Summer Socks

Last week, Alex Kabbaz and Joelle Kelly of CustomShirt1.com launched a major upgrade to their shopping site with a new checkout system that includes a member rewards program. Each purchase earns reward points equal to 10% of the purchase and once a member's account reaches 1,000 points they can be exchanged for merchandise.

Rewards are all the more reason to be pleased that the selection of cotton socks for summer has expanded dramatically this year. Readers may recall that I've complained about the dearth of striped socks available to those of us who have to do much of our shopping on the Web. Kabbaz and Kelly have eased my pain with new offerings from Pantherella and Marcoliani.

I don't generally care for many of Pantherella's color combinations, but their Sea Island stripes (the center photo) and solids are just fine and the quality is excellent. The Marcoliani offerings (top and bottom photos), on the other hand, are made from a humbler cotton and nylon combination but whoever designs the line has a great eye for color. In fact, the Bordeaux and the pine green colorings in Marcoliani's Merino wool dress hose are as close to perfect as I've seen in a sock and it doesn't get better than that.

Sources: www.customshirt1.com

Years after he closed his Manhattan retail location in favor of life in rural Long Island, shirtmaker Alex Kabbaz realized he had a few dozen pair of unsold Zimmerli underwear in storage. He placed an ad on eBay, expecting to sell the goods in a couple of months. Instead, he sold out in a week and placed a call to Zimmerli asking if he could re-open his account. Three years later he sells more of that underwear than anyone else in the world.

Customshirt1.com has evolved over time into an online version of the past's great haberdashers like Sulka and Bowring & Arundel. Kabbaz is one of the world's best bespoke shirtmakers and he offers only carefully selected products that complement his customers' bespoke shoes and tailored clothing.

His newest line, hand made neckties from English tiemaker Seaward & Stearn was shown for the first time at last week's Collection of Sartorial Elegance exhibition in New York. S&S joins Zimmerli underwear, nightwear, sweaters and polos; hose by Pantherella and Marcoliani; Alex Begg cashmere scarves and Kabbaz's sublime custom shirts. All are available over the web (the neckties are not up as of this writing but should be soon) except for the shirts, which must be measured in person.

As you might expect, the service is as good as the merchandise. In stock items are shipped within 24 hours with package tracking and every effort is made to ensure that the items will be satisfactory. If all else fails, there is an equitable exchange policy.

How to Shop for Men's Clothing

Legend has it that men dislike shopping for clothes but I don't agree with that. I think men are happy to do their own shopping once they learn how to do it efficiently so they can get on with life. They don't want to spend their Saturday afternoons shopping, and I don't blame them.

In my opinion, there's no reason for a man's clothes shopping to require much more than two hours a year unless he wants it to. As with most things, the key is get a proper foundation in place. Once that's done, buying a season's garb is principally a matter of picking up the phone or writing a couple of emails. Of course, there are worse things than a morning walking around the 7ème Arrondissement in Paris and browsing at Arnys.

Shopping is simplest when you don't have to think about where to shop. For example, for most of the first half of my life, I, like many American men, did essentially all my shopping at Brooks Brothers. The problem with that approach is that there are very few places that can serve as a single source any longer (including Brooks Brothers and the mens' sections of department stores with one or two possible exceptions in Manhattan). There may be a life-long U.S. partner among the stores in Esquire's list of the best men’s specialty stores if one is close by. But most men will have to use several providers.

Men's clothing providers tend to specialize in shoes, tailored clothing, shirts or haberdashery (some shirtmakers are also great haberdashers but more often the two are a separate category). Though specialists usually dabble in other categories, they tend to do a great job in only their primary area. That means each man may need a source for shoes, one for suits, a third for shirts and perhaps a fourth for everything else.

The benefit from having established providers comes when it's time to shop. Men who want to spend only the minimum necessary time need do little more than see their tailor (that's Rubinacci's location in London to the left) twice a year to confirm the fit of that season's clothes and select swatches for delivery in six months. Shoes and shirts can be ordered with emails specifying the styles and colors. A periodic visit to an online haberdashery source like Ben Silver or Kabbaz-Kelly will take care of any remaining needs.

Spring and Fall
Just as seasonal clothes arrive in the stores before the season begins, bespoke clothing must be made in advance of each season. For example, I order my clothing for cool weather each Spring and in the Fall I order warm weather gear. When the clothes are ready the season then is just around the corner.

Ready to wear items follow a similar pattern and you may even be able to shop last season's sales while you're taking care of the coming season's necessities.

Finding Sources
The hard part is finding a set of relationships that satisfy. New bespoke and made to measure sources require a lot of trust, and it takes months before a man knows if his faith is going to be rewarded (as I've written elsewhere, the only time to have new clothes made is when you don't yet need them). Reputation helps, but personal recommendations are even more important when, as I've learned on more than one occasion, a great reputation sometimes lags behind a more ordinary reality.

Spend a year establishing relationships with a set of providers and there'll be no more reason to dislike shopping.

A Plea for Striped Socks

Whenever I've noticed socks in a particularly stylish Apparel Arts drawing, they've tended to be versions with horizontal stripes, worn with suits. And since I first noticed them, I've been searching for over the calf versions with little success. You'd think someone would recognize opportunity knocking.

Granted, Edward Green's London store had several colorways about five years ago but they've stopped offering them. Mine are worn out. And since, whenever I've heard of some they've turned out to be sport socks. Or atrocities.

I've come across several sources for interesting socks along the way.

A source for polka dots in a cotton sport version is Buffalo's O'Connell's Clothing. You can view the merchandise but need to call to place an order.

Another is the Kabbaz Kelly online haberdashery. In addition to being the leading source for Pantherella hose on the planet, Kabbaz offers some wonderful wool OTC Marcolianis in a variety of restrained and not so restrained polka dots.

But stripes are nowhere to be found.