Peter Harvey's Coming to Town

He's come and gone actually, but Peter Harvey of tailors Fallan & Harvey brought a jacket with him for fitting and that always feels like a visit from Santa even though I pay for it.

I didn't bring anyone with me to take a photo this time so we laid the jacket on a sofa. It's an 18 ounce gun club tweed with crescent pockets and a two button front that will be ready in the summer. Peter makes quite a few crescent pocket jackets for Japanese clients who, like me, are looking for something that evokes the late Duke of Windsor.

The visit also provided the opportunity to start a flannel suit for Fall. It will be made from the London Lounge triple check cloth that's been written about here before, in a three button single breasted that rolls to the center button, with a shawl collared double breasted vest. All in all, a bit of holiday spirit in the midst of Spring.

Everyone Has Off Days

Everyone has off days, even the Duke of Windsor. The short sleeve shirt and matching necktie just don't work together.

No One Wore Evening Clothes Better

Men's clothes change slowly but they do change. Every century or so, the most formal clothes in the male hierarchy disappear, to be replaced by what had been the second most formal. And what we're seeing today are the late stages of the replacement of white tie with black tie, and black tie with the suit.


And so I thought it appropriate to recognize the epitome of formal and semi-formal evening clothes. No-one wore them better than the late Duke of Windsor.

There is little variation permitted in formal dress but even so the Duke's waistcoat was a bit better than everyone else's. And of course he popularized many of what were the innovations in black tie itself, from midnight blue as black to the double breasted dinner jacket.

I understand that we don't change for dinner any longer but the general disappearance of evening clothes leaves the world a poorer place.

Delightful Asymmetry

I don't like the half-windsor and the other triangular necktie knots. They're just too regular for me. Instead, give me a slightly asymmetrical four in hand every day. The too-fashionable example in the photo from Robert Talbott is hardly irregular but it's the shape I like. Big enough to fill a cutaway collar but not too big for a tab.

Emulating the late Duke of Windsor, I have my neckties made a bit thicker than normal, so I get a knot about the same size as a half windsor. Or I'll loop the wide end of a ready-made necktie an extra time around the knot to make it a bit larger and shorten the ends at the same time. Either way, the tie hangs just slightly askew, and that degagé air is, in my opinion, the way it should be.

Quotation: Men Influencing Fashion

"Few individual men have influenced fashion since Beau Brummell, for ridicule and scorn often reward those who turn off the modern highway of conservatism. Perhaps only those in positions of power or who possess great social prestige can defy fashion successfully. The Duke of Windsor, when he was Prince of Wales, defied convention. He wore straw hats instead of the customary Englishman's felt hat in summer, loud checks and suede shoes, and resented stiffly starched shirts for evening. With a real goût de scandale he would appear at a formal reception in lounge clothes. If the ordinary man today were to appear in some of the unorthodox hats and highly coloured tweeds that the Prince modelled he would doubtless become an object of ridicule."

-The Glass of Fashion by Cecil Beaton

Reader Questions

From Chris

"I have a friend getting married in two months. He is going to wear morning clothes (yeah!) but is having difficulty locating the proper neckwear. Cravats are hard to come by in number, it seems. Do you have suggestions?"

Macclesfield four in hands would be equally appropriate (that's what the Duke of Windsor wore to marry Wallis and HRH Prince Charles did the same when he married Camilla Parker Bowles) but there should be no problem securing cravats from New & Lingwood or Budd in London.

Quotation: The Boulevardier

"The Duke stands on Cannes station in this sunny post-war summer of 1946, a dapper figure in his tussore suit the colour of lobster bisque, rakish straw panama, two-tone brown and cream shoes, bumble-bee striped socks and silver-topped cane.

'I'll make a boulevardier of him yet,' says Noel Coward."

- Suzy Menkes, The Windsor Style

Reader Questions

From Peter

"I'm wondering how you store your trousers. I've tried a lot of hanger options, but the creases always bother me, especially with rough cloth like woolen flannels. Would you advise folding them instead and storing them on a shelf, or is that not advisable either?"

The best way to store trousers is to hang them by their heels, but I don't believe anyone with a wardrobe actually has enough room for that. The trousers in the photo to the left belonged to the late Duke of Windsor, and I store mine the same way. Solve the creasing problem with a trouser press, which will remove hangar bar rumples as well as any wrinkling behind the knees before wearing.

From Ryan

"I have been reading up on your comments on getting slightly heavier linen pants and having some trouble, despite living in New York City. I am not aware of any tailors in the city that has these trouser fabrics. I am wondering if you have any recommendations for me for tailors, retailers, or mail order companies that'd have some good cotton and linen pants for summer that don't wrinkle too badly. "

I can't speak to the New York retail scene but Irish linen cloth should be widely available. Any New York trousermaker should have access to Holland & Sherry's Emerald Isle 14 ounce linen (the book is HS289). If they don't, Hemrajani (mytailor.com) does and they are visiting New York in June.

Pushing the Limits: Suit Detailing

I want turnback cuffs on my next suit, like the ones Ian Fleming is wearing in the mid-fifties photo to the left. We've seen just about every kind of 1930's suit detail resurrected by fashion designers these past several years, but not turnback cuffs. So there's no time to waste.

The most common form for the suit today is of course the two, three or, more rarely, one button single breasted version with notch lapels and side pockets, but that's hardly the only way to make them. There are also four and six button double breasteds, as well as a rarer form of DB cut so that it can only be buttoned on the lowest button (many DB jackets can be buttoned either at the bottom, at the middle, or both, but only a select few are cut to button only at the bottom). Unfortunately for the man looking for a little edge, the bottom buttoning DB is a feature that looks better on blazers than it does on suits. There's a photo floating around of Ralph Lauren wearing a bottom buttoning dinner jacket that pretty much proves it.

Which leads us back to the varieties of single breasted jackets. The most commonly seen deviation from the common form are side pockets without flaps, a personal preference of mine. Flaps came about when men decided that the the sight of gaping jacket pockets was too much to bear, so tailors added flaps to cover them up. Jetted pockets without flaps are a bit cleaner looking, and so also a bit more formal. Some men emulate the look by tucking their pocket flaps into the pockets.

I can think of another single breasted silhouette, one that was used by the late Duke of Windsor, but it will most likely only be available bespoke. The Duke wore a two button jacket with one button spaced above and one spaced below the natural waist. His coats were cut so that both buttons closed, and his country clothes often paired this arrangement with crescent-shaped pockets without flaps (if you're wondering, the points of the crescents faced towards the rear). It's an effective look for a shorter man.

Still unusual if a bit more common is the single breasted jacket with peak lapels, something the late designer Hardy Amies considered anathema. With one or two buttons, it's a lounge suit version of the dinner jacket. Some more fashion forward tailors have gone a step further and paired the lapels with slanted hacking pockets which, I say reluctantly as it's a mutt of a look from a historical perspective, are a nice complement.

Ignoring vents, and I intend to, that's about all the deviations that are within the pale (or just beyond it) for a suit to be worn to an office these days. Yes, a man could commission a Norfolk suit, a four button ghillie collared suit or some other variation with an action back but he shouldn't wear those in town. Men who want to show that they don't have to work, or who expect to be fired and need to keep a stiff upper lip, can wear a peaked lapel lounge suit with a double breasted vest in a country fabric like a Cheviot or patterned flannel. Country fabrics in City styling have plenty of precedent among men who don't need to earn a living (sadly, these men are more likely to wear jeans and a hoodie than a suit in many parts of today's world).

Men who need a safer way to add individuality to their clothes should consider jackets lined in brilliant colors that are only seen by those nearest and dearest. I, on the other hand, will be the guy wearing turnback cuffs on my navy double breasted.

New Cloth Club Deliveries

To my delight, two packages containing the newest completed projects from Michael Alden's Cloth Club arrived recently.

The photo, which was posted by The Doctor to the Cloth Club and Limited Edition forum at the London Lounge, shows the Club's blue-gray triple overcheck flannel at the top. It's a 14/15 ounce suiting that I'm seeing in my mind's eye as a vested suit, single breasted, with peak lapels and hacking pockets on the jacket.

The bottom cloth is a 650 gram (19 ounce) gun club tweed. I'm thinking about a three button single breasted odd jacket, half lined, with buttoning patch pockets and leather button.

In addition, M. Alden has two tweed and three flannel projects under way, The flannels are the Eden in Paris windowpane, a very light gray flannel with blue accents for Spring, and a black on gray reverse chalk stripe. The tweeds are a check patterned after a favorite country suit of the late Duke of Windsor, and a modified tweed version of the Club's original flannel project, a tan glen check with a blue overcheck.

For more information. contact Alden at the London Lounge.

Pants Across the Sea

We know that HRH Edward, the Duke of Windsor, had his trousers made in New York while his jackets were cut in London. He called it pants across the sea. I don't have a figure as trim as the Duke's but my solution also crosses the Atlantic.

Trousers cut to ride on the hips, the intended location of American ready to wear models, have a disturbing tendency to accentuate a pear shaped form. Fortunately, there are other styles of trousers. Note the long fall on the high waisted trousers of the man in the illustration, or look at photos of Fred Astaire wearing trousers with high waistbands in the book Fred Astaire Style by G. Bruce Boyer.

For me, those high waistbands are just the ticket. High waisted trousers fall straight down my front, creating an illusion of slimness that I hope is successful. Their height is also a better match for waistcoats and sweaters as there is no danger of a distracting glimpse of shirt above the trousers.

It's difficult if not impossible to find high waisted trousers ready to wear any longer, and this is where the across the sea part comes in. First, I order corduroy, moleskin, linen and other odd trouser fabric from a London merchant such as Beazley's Fine Cloth or John G. Hardy/J & J Minnis.
http://www.hollandandsherry.com/beazleys/
http://www.hfw-huddersfield.co.uk/hardyminnis/index.asp

About a week after ordering, the cloth arrives in San Francisco. Four times a year I pack it up and send it to Michelle at Martin Greenfield Clothers of Brooklyn, New York, asking for so many of this and so many of that. And then three months later I get a box of unfinished made to measure trousers that go in turn to a San Francisco alterations tailor for final adjustments and cuffs.

I'm looking forward to my next pair of high waisted trousers in 12 oz. charcoal whipcord. Only four months and ten thousand miles to go.