Gray Flannels and Green Socks

The skies were sunny but the temperatures reverted to wintry these past few days. And so I got another day's wear this season from the pictured pair of gray flannel trousers. The socks are to complement the ground cover. Well, perhaps not intentionally. I think they do a reasonable job of it nonetheless.

The Cloth of Kings

This time of year I give thanks for Saxony, a soft and elastic woolen with a smooth finish, once known as the cloth of the English kings after their predilection for suits from it.

Saxony was originally woven in the West of England from short staple wool sheared from Saxon sheep (it now comes from their Australian descendents); it's the polar opposite of the coarser but more lustrous Scottish Cheviot.

Saxony is used for trousers, suits, and overcoats. It is often woven as a glen check, which is how I came to know it. Those English kings seemed to me to have wardrobes full of beautiful glen check suits that were too casual for business dress but just right for a sporting event.

If I could have only one suit, it would be a vested three button in a 13 ounce black and white glen check Saxony with a rust overcheck. The bit of orange blends perfectly with a pair of chestnut colored shoes.

"Wool" Neckties

Autumn begins the season for wool neckties, the best of which are cashmere or a mixture of cashmere and silk (I think of Irish poplin, a weave of silk and wool, as a spring and summer item so I'm not discussing them here). Of the pictured baker's dozen from my closet, eleven fall into the cashmere category, the red tie is pure wool and the light blue solid is camel hair.

The point of "wool" neckties is that they absorb light rather than reflect it, and that feature combined with the visible weave adds interest to combinations built around flannel or tweed jackets. They are particularly effective combined with a paisley or hunting pattern silk pocket square.

Like many men, I learned to appreciate the color of silk neckties first, for some reason that probably had something to do with the opinions of various young women. But I've since learned to be my own critic, and I like the look of wool for Autumn.

Some Trouser Details

In 1923, according to a survey of 300 men in Palm Beach, Florida by the now-defunct Men's Wear, 76% wore white odd trousers or plus fours in flannel or linen, 21% wore suits, 1% wore gray flannels and 2% wore knickers in other fabrics. Trousers, particularly the gray flannel variety, have covered a lot of ground in the intervening 85 years, and we've substituted shorts for plus fours and knickers along the way.

But this essay is on trousers and there are two basic types with countless variations. For my taste, the dressier of the two are high waisted English style trousers cut to be worn beltless, with side tabs or braces (the straps that Americans call suspenders), and pleats in the front and cuffs on the bottoms. Braces let trousers hang straighter and don't require adjustment during the day. They are dressier because the high waist sits above a mature man's paunch and lets the trousers hang in a straight line to the shoe. Needless to say, this allows for a sleeker appearance than does a suggestion of stomach protruding over a belted waistline. The negative is that they should be covered by a vest or jacket at all times even if your name is Larry King.

The back in the photograph so eloquently illustrating trousers with a English, or fishtail, back, is provided by critic Francis Bown, whose website Bown's Bespoke periodically covers aspects of the bespoke tailoring arts. The fishtail originated with Scottish trews (trousers that may be worn with a short jacket) and keep a man's shirt covered below his waistcoat when he leans forward (shirts are underwear, after all).

The other principal type of trouser is flat fronted, cut to be worn belted on the hips, and usually without cuffs. This style was originally laborer's garb but it's been elevated to the status of art by continental tailors who prefer it for suits cut for men with trim figures. It's a fine look as long as the wearer is careful that the open quarters of his jacket don't expose his belt buckle and blind pedestrians with the flash.

I prefer high waisted trousers with suits but either belted or beltless trousers are reasonable choices with odd jackets and for more casual wear. There are several options for keeping up beltless trousers, including side straps instead of tabs, and the DAK waistband, however these are usually difficult to find ready to wear.

Button cuffs may be the most obscure trouser detail. Instead of stitching the turned-up cuff to the trouser leg, the tailor sews a button to the inside of the cuff and a buttonhole on the seam of the pant leg. Each cuff has two buttons, one on each side. This feature can safely be left to men who commonly need to brush debris out of their trouser bottoms.

Finally, we should consider the fly, and that's usually closed by a zipper, a relatively modern invention that no longer jams like it used to. The older alternative is the button fly, normally eight buttons that pretty well guarantee that a man will be fumbling with himself at a urinal long enough to draw nervous glances from those around him. The Duke of Windsor preferred the zipper and that's good enough for me.

Trouser fabrics are widely available in much more variety than was seen in Palm Beach those many years ago. Flannel, linen, corduroy, cotton drill, and fresco are some of the common odd trouser types. For some thoughts on an odd trouser wardrobe, see my January essay here.

Insouciance

My dress yesterday might have been a bit too studied. Navy serge suit, silver-gray shirt with white collar and cuffs, gray on white checked necktie, light gray, tan and dark gray pocket square, and maroon enamel cuff links. The pocket square put it over the top - it should have introduced a new color instead of repeating one.

Great dress should display insouciance, the appearance of indifference to the clothes one is wearing. Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown has it in the photo to the left and it's his hat band that does it for him. With a blue band he'd look too composed. As it is, the claret band introduces a new element that makes the whole thing work better together.

Contradictorilly, the appearance of indifference requires care. It's usually achieved by the deliberate introduction of elements that are unrelated to anything else that's worn that day. For example, a gray flannel suit worn with dark brown shoes, ecru end on end shirt, navy necktie, white linen pocket square and maroon cuff links. It's a combination that might almost have been thrown together, and that's insouciance.

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.

Wearing Odd Jackets

Until the introduction of the Norfolk in 1918, there was no such thing as a sports jacket. At resorts, men sometimes wore their suit coats with trousers (often white flannel) from a different suit. But once the Norfolk became popular for shooting, the odd jacket took off. What we would consider a standard three button jacket was ubiquitous in the well-provisioned wardrobes of the mid 1920's and the Norfolk was followed by jackets specific to other sports, the source of the wealth of details that differentiates odd jackets.

Most odd jackets have long been blue (the ubiquitous blazer), gray (usually combinations of black and white that appear gray) for city wear, and tan or brown for the country. The most important fabrics are tweed, flannel and linen followed by gabardine (usually with a belted back). Pattern is found most frequently in the tweeds.

The principal differences between suit and odd jackets should be in the details. Avoid odd jackets that have been made with suit coat features, saving the maker money at the expense of style. Instead, revel in patch pockets, slanted hacking pockets, bellows pockets, pleated backs, and half and full belts. Though hopefully not all at the same time.

Every wardrobe should have a solid tan and a solid blue jacket in summer cloth, and a blue jacket and a tweed or two for winter. You can combine them with fresco, gabardine and flannel dress trousers as well as more casual linen and cotton corduroy, moleskin and drill. If you wear them with a neckties, think of cashmere and linen solids in season as well as silk ribbon stripes and bar stripes. Gummed twill paisley makes a beautiful Fall necktie if you can find it.

The rules for mix and match separates are simple. Wear dark trousers with a light jacket, and light trousers with a dark one. And if either jacket or trousers is patterned, the other piece should usually be a solid.

Personally, I believe that odd jackets are not ideal for business. Business clothes are supposed to fade in to the background, and an odd jacket that doesn't stand out is neither fish nor fowl. When you need neutral clothes, spend your money on a suit. For travel or leisure, wear a tan fresco jacket with patch pockets and gilt buttons in summer. Or a three button gun club tweed with leather buttons, lapel extension and bellows pockets in the Fall. The bolder the better!

Sources: J & J Minnis - John G. Hardy

If you want one of the world's best trouser makers, such as Naples' Salvatore Ambrosi, to make for you, you have to provide the cloth. Unlike most of the suppliers to bespoke tailors and high end ready to wear clothing manufacturers, royal warrant holders J & J Minnis - John G. Hardy sell some of the best cloth of their types directly to retail customers.

Minnis and Hardy are the two trading names for English cloth merchants Hunt & Winterbotham of Huddersfield, England. Though they have many other offerings, Minnis is particularly known for its flannels and frescos (the term fresco was patented and trademarked by the company in 1907), and Hardy holds up its end with a range of 12 ounce Venetian, Gaberdine, Whipcord, Bedford Cord and Cavalry Twill fabrics. The two also offer good quality tweeds and worsteds.

Retail pricing for this stuff is steep. A pair of my high waisted trousers requires two meters of cloth starting at £30.00 per meter for cottons and £60.00 per meter for gabardine and fresco (including VAT that is deducted from the price paid by buyers from outside the UK). Customers can order directly off the web site, which has photos of all the cloth.

On the negative side, the photos are dark and don't show detail. A 3% surcharge is added for credit cards, which I believe violates the Visa and Mastercard merchant agreements. The company doesn't respond to emails (I had an answer to one inquiry out of four). And what I dislike most is the company's insistance on sending parcels to the States by UPS. Unlike the Postal Service, UPS adds to the shipping charge an exorbitant fee for clearing the parcel through customs. But the flannel, in particular, is probably worth dealing with those irritations.

Sources: Hwa Seng Textile

Men who have their clothes made tend to be on the lookout for cloth, particularly men like me who live in a city without much access to it. Singapore's Hwa Seng Textiles was one of the first online sources I came across, in fact they may have been the world's first ecommerce site for quality shirt and suit fabric. The operation is an offshoot of the company's retail tailoring business.

Though it doesn't have all the world's premier suppliers, Hwa Seng has a useful product line. Offerings include Acorn's Sea Island cotton shirtings in Super 100, 120s, 160s and 180s, some Scabal Super 90's 9 oz. pinstripe suitings, Heild (a Scabal subsidiary that specializes in traditional cloth designs) 13 oz. Super 100 suitings, and Dormeuil gabardines and flannels. With the dollar weak against the pound, the prices compare favorably to prices in the UK. Two metres of gabardine was $170 recently, versus $240 for slightly heavier cloth at John G. Hardy. Bargain hunters will also find a smattering of end bolts in 2.2 meter lengths for U.S. $64 apiece.

Hwa Seng understands both English and Chinese and the service is as good as it gets. The company is happy to send sample cards of its cloth (a photo of a sample card is at the left) for a nominal charge. Whether samples or cloth, my orders have been acknowledged and shipped the day I placed them, helped by the time zones (Singapore's morning begins during my afternoon).

Tell Mr. CP Goh that A Suitable Wardrobe sent you.

Essential Odd Trousers

An odd trouser wardrobe should be a mixed lot of fabrics and weights that suits every season. Depending on how often you wear them, you'll need at least five, and more likely ten, pair for warm days and the same for cooler weather.

I've divided the essentials into casual and dress trousers with the idea being that casuals can take a little dirt. You might wear them with a jacket but they'll be paired with a sweater or a polo more often than not.

Casual Trousers
-Khaki cotton drill. Gentleman's jeans for weekend wear. Olive is another classic color.
-Cotton moleskin. Soft and warm trousers for the cold.
-Cords. In moss and mouse, for cool weather from Fall to Spring, with sweaters or odd jackets.
-Poplin. Spring casuals for golf and similar pursuits. Try a soft pink.

Dress Trousers
-Gray flannels. Every wardrobe needs at least two pair, in mid-gray and charcoal. Aficionados also like them in light gray for Spring (like the hatted fellow in the illustration) , and in weights from medium to heavy. As Alan Flusser wrote, "If you are considering a new sport jacket and are having difficulty visualizing it with a medium gray trouser, move on."
-Fawn and cream flannels. A change of pace from gray.
-Gabardines. Silky smooth trousers are ideal for much of the year in California and similar climates. Wear them in cream, brown and olive.
-Tan cavalry twill. With a navy odd jacket it's the English uniform.
-Linen. Linen breathes, so it's a good choice for hot weather. Get the heaviest linen you can find, because heavier fabric will drape better and rumple rather than wrinkle. Think in terms of half a dozen pair in cream, tan, brown and mustard.
-Light gray and tan fresco trousers. More summer wear. Fresco doesn't wrinkle like linen and it holds a crease. Wear them on unrumpled occasions with a tan or navy odd jacket.

The Cloth Club

About two years ago, Michael Alden of The London Lounge web site wanted a flannel suit in a large format Prince of Wales check and couldn't find suitable cloth anywhere. He solicited a dozen other London Lounge members to join him and have a length of the cloth woven to his specification. The success of that first project was the stimulus for The Cloth Club, perhaps the world's only informal organization commissioning custom weaving of cloth for classic men's clothing.

Fifty years ago, tailors accounted for much of the consumption of suiting cloth, and the cloth merchants offered them a wide variety of patterns and weaves. Today, the cloth suppliers focus on the ready to wear market, whose long production runs are incompatible with unique fabrics. They weave plenty of blues and grays but fewer of the patterned suitings of the past.

By commissioning its own cloth, The Cloth Club is doing what some of the large tailoring houses have done for years. Savile Row's Anderson & Sheppard usually offers several specially commissioned worsteds and Huntsman is famed for its house tweeds while Mariano Rubinacci of Naples is known for his house hopsacks. The difference of course is that Cloth Club members can take their fabric to the tailor of their choice for a "cut, make, & trim, " the tailoring term for the process of making a garment from customer-provided cloth.

Since the first commission, The Cloth Club has delivered a large scale black and white glen check tweed, and a gray flannel with a large blue overcheck, pictured in the drawing at the upper left. Current projects include a gray flannel with a blue windowpane called 'Eden in Paris' after the drawing to the lower left, a gun club tweed for odd jackets, an off-white flannel trouser cloth with blue and gray accents, and a striped worsted suiting.

To inquire about participation in The Cloth Club, contact Michael Alden through the web site.

Odd Jackets

I don't believe that a classic wardrobe requires many odd jackets. They are very useful when you need something to throw on above a pair of cords, but a flannel, tweed or linen suit looks as good or better at other times.

That doesn't mean odd jackets are not perfectly acceptable for lunch at the club, Sunday worship and any business trip where you'll arrive too late for a meeting. It just means that they are a discretionary purchase once you have a few of them. I think four or five of them cover the basics, with two or three pairs of trousers that you can wear with each jacket.

For spring and summer, you should have a navy blazer of 10 oz. fresco. A tan linen or fresco jacket makes a good change of pace. Complementary trousers could include tan and cream linen, light gray and tan fresco, and tan and khaki cotton drill.

For fall and winter you’ll want to start with a blazer of blue flannel or serge, and one or two tweed jackets. Medium and dark gray flannel trousers go with almost any jacketing. Tan cavalry twill is also a classic with the navy jacket and corduroy looks great with tweed.

A great feature of odd jackets is that they give you quite a bit of room to exercise your creativity in the details while remaining appropriately dressed. A belted safari jacket, or safariana, can be a different look in warm weather. Patch and bellows pockets on a tweed coat, developed to hold shotgun shells, are a good place to put your Blackberry.

That flexibility is probably enough reason to have more than four or five of them.