver fox.

But 2012’s Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine also has an amusing Proust questionnaire in the style of Vanity Fair magazine, and it’s there that the reader gets a rare glimpse of some personal quirk from Smalto, as opposed to his book’s relentless tone of satisfied valediction. In the midst of otherwise banal answers, Smalto states that his favorite (male) fictional hero is “any character played by Chuck Norris.” Coincidentally, another prominent Paris tailor, Marc de Luca of Camps de Luca, trained with Norris’ fellow 1980s martial arts icon Superfoot Wallace. I wonder if they ever get together, fire up A Force of One, and talk chop-sockey.

True to our tailoring-fascinated time, Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine also includes sections discussing bespoke tailoring in worshipful terms designed to impress those unfamiliar with it, including a short interview with peripatetic French fashion blogger Hugo Jacomet about the whys and wherefores of bespoke that brings the narrative into line with contemporary Internet groupthink about timeless values of quality, somewhat contrary to Smalto’s own stated values of change and modernity. It is also ironic that eighteen months ago Jacomet dismissed a Smalto bespoke suit in a Dandy magazine review of top French tailors as being, despite the very high price, little different from luxury ready-to-wear. But then, for years, Francesco Smalto the man has had little to do with the bespoke side of his business, except, according to Monsieur, if one happened to be a head of state or some other VIP.

And with rather charming naïveté, Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine describes how, following the oil crises of the 1970s and early 1980s, petrodollar-rich tycoons, kings and despots would come to Smalto – or fly him out by personal jet if they were too busy – and order so many clothes at one time that his workrooms couldn’t keep up. And how Smalto worked to make the outward appearance of his suits identifiably Smalto without needing to look inside for the label, through the shape of his lapel notch and the roped shoulder of his suits. And how the house of Smalto attempted to deter such large orders by repeatedly increasing its prices, to deterrent levels, but that only made such customers more keen, so that Smalto finally began limiting the number of garments customers could order from him at one time. Read with today’s more judgmental eyes, this is perhaps more embarrassing than impressive to the sophisticated tailoring customer, but they (I don’t dare say “we”) may be thin on the ground. In response to the Internet-inevitable Francophobic comments about the nature of such customers, the tailors of Paris hardly had or have a monopoly on controversial customers. While, thanks to ties of culture and language, they may have the custom of the wealthy and powerful in Francophone Africa (including, in Smalto’s case, the late King Hassan II of Morocco and dictators such as Omar Bongo of Gabon) and the Middle East, the tailors of Savile Row attire those of the Western-dressing Middle East who don’t go to Paris, along with Russian oligarchs, generations of North and South American robber barons, and historical villains from Napoleon III to Von Ribbentrop to Bernie Madoff, while the Internet’s favorite Neapolitan tailor, Rubinacci, has just opened a custom tailoring outpost in the Saks Fifth Avenue in Almaty, Kazakhstan, apparently to harvest that country’s new petrocrats. Along the way, they’ve all dressed many decent men too.

But Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine fails at convincing us of the greatness of Smalto the business due to the greatness of Smalto the man. By all accounts a formidably gifted tailor with brilliant commercial sense, Smalto has clearly become the most financially successful of the Paris tailors of his generation through his move into ready-to-wear and licenses. He has maintained a bespoke tailoring operation at the same time, but has ceded most of that work to his tailors and undercutters. This is understandable – I’m not of the school that insists my tailors have to work until they die in a garret. But tailoring should be more than a recognizably flashy cut and Smalto’s signature built-up shoulders. The midcentury French silhouette no longer exists as the house style at the tailors who remain in Paris, the most prominent of whom assert their claim to some sort of proprietary house style of powerful shape – which is not to say that the output of today’s Camps de Luca, Cifonelli or Charvet (yes, in addition to its preeminent bespoke shirtmaker, Charvet has a bespoke tailor who can compete with the best of them) is anything to frown at. As knowledge of what actually makes for a quality suit gets rarer, certain of the most famous Paris tailors each strive for identifiable house styles verging on idiosyncrasy. Cifonelli, which has absorbed two others of Camps’ best alumni, Gonzalez and Rousseau, has an eye-catching shoulder that flares forward, while, according to the paeans in The Rake magazine, the house style of Camps de Luca has evolved into a close-cut, powerful sort of thing. Smalto has his built-up shoulders (“a structured shoulder with soft lines,” whatever that means) and, based on his book, a business plan that emphasizes the continuation of his designer ready-to-wear without any mention of how he could or does keep his bespoke tailoring at the level he set as a young prodigy with boundless ambition at the dawn of his career.

And so, at the twilight of his career, Francesco Smalto: 50 ans d’élégance masculine lays claim to Smalto’s timeless elegance, without it being readily apparent from the past styles shown that Smalto had or wished for timelessness in his designs. Rather, we are left with an impression of a man who knew how to anticipate and thrive on the enormous changes in his discipline over the course of many decades, able, perhaps, to be a man of his time many times over. Smalto created memorable and interesting designs and suited the great and the morally ambiguous for decades. His career, to me, is an object lesson in the impermanence of any presumption to timelessness, or, as his former rivals, retrenched from the catwalks of the Groupe de Cinq’s fashion shows to dusty shopfronts or mezzanines or a mental note for an ebay search, might have realized too late, the power to set style.

Words by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Just In Time For Summer

Renowned for its lightness, breathability and subdued character, Carlo Riva shirting is the principal offering of the best Italian shirtmakers (including Kiton, Mimmo Siviglia and Anna Matuozzo). Woven on very slow old looms that give extra softness to the fabric compared to cloth woven by more modern machinery, Carlo Riva shirtings are renowned for their lightness, breathability and subdued character. And though they are light as a feather, they press beautifully and last for many years without sign of wear.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Carlo Riva cloth is that it has been vitually impossible to find in North America. ASW hopes to remedy that, beginning with two of the Riva linens just in time to be made up for spring. A mix of 60% linen and 40% Egyptian Ginza cotton, Riva’s Lino Arsenal is wrinkle resistant, feels like voile, and does not chafe. It is not inexpensive but will provide pleasure for many years to come.

In partnership with MyTailor.com, ASW is happy to send your order directly to their offices to be made to measure to your specifications for the CMT price of $99 a shirt.

An Argument For Cold Rooms

Photo: Daniel Hanson

Avoiding Castles In The Sand

The internet is a crazy place. Unlike life, where it takes years of work to establish a reputation, a new market entrant can catch lightning in a bottle and find itself popular overnight. I have seen (and participated in) that popularity cycle too often over the years and far more often than not it has been an example of castles in the sand.

Sand castles can be beautiful things, requiring a great eye, technical skill and a considerable investment of time. But they are difficult to build in any quantity and disappear overnight. So it is with the new bespoke tailor or shoemaker, who may do excellent work for one or two high visibility customers and is then overwhelmed with orders that far exceed his or her personal ability to produce. Once the ramp up to volume fails, it is often followed by the disappearance of the entire enterprise. Then, life being what it is, two years later a new entrant builds another castle and the cycle repeats itself.

All that said, how can a man take advantage of the latest exceptional value or beautiful design by a suddenly popular but previously unknown supplier? There are two things to remember, in my opinion.

First, and most important, start small and stay small. One garment or pair of shoes at a time will limit the losses should the new enterprise fall apart. This rule is the reason I use multiple tailors, even though I have worked with some of them for many years.

Second, be alert for any signs of business stress. Flee at the first sign of late deliveries or poor quality. Small failures can happen to even the most established enterprises, but remember that things within a new firm are always worse than they appear. If word of mouth about the stresses disappears over time, you can always order again.

Bespeaking anything is unlike buying ready to wear, where the buyer can see what he is going to get. Even the best makers will produce the occasional suit that is a little too tight despite several efforts to fix it, or shoes that are a quarter inch too long for your feet. Added to the already considerable cost of the stuff is the price of the occasional failure, and there is no way around it. But with care you can avoid castles in the sand.

Catch 22

I have been searching for just the right line of small leathergoods for the ASW store for a couple of years now, and my recent visit to Paris had as one of its objectives finally coming face to face with the mysterious Vassant Faugoo, the genius behind Beynat et Janniaux.

Beynat is not very well known in the United States but the firm claims to employ about fifty people who make wonderful things from ostrich, alligator, lizard, python and stingray. I say apparently because I have never been able to get in contact with them. They do not respond to emails sent to the address on their web site, nor do they return telephone messages, at least not those left by men in San Francisco. No problem, I thought to myself, when presented with my irresistable charm surely we will be able to talk about doing business.

At any rate, on my shopping day in Paris the other day I hired a car and driver and made the not inconsiderable trek out to rue Montiboeufs in the 20th to see Beynat for myself. The workshop is up a small alley, and after knocking on that door I was directed to another, unmarked entrance behind which I was promised lay the office. I duly rang the bell and after a short wait was greeted by a woman. I told her my story, visiting from San Francisco, blah, blah blah and she responded that I had to have an appointment. When asked how I could be expected to get an appointment when no-one returned emails or telephone messages, she repeated that I needed an appointment. When asked if I could make an appointment for the following day she responded that I needed to call.

Perhaps it was the wool challis bow tie worn with a pin striped suit. Or it could have been the pigskin tassel slipons. But I am still looking for just the right line of leathergoods.

Maintenance: The Steam Station

Laundering shirts at home can be good way for men who a) do not employ a laundress and b) are willing to learn how to iron to occupy themselves during spectator sports. Shirts come out brighter and wrinkle free, and careful laundering can double the life of a shirt (of course, the principal challenge with this kind of activity is that maintaining both shirts and shoes at home can take up a good part of a day each week and probably borders on obsessiveness).

I learned my shirt laundering echnique from a master, Alex Kabbaz, and there is no reason to duplicate work that can be found on his site. No, the only thing I can add is that home launderers should consider a steam station style iron like the Rowenta Steam Station DG5030 in the photo (about $175). A steam station's high volume of, you guessed it, steam takes the creases out of shirts faster and easier than any dry iron. At less than ten minutes apiece (as little as five with experience), laundering shirts at home is far more practical than you might think. And if you are one of those fortunate men who have found a launderess to employ, s/he will do better work with the right tools.

Lifestyle: Barolo

Winter’s wine is colored red and knitted with ripe fruit, firm tannins, and palate cleansing acidity. Your choice might be the Rhone Valley’s Hermitage or Cote Rotie; Australian Shiraz, or Californian Zinfandel. Mine is Barolo.

The Barolo zone is located in Italy’s Piedmont region, an area bordered on three sides by the Alps. The cold Alpine air mixes with warm currents from the nearby Mediterranean Sea creating a constant early morning fog. This “nebbia”, the Italian word for fog, is the root for the name of the region’s most important grape, Nebbiolo, and the source for Barolo.

Southwest of Alba, Barolo is a very limited wine area with five principal villages: Serralunga d’Alba, Monforte d’Alba, La Morra, Castiglione Falleto, and Barolo. It was only thirty years ago that viticulture, winemaking, and wine regulations produced Barolos that were often astringent and brownish, requiring fatty meats to offset the tannic structure. Small vineyards ruled throughout the villages, and owners planted everywhere, often mixing other agricultural products with their vines. But by the mid-1970s, a few winemakers began to change things.

I began traveling to Piedmont and the Barolo zone in the early 1980s. It was a time of upheaval and family fights about winemaking. Traditionalist wanted to retain the practices of harvesting large amount of grapes (with many unripe and all with high acidity); employing long fermentation lasting 3 weeks to a month (that extracted nebbiolo’s intense tannins); and five years of aging in large old barrels (that often resulted in brownish, oxidized wine).

The modern camp recognized the changing world of winemaking and tastes. They advocated controlling the vine’s yield, a short fermentation of days or slightly more than a week, and limiting the aging to two to three years in small new French oak barrels that would soften and tame nebbiolo’s tannins.

The opposing sides often inhabited the same house, the same street, and the same village. It was the Piedmont version of the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Today, those arguments are settled. Some Barolos are New World-shaped: extra ripe raisin-y fruit aromas and flavors, plush tannins, vanilla and coffee-laced from extravagant use of new French oak barrels. A few maintained most of the traditional techniques and style. And others choose to adopt modern viticulture and winemaking without throwing tradition out the window. My palate favors the last style as exemplified by Pio Cesare.

Pio Cesare has been a respected name since its founding in 1881 by Cesare Pio. Recently, Pio Boffa, the founder’s great great-grandson, was in New York presenting a retrospective tasting of his Barolos. Boffa explained that the Piedmonteses have a tradition of reversing names, which is why the winery is named Pio Cesare.

Boffa was born in 1954, and began working in the winery with his father when he was 17-years old. In 2000, he assumed full responsibility with the retirement of his father. Boffa doesn’t push the modernist envelope too much. His wines are in the mainstream of Barolo winemaking styles, which allow for current enjoyment while maintaining Barolo’s aging potential.

We began the tasting with the bright red 1982. It was winemaker Paolo Finnochio’s first vintage at Pio Cesare. He is still at Boffa’s side making wine. The 1982 marked other changes at Pio Cesare: in the vineyard, vines were pruned in late July and August to reduce yields (known as a “green harvest”). With less stress, the vines produced fewer but riper grapes. In the cellar, fermentation was introduced in new stainless-steel, temperature-controlled tanks. Thirty years later, the 1982 remains fresh with fruit and floral aromas, tasty fruit flavors, and balanced with Nebbiolo’s natural acidity.

The other three mature wines in the tasting were the 1989, 1990 and 1997. All are alive-and-well with translucent red color, aromas and flavors ranging from cranberry to cherry to black cherry, and tannins that are integrated and supporting the ripe fruit. The 1989 was the middle of three great Barolo vintages, 1988-1989 and 1990. It was the first time in Piedmont’s record keeping that great wine was produced in three consecutive years. This set was a harbinger for the coming of a warmer climate that would produce six consecutive ripe years from 1996 through 2001.

Cellared properly, these older wines will offer pleasure for years, possibly decades. Each of the four vintages occasionally appears in the auction market, bearing a cost of around $100 per bottle. The 1982 and 1989 are no longer in the retail market; the 1990 and 1997 can be found at a few stores with the 1990 having a price tag of about $150 and the 1997 around $85.

These mature vintages contain the essence of Nebbiolo: its resemblance to Burgundy’s translucent red hue, ethereal fruit and floral scents and delicate texture; and there is a slight bitterness in the finish that Italians seem to love in their wine and other beverages. Consumers unfamiliar with Barolo think it to be a massive wine. It is not—unless you drink the ultra-ripe modern style. At its best, Barolo is like a fine cashmere scarf around your neck on a winter day.

We entered this Millennium with glasses of the 2000, 2001 and 2004 Barolos. From candy red to black cherry-colored, these three youthful Barolos billowed fruit fragrances and coated the palate with lush, ripe flavors built on refined tannins and harmonizing acidity. The 2001 was the peacock with its depth and length and the most New World-styled. It demanded your attention. Its older sibling, the 2000 is a more classic Pio Cesare wine; and the younger 2004 displayed exuberant red fruit and vivid acidity. If you drink any member of this trio, decant it for at least an hour, and if possible, two hours.

The 2000 and 2001 Pio Cesare Barolos retail for approximately $90; the 2004 is about $75. Only the 2000 has entered the auction market, at about $60 per bottle. All will age gracefully for 20 to 30 years.

The most recent vintages of Pio Cesare Barolo in the market are the 2007 and 2008. The 2007 is an opulent wine with its rich aroma and flavors and creamy-vanilla finish. Its very modern style seduces you from the first taste. The 2008 also has the seductiveness that comes from the softness and vanilla imparted by aging in new French oak barrels. But both need at least five years of cellaring to forge a uniformed personality.

From the 1982 to the current vintages, Pio Cesare has continued to make its Barolo from grapes of its vineyards in Serrulunga d’Alba and La Morra as well as purchased grapes from nearby growers. The result is the wines of this decade have the DNA of the earlier vintages, showing that at Pio Cesare, progress is the slow and steady march of building on its successful past.

Words and photo by John Foy

Pump Up The Volume

Our car recently got a flat tyre, and I leapt at the opportunity to prove that while ostensibly an office-bound aesthete I’m also man enough to change a wheel. However, once the jack and wheel brace had been fished out of the car’s trunk a problem arose. And the problem was that my trousers were cut so slim that I couldn’t easily kneel down in them to use the wheel brace.

This happened one Sunday afternoon and I was wearing a pair of jeans, some casual shoes and an old shirt. Yet wearing a 21st century iteration of a garment originally designed for Californian miners rendered me near-incapable of even the lightest manual labour. It was one more reason to dislike tight clothes.

The origins of the current skinny look lie in the work of Hedi Slimane, who, in the first years of this century, dramatically slimmed down the prevailing male silhouette while designing for Dior Homme. This established a dominant aesthetic that real guys simply cannot emulate – very few men over the age of thirty look good in the clothes, regardless of the intensity their gym routine. It’s probably no coincidence that when applied to tailoring this second-skin silhouette neatly side steps the need to use decent fabric, because a tight suit isn’t going to drape whether it’s made of luxurious 18oz flannel or cheap 9oz twill.

Casting one’s eye over the style icons of the past, from JFK to Gianni Agnelli, it’s obvious that men’s clothes are at their best when they create a silhouette, rather than merely skim frail flesh. This is something that Tom Ford knew when he launched his menswear line, but, judging by Daniel Craig’s “spray-on” suits in Skyfall, he now appears to have forgotten. The good news is that men who use tailors are well placed to distinguish themselves with an elegant, but fuller silhouette that’s cut to flatter their body shape. The bad news is that this fails to address my need for some proper jeans.

Words by Mansel Fletcher and photography by Chloë Lederman

Final Reductions

Those Going, Going, Gone items that are still with us are now reduced an additional 30%. They will not get any less expensive, so take a look before the opportunity is lost.

Well Done

Today's photo of tailor Edward Sexton is about as good as English dress gets in my opinion (I say English only because it differs from the Italian school, not because one or another is better). Save perhaps for the shirt collar the clothes are proportioned to his body (a man with a smaller figure, he wears a four by two double breasted buttoned to the buttom a la the late Duke of Windsor), the palette restrained, and the use of pattern will raise no eyebrows. All that said, the ensemble is anything but dull.

Were I to pick nits, I would substitute closed laced shoes for the open laced bluchers, narrow the necktie and for most occasions I might change the silk pocket square to linen or cashmere. But that is about all. Well done.

Forget About Necktie Folds

Forget sevenfolds, fivefolds, twelvefolds and any of the exotic necktie constructions in the marketplace. Unless he spends his time examining the insides of his neckties, a man cannot tell one from the other. There are really only two kinds of quality neckties in my opinion, and those are the lined and the unlined threefold.

Used as we are to the English way of doing things, the unlined threefold is not as well known as the lined. It is the necktie of Naples, where the heat lends itself to clothing that is lighter in weight. Its delicacy means it must be sewn by hand as the pressure of a sewing machine is more than it can bear. And more folds of silk defeat the purpose.

The second type of necktie is of course, the English style, which adds a wool interlining to the same silks used in unlined ties. The interlining gives the tie some heft and also makes it easier to construct by machine, which can in turn reduce the cost substantially and that is a good thing.

The lined tie is the domain of the folds, as it were. It is true that the earliest ties were simply silk folded over on itself, but false that they had interlinings. Extra folds of silk in a lined necktie are marketing extravagance, adding nothing to the appearance or wearability of the tie. Indeed, they add cost, delighting the silk weavers who sell their stuff by the meter, but those "hand made" ties are sewn by machine, which is why a seven fold tie costs about the same as a hand made unlined threefold (the extra cost of the silk is offset by the reduced cost of the construction).

There are but two principal styles of necktie construction, and the thing they have in common are round folds at the edges. Ties that have been pressed flat and lifeless are the sign of poor quality irrespective of the price of the tie.

For myself, I like both constructions. Interlining lends itself to the heavier woven silks, and that is the domain of the English. Printed silks are lighter, and that is consistent with the unlined style. But three folds of either is enough. Forget about folds.

In the photo, one of my unlined Neapolitan neckties.

How I Would Be Content

It is always a pleasure to visit London and Paris, where the suit is a more common sight than it is in American cities. This past trip I was reminded how much my dress has been influenced by my time in the suburbs (which will be ending soon as I plan to move my own office back to San Francisco). Brown suits and odd jackets are fine as far as they go, but some days a man just misses dark city suits like the one worn by the late Baron de Rede in the photograph.

The combination of dark shoes, a charcoal or navy suit, dress shirt, foulard necktie and white linen pocket square is where we came from post frock coat. It is too often relegated to evening wear today. By choice I would wear blind brogues, a good pair of cufflinks and a six button double breasted most weekdays, and be content.

When A Man Is In The Mood To Be Dandy

When a man is in the mood to be dandy, an odd vest is to my mind the easiest and least expensive way to express one's inner peacock. Consider for example Dr. André Churchwell in the photograph, and then compare him to his more conservatively attired self. The element that pulls the eye is the vest (and to a lesser extent the mid-brown shoes).

Lavishly large lapels and bright red suitings have their adherents, but are unnecessary. Simply change the vest on an otherwise ordinary business suit.

Dreams Are My Reality

While the term sang de boeuf translates more or less literally to “oxblood”, in leathergoods that translation evokes a sort of flat burgundy color popular in the 1980s. In ceramics, sang de boeuf is the term for a lustrous, deeply contrasted and highlighted blood red patina derived originally from Chinese firing techniques, later becoming the province of a few specialists. That’s what the Antiques Roadshow said, anyway, all those years ago when I first noticed the jewellike gorgeousness of sang de boeuf patina and mentally filed it away with other daydreams (we all do that, don’t we? Don’t tell me I’m the only one.). It came back to me some time later in perusing one of Berluti’s catalogs. At that time, that French brand offered to color and patinate new shoes in any imaginable hue, from brilliant turquoise to sober black, gratis with purchase. (I suspect Berluti’s subsequent expansion may have undermined its ability to provide this level of service.) I was less taken, however, with the models of shoes in the catalog and with what well-worn versions of such shoes looked like, courtesy of the Japanese shoe aficionado websites which were at the time the only sources for real “shoe porn” as we obsessives called it.

No, my sang de boeuf daydream came true along with another minor whimsy, the offset tassel design inspired by another French house, granted by English shoemaker Edward Green. Green’s erstwhile Top Drawer program allowed customers to order shoes from Green’s vast present and past catalog of models and to specify certain pattern changes. The model I adapted was an offset tassel loafer called the Paington, specifying that the tassel detail be added to a longer-vamped model with skin-stitched apron and toe seam, the Sloane, on Green’s chiseled 101 last. Allegedly mothballed currently, the Top Drawer program also supposedly drew on an even higher level of care and attention to detail than Green uses in its regular shoes, about which I’ve been quite boosterish in previous posts, so no need to revisit that now. Certainly plenty of Green customers have caviled online about Green’s English bloodymindedness and miscommunication on their shoe orders, but I’ve been lucky for the last few years and on this order, the fineness of the toe stitching (done, like the piecrust apron front, by hand with a boar’s bristle) and the closeness of the welt is the best I’ve seen short of bespoke.

Like patination, skin-stitching has spread from being the specialty of one ready-to-wear maker (Green) to being offered by a few (among them Gaziano & Girling, Crockett & Jones and Lobb Paris ready-to-wear), but Green still does it the best. More surprising was the perfection of the sang de boeuf patina, antiqued and burnished by hand to a lambent depth. Berluti, which helped popularize heavily patinated shoes, ascribed its shoes’ ability to take patina to their so-called Venezia leather, a supple but thin leather which could crease easily. As the sang de boeuf patina of my Greens shows, it’s possible to achieve a beautiful depth of color on the more substantial leather of quality English shoes. In recent years a sort of pre-antiqued line of leathers made the rounds of a few shoemakers, mottled and streaked through a process of sponging the leather at the tannery. It ended up on some of the shoes from Lobb Paris’ RTW line, and was, like many of their recent designs, a bit of a misfire. It’s more fascinating to wear shoes whose patina still has an organic aspect, in the sense of having had different layers of polish applied and accrete over time, even if that time was prior to our acquiring the shoes in question.

The sleekness of this shoe is a further reminder that a Goodyear-welted shoe can have the same lightness and fineness as a Blake-stitched shoe. For a clearer explanation of the contrasts between these two construction methods, I’d suggest reviewing Vass & Molnar’s Handmade Shoes for Men, Helga Sternke’s Alles über Herrenschuhe, or L’art de se bien chausser, but in brief, certain makers, including Berluti and a few other French and Italian labels, attach the soles of their shoes using a Blake machine which (gross oversimplification) stitches through the inside of the shoe directly through to the sole. This supposedly allows for a lighter shoe but (unless one’s cobbler has a Blake machine) makes it more difficult to resole the shoes properly and, allegedly, makes the shoes more prone to soaking through in the rain (although if you’re in a bad rain in leather-soled shoes of any construction, it’s really not your day). The English ready-to-wear makers prefer to welt their shoes with a Goodyear machine, invented over a century ago to approximate handstitched soling techniques, where (again, gross oversimplification) a leather welt attaches to the body and to the sole, providing, supposedly, greater durability and longevity. Green usually cuts the welt close to the sole for an elegant profile, but here it trimmed it even more finely and (a self-indulgence I allowed) beveled and fiddled the waist of the shoe. The Blake-Goodyear false dichotomy is pervasive – a recent vanity history of the tailor-designer Francesco Smalto mentions a customer who ordered different styles of suits depending on whether he wanted to wear them with his Blake-stitched or his Goodyear-welted shoes. As both methods are machine-stitched, I wondered why someone who could afford Smalto bespoke didn’t just have his shoes handmade.

Which leads, finally, to a broader reflection about what really is a handmade shoe. Suffice it to say that none of the shoes mentioned in this piece are really handmade, as in welted by hand the way that a good bespoke maker does. But it’s better to find a pair of shoes that fits than to chase down a shoe for the sheer idea of it being handmade. I’ve been lucky to realize the daydream of my Greens, which are lasted by hand and made with a great deal of care, more, in fact, than those of a well-intentioned, reasonably priced handmade shoemaker I tried some years ago. But I’ve also tried very hard to nail down my fit (both size and width) in a given last and style (loafer, laceup or boot) before ordering. So don’t buy a pair of shoes online without checking the fit no matter how much you’ve dreamt of owning a pair by a certain label. For if ill-fitting suits affected one’s health the same way ill-fitting shoes do, most men would be cripples.

Words and photo by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Don't Tell My Wife

A friend was discussing travelling tailors when he mentioned one who’d recently scheduled his London visit over a weekend, rather than during the week. My friend shook his head in disbelief and said, “Who is going to see a tailor at the weekend, when they’ll have to admit to their wife where it is they’re going?” In that moment I discovered that there is a brotherhood of men who are less than entirely honest about their shopping habits.

Everyone knows that women frequently hide their clothing purchases from their husbands, but we men are guilty of the same. Last month I mentioned to the menswear writer G. Bruce Boyer how, that morning, a rather frosty atmosphere had settled over my breakfast table after my wife inadvertently discovered that, later in the day, I was to be fitted for a new Shetland jacket by my tailor. Mr Boyer wrote back to me, “I’m sorry to hear about your Shetland. Every time my wife asks me if I’m wearing a new jacket I brush it aside with, ‘You mean this old thing? God, I’ve had it forever. I’m surprised you never noticed it before.’” He then reassured me by saying, “It’s a relatively harmless obsession, as far as obsessions go, isn’t it?”

Following this I was in a haberdasher’s last week and mentioned to the manager that I didn’t need my new ties boxed, because if they were discreetly wrapped in tissue paper and placed in my bag it would be easier to smuggle them home without attracting the attention of my wife. The manager laughed, and said, “You all do it! I used to have a customer [the manager used to work for shirt maker Emma Willis] who’d buy bespoke shirts ten at a time, but then screw them up and stuff them into a laundry bag to take them home, so that his wife wouldn’t notice.”

No wonder Mr Tom Wolfe calls it ‘The secret vice’.

Words by Mansel Fletcher and photography by Chloë Lederman

Drive.

Gianni Agnelli, perhaps the best dressed man of the second half of the twentieth century, wore his red bow tie drivers with a gray flannel suit. New on the ASW store, my drivers are made in Italy of red calfskin with a leather lining, and look great with suits, khakis and everything in between.

When To Wear Braces

Among the less attractive but still enduring images of my youth is one of the late comedian Mr. Jackie Gleason dressed in a white undershirt with braces over the top. Though they are technically underwear, this combination probably represents the most extreme example of when not to wear braces. Do not let it influence you too much however, for under the proper circumstances braces are undoubtedly the best way to support a man's trousers.

As a wiser man than I once said, "Trousers should hang from the shoulders, not from the waist." That is because braces have the highly desireable attributes of helping one's trousers to hang better, wear more comfortably and require less adjustment over the course of the day than alternative methods. The negative is that they are more visibly obtrusive than belts or unadorned trouser waistbands, and so the rule of thumb is that they are best worn under a jacket, and best avoided without one. And because of that, they are increasingly desireable as a man's clothes increase in formality.

Another way of repeating that guideline is that braces relate to the formality of a man's clothing in inverse proportion to the amount of time he will have his jacket off. That makes them a blessing for white and black tie, where the jacket is never removed, and nearly as useful for suits, particularly vested suits. Conversely, they should not generally be worn with naught but a shirt and trousers.

It is between those two extremes that questions most often arise about brace wearing, and again I refer the reader to that guideline about jacket wearing. Personally, I wear braces under odd jackets, as does Michael Alden, proprietor of The London Lounge, in the photo, and I do so with and without a necktie (they obviously work over a knit worn tucked into the trousers, and perform the same function under a knit that is worn untucked). On the other hand, I eschew braces with shirt jackets because I tend to remove those throughout the course of the day.

And so, dear reader, let not Mr. Gleason's poor example inhibit you from wearing braces whenever appropriate.

Photo: Michael Alden/The London Lounge

Pitti

Arrived in Florence after a 90 minute flight in a seat designed for a twelve year old, to find that the hotel I had reserved was not the one intended but its sister in Siena a hundred kilometers away. Thank dog for smart phones. Fifteen minutes in a seat at the airport found the last room at Via La Vedetta overlooking the city.

Pitti itself is the same, though the pavilion seems warmer (perhaps dressing for Scotland was a mistake). Natural deerskin gloves and cashmere braces were among the highlights of an afternoon capped off with a wonderful Inis Meáin cardigan. I shall try to get a photo.

Never Pack In The Dark

A family emergency left only two hours in which to pack for my current trip, and that was before the sun rose. Packing in the dark did not work well. I arrived at my first destination to find that the only suit in my bag was navy rather than charcoal, which might not have been so bad had all of the accessories I packed not been intended to be worn with charcoal. I will grant you that gray socks with a navy suit are not the end of the world, but when you dislike the combination of black and dark blue as much as I do, a selection of neckties with black grounds is discomfiting.

Enough things go wrong when a man packs in the dark that I am resolved to add more lighting to my dressing room. Consider, for example, the cufflinks in the photo. The center pair is actually one link apiece from two entirely different pair, thrown into the jewelry bag unnoticed, Until it was time to wear the black pair anyway. Fortunately I had the dark red ones as orange links are too light hearted for a solemn occasion.

My advice may be obvious to most of you, but to any man who has not thought about it, take it from one who has learned the hard way. Never pack in the dark. When there is something wrong with your clothing every day it becomes impossible to choose it with care and then forget about it. Which of course is how your clothes should be.

Scarves In Paris

I am not certain how I got the impression that I would have some time for myself this trip, and that became even less likely when the after effects of the flight from Miami to Paris sent me to bed after lunch. And it appears that a planned day in Siena will be bumped by the need to pay a visit to Milan later in the week. C'est, as they say, la vie.

It is my favorite city, but the reason for the stop in Paris is to seek out some things for the ASW store before heading to the menswear show in Florence. As it has been these last three years, the weather is gray and 50 degrees (10 C), which is once again too warm for the overcoat I commissioned especially for winter trips to the continent (that is too wrinkled from the suitcase in any event). There is no sign of snow. Most French men are wearing coats to keep off the chill but they are not particularly warm ones. Well over half of them are wearing scarves though, usually knotted in the Parisian fold.

Scarves represent a change for the better from Caillebot's rainy day in Paris illustration and, to my mind, more of us need to emulate the French in this regard. Worthy neck warmers on their own, scarves serve the additional function of covering the necktieless throat, hiding the floppy collar that usually accompanies such efforts. Well, when a man is not wearing a rollneck anyway.

Rollneck wearer that I am on this trip, I brought only one scarf to wear with the navy suit I packed for my business day in the city tomorrow. One of those fringed paisley silk on one side and cashmere on the other jobs, it is about as conspicuous a consumption as a man with any pretense of discretion gets. Plain camel cashmere might have worked just as well, but it would have been less fun.

Lifestyle: A Champagne For Every Occasion

We tend to think more about Champagne around the holidays than during other times of the year. It's a mandatory component of New Year's Eve, of course, and other holiday events provide ample occasion to partake of a bottle or two.

But Champagne is more than just a beverage for festivities. It's suited to a wide variety of occasions, perhaps more so than any other wine: few wines feel as naturally at home over brunch as they do late in the evening, and few are as widely adaptable to different social contexts, from elegant cocktail receptions to casual dinner parties to a quiet evening with a date. Champagne can readily be dressed up or down, and it's as comfortable on an average weekday night in front of the television as it is on the table of a three-star Michelin restaurant.

Its ability to pair with food is often overlooked, which is a pity, as this is an area in which Champagne excels. When served with food, it's almost always paired with hors d'oeuvre, or perhaps with light fish courses, yet the vast diversity of style in Champagne ensures that there's an example to suit nearly any dish (or at least any dish that's wine-friendly).

One of the most pertinent characteristics of Champagne in this regard is that it's refreshing, or it should be, anyway. It's a wine of pronounced acidity, which amplifies flavor and stimulates the appetite, and the bubbles, too, help to cleanse and refresh the palate. This works wonders with oysters or shellfish, taking the place of a squeeze of lemon that might otherwise be called for. It's also particularly useful in juxtaposition with rich foods, or anything with a high fat content, as Champagne provides the perfect foil. In a related vein, every sommelier knows that Champagne is a terrific partner to anything fried, from tempura to fried chicken to French fries.

As with pairing any wine with food, it's important to take the weight of a Champagne into account. A light, crisp blanc de blancs, for example, can be a fine accompaniment to a plate of freshly shucked oysters or a delicate piece of fish, but a roast chicken or a saddle of rabbit calls for something a little more substantial, perhaps a blended Champagne or one that has been fermented in barrel. Few people think about Champagne with fowl and meats, but duck, quail and squab are sublime partners for richer styles of Champagne, or even rosé Champagnes, and there's no reason why a robust, pinot-based Champagne couldn't be paired with a steak or some other cut of meat.

Champagne, of course, is also delightful without food, preferably enjoyed in the company of a partner or a group of friends. It lifts the spirits, working equally well as a celebratory beverage or one of consolation. It's difficult to be unhappy when drinking a bottle of Champagne, and it creates an atmosphere of revelry and conviviality. As the clock approaches midnight on New Year's Eve, you wouldn't really be drinking anything else, and yet, it’s easy to find plenty of other opportunities throughout the year to drink Champagne as well. Indeed, the opening of a bottle of Champagne is practically a celebration in itself.

Words and photo by Peter Liem

Book Review: The Perfect Gentleman

In his 1987 book Savile Row, still the best book on the topic from which all later books on the subject have borrowed extensively, author Richard Walker described the difficulty the tailors of Savile Row, generally small establishments of a few highly opinionated craftsmen each, had trying to agree with their neighbors to form an association and find a PR who could make the case for that neighborhood of English craft trade against the threats of rising rents, changing fashions and the incursions of Italian and Japanese designers . 25 years later, it seems that in James Sherwood, author of The London Cut, Savile Row: The Master Tailors of British Bespoke and most recently, The Perfect Gentleman: The Pursuit of Timeless Elegance and Style in London, they have finally found a worthy marketer. One can only hope that it is not too late.

The Perfect Gentleman is essentially a companion volume to Sherwood’s picture book Savile Row: The Master Tailors of British Bespoke, apparently intended to round out the wardrobe and habits of the man who, parthenogenetically, has sprung into the world with nothing more than Anglophilia and a well-stuffed Asprey wallet. That is, The Perfect Gentleman presents the remaining bespoke shirtmakers, shoemakers, jewelers, gunmakers, stationers, umbrella shops and other related purveyors of gentlemen’s requisites in London whose product would complement the clothes and the fantasy lifestyle conveyed in Sherwood’s earlier coffee-table book on the tailors (and designers styling themselves tailors) in Savile Row. As such, it is lavish in size and in the number of gorgeous photos of elegant shops, their merchandise, and their emblematic customers (although, predictably, Astaire, Churchill, the Duke of Windsor and the Duke’s grandfather Edward VII reappear with enough frequency to become almost tiresome). And while many of the shops discussed aren’t surprises (the bootmaker John Lobb, the wine merchants Berry Bros & Rudd and the gunmaker Purdeys, for example), certain, such as Fox Flannels, the shoemakers Foster & Son and my beloved Edward Green, or the wonderfully wonky shirtmakers Budd of Piccadilly, delight with their unexpected inclusion.

Similarly to Savile Row: The Master Tailors of British Bespoke, The Perfect Gentleman discusses each shop in individual chapters of several pages of prose studded with interesting factoids and sensuously shot pictures. Perfect in length and depth for the purchaser to peruse for inspiration or aspiration over his morning coffee. Charmingly, however, each set of chapters forms a chronological section, framed with a short history of the styles and fashions of the period during which the shops giving rise to his subtitle’s “timeless elegance” were founded, from the Restoration to the past century. Thus, The Perfect Gentleman commences its survey of stores with the hatters James Lock, founded in 1676, and finishes with discussions of the contemporary shoemakers Gaziano & Girling and the jeweler Shaun Leane. Afterwards follow short pieces on the shopping arcades, hotels, restaurants and men’s clubs that the notional perfect gentleman would patronize, with no surprises. But setting out that comprehensive, hermetic world of perfection, throws into relief the cliché of this book’s premise – a perfect gentleman of yesteryear would be too occupied in the sniping and one-upsmanship of the hierarchy of London clubs to discuss them monolithically, and would spurn any discussion of his shops as they were, simply, shops and not dream destinations. But this book is not intended for deep or critical thought.

Reading The Perfect Gentleman did provoke some depth of thought about how it differs from Thomas Girtin’s wonderful 1960 book Makers of Distinction (published in the US as Nothing But the Best). Like The Perfect Gentleman, Makers of Distinction discussed gentlemen’s craft makers in the West End of London, including some of those covered in The Perfect Gentleman, but with far fewer pretty pictures and much more content about history and craft. Then as now, each author introduced his subject with fear for the future and a recognition that these artisans of British luxury were threatened. And then as now, the perfect gentleman who would read such a book and visit the gunmakers, wine merchants, shirtmakers, shoemakers and so on featured might have been a perfect gentleman, but would have been too perfect, too clichéd, and in the current day too wealthy, to be a British one. No doubt such gentlemen, if they exist, would not have needed such a book about shops theirs ancestors were born to patronize and that they could not afford. Perhaps the difference in approach between these two books says something about the difference in the ages they were written. It certainly says something about knowledge and interest in quality clothing, which now is treated as a fad and was then taken as a given. Thus, The Perfect Gentleman’s pictures and prosody are likely as essential to its goal of broadening the scope of clientele by interesting the readers of its day, attention-deprived and magpie-eyed, into becoming new customers of the London craft trades as Makers of Distinction’s no doubt seminal investigation into shops and crafts whose original, nearly extinct patrons took for granted was in its day.

A wonderful surprise opening The Perfect Gentleman is its introduction by one of my sartorial heroes, the actor Terence Stamp, discussing his fascination as a young man prior to his big break in Billy Budd with the shops of these arcades and hushed West End streets, urging the reader to visit them metaphorically and physically before their threatened “dilution” becomes a reality. Stamp was famously not only a customer but a knowledgeable devotee of the best classical men’s bespoke makers in London (among them the original George Cleverley (pre-retirement) and the Savile Row tailors Helman), choosing a home in the abode of perfect gentlemen for centuries (Albany in Piccadilly), yet appropriated what he loved best of their heritage, craftsmanship and tactile beauty and rendered them his with his own indelible, well, stamp. And I instantly recognized his photo in The Perfect Gentleman, standing in the Burlington Arcade in sharp suit, white bespoke Cleverley shoes and rakishly flared-brim hat, from the inaugural issue twenty years ago of the shortlived Esquire Gentleman, a wonderful little publication that introduced me to Stamp, Bryan Ferry, Cleverley, Ballantyne and so much more. Even in 1993, he was stockpiling bolts of cloth and observed that the best makers and suppliers were under threat. It made an impression on me. He was right.

Given The Perfect Gentleman’s emphasis on the best of British-made craftsmanship, it is ironic that a major signing of this book took place at Ralph Lauren’s enormous new flagship on the Place de la Madeleine in Paris, as Lauren has made billions using the ethos of these makers and small shops to sell clothing and accessories made more cheaply in Italy and China, contributing to the dilution Stamp identified, and to their likely inexorable disappearance. (In anticipation of counterthrusts from internet punters about Lauren’s continued use of certain British makers for his top lines, fewer and fewer of his Purple Label shoes are made by Edward Green or Gaziano & Girling, both of whom are profiled in this book, with production instead moving to somewhat lesser quality shoes in the same styles from Silvano Sassetti.) I hope that this book inspires some of its readers to graduate from Ralph Lauren to the real thing: from the shirtmakers Budd of Piccadilly to the cloth house Fox to the umbrella makers James Smith, this book has that in spades. And following the example of Terence Stamp, to make their own explorations of these shops, and based on those discoveries, their own interpretations of the trappings of a contemporary gentleman, avoiding the trap of chimerical, nonsensical perfection.

Words by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

Reductions Continue

More items are now on sale. Enjoy reductions of 30% on selected neckties, 40% on clothing and 60% on clearance items in the ASW store, with free ground shipping in the continental United States. Visit Going, Going, Gone to see what's been added. .

Nothing Need Match

The epitome of nonchalance in a man's dress is when the items worn bear little relation to one another and yet work as a whole, as they do in today's illustration from Esquire. I have to admit that I am unable to emulate such flair very often; my eye in this case would have inevitably led me to a necktie that picked up the maroon checks in the jacket, just as yesterday's navy rollneck complemented the dark blue in that jacket's pattern. I might even have thought about replacing the yellow shirt in the illustration with something tan, but that would surely have been too much.

Nothing need match.

Traipsing Around Dress

I had been pondering what to pack for a visit to Paris next week, to be followed by the Pitti Uomo show in Florence and a few days in Tuscany. I have several days for tourism for a change and, secure in the knowledge that none of the photographers at Pitti will care about a man without the necessary bracelets and other accessories, have decided to pack what I think of as faux college professor clothes. Meaning everything but the pipe.

Now dressing like a professor may not seem like much of a change for many people but it is considerably different from my regular look. With the exception of one suit for Paris I will be in tweed jackets and flannel trousers for most of the trip. Perhaps even more radical, said tweed will be accompanied by rollneck sweaters and long sleeved polos instead of dress shirts and neckties (deep down I feel as though I must be letting down the side or something).

The word faux comes into play in this case because in my limited experience few real professors are wearing tweed jackets to traipse around the Musée du Louvre and the Duomo di Siena these days. Nonetheless, it has been years since I have done anything like this and it will be fun of a sort that only clothing obsessives may understand.

In the photo, a tweed jacket, flannel trousers and Edward Green walking shoes are worn with a cashmere rollneck from the ASW store.

A Most Useful Necktie

If a man were to have but one necktie in his wardrobe, one could make an argument that it should be a black silk grenadine. Grenadine's texture gives it visual interest despite its subdued coloring, and it goes with just about anything, from gray jackets through Mr. Bond's brown suit in the video capture from Goldfinger and, a bit less successfully, navy blue.

There are two types of grenadine, each woven by Fermo Fossati of Como, Italy, whose old shuttle looms also produce the world's finest shirtings. The more textured is the honeycomb patterned Garza Grossa worn by Bond and the other the finer, more mannered Garza Fina. Either is appropriate for business as well as more serious occasions such as funerals or the failure of one's government to do anything meaningful to address governance and financial challenges that make those of Greece and Spain look trivial.

Grenadine neckties are more of a type than conventional silks. For one thing the Garza Grossa in particular must be lined, lest the wearer's shirt be visible through the loose weave. The bulk of the material also rules out multi-fold construction as anything more than a three fold is too bulky (that same bulk means grenadines ought only be tied with four in hand knots as either of the Windsors produce too large a knot).

As to the color, Beau Brummell began wearing black stocks, the necktie of his time, to reduce his laundry bills early in the 19th century and black neckwear has been ubiquitous ever since. It is always correct, just as colored bow ties worn with dinner jackets are always wrong. And that makes the black silk grenadine a most useful necktie.

The Day After

You have my permission, as if you needed it, to wear something more casual than black tie on the holiday that is the first day of the new year.

Public appearances on days like today are the proper domain of the casual suit, by which I mean something patterned like the one worn by Charlie Watts in the photo, or rumpled like anything linen, or both. Whether woolen, linen or worsted, the closet of every suit-wearing man should have at least one casual suit for cool weather and one for warm (two per season is preferable if you are going to wear them with any frequency). And men who do not wear suits in their work lives may have them for social occasions.

Choosing casual suits requires a man to walk the border between city and country. Pinstripes, or any pattern automatically acceptable in the office, do not meet the criteria and neither do loud tweeds such as the ones you might wear to go shooting. Choose instead a houndstooth or glen check where the check is too large for business, or one of the more conservative tweeds such as a dark green herringbone.

Casual suits need cost no more per wear than the rest of a man's wardrobe. The day after is far from the only time the they come into their own. Casual suits are ideal for travel, assuming you are not a man who chooses fleece for the first class cabin of an aircraft or the Eurostar (one of my fonder pre-marital memories is of being picked up by a flight attendent who was captured by my gray herringbone).

The best argument for casual suits to my mind is that they are so rarely seen. Everyone has odd jackets. To stand out without shouting on the day after, wear a casual suit.