A Quarter Lining

In these photos tailor Thomas Mahon and I are discussing the details of a quarter lining in a Fallan & Harvey jacket. Where a half lined coat has Bemberg or other lining material down the sides and half way down the back, the quarter lined jacket has most of the back and side lining removed to allow for greater air circulation. Visible seams are either finished or taped.

This photo shows how there is just enough lining to hold an eyeglass pocket (near the arm hole).

Some English tailors are less familiar with quarter lined coats and tend to fall back on the half lining because it's relatively easy to remove a piece of lower back material. A quarter lined jacket is a bit more work as the lining has to be sewn into place, however it wears considerably cooler.

Cifonelli Style

One thing that struck me during my visit to Cifonelli in Paris last month was that the work rooms were full of conservative suits in process but the showroom models were beautifully detailed odd jackets rather than suits. I neglected to ask why this was so, but I'll guess it's to demonstrate that the firm can execute more than navy blue double breasteds.

For example, the pictured jacket is a modern version of a hunting coat in lightweight tweed with a half lining. The four button front can be closed completely to keep out the wind and there's leather under the collar and at the ends of the sleeves because both are meant to be turned up.

The coat is impeccably finished, with a yoke across the back, beautifully buffed seams and a zippered ticket pocket.

The blue jacket is another lightweight, unvented coat. This one has a one button front with buttoning patch pockets. It's perhaps a little too aggressively styled for my taste, but it wouldn't be at all out of place in Paris.


The inside of the half lined blue jacket shows the attention to detail that was evident in everything I saw.

When you are next in Paris, make the trip to Rue Marbeuf. Go through the unmarked doors to the left of Cifonelli's street level retail shop and up the stairs to the second floor fitting room. As Le Guide Michelin would say, it's worth the journey.

Made by Hand

I know of only two great Continental tailoring houses outside of Italy, those being Knize of Vienna and Cifonelli of Paris. Lorenzo Cifonelli, the fourth generation of his family to work in the firm, took me for a tour of his family's workshop the other day. Cifonelli has forty people making tailored clothing in Paris with not a sewing machine in sight (I did not ask about the trousermakers who work off site).

Jacket collars and the interior padding are hand made and hand sewn.

When everything is made by hand a jacket sits on the body like a mixture of a glove and a sweater, light and flexible. The light-weight jacket in the photo has what Cifonelli calls a half lining, though it's less than the half linings I'm used to. There is some gossamer stuff in the sleeves, and much of the rest is little more than tape over the seams.

All this hand work costs roughly the same as a Kiton RTW suit in the United States. I was very, very impressed. Lorenzo visits New York five times a year (I'm lobbying hard for the West Coast), and should be on your list if you're looking for a tailor.

JFK's Paddock Model Jackets

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, had style. I was leafing through a book of photos of his life when I noticed him wearing a 6x2 double breasted jacket buttoned to the bottom button as a young man. Then a jacket cut in the paddock model. And a suit cut the same way. And then another. Here he is as a young man with his mother and sister. Notice the buttons on the jacket.

I'd never seen any man other than the late Duke of Windsor wearing a paddock model coat, a bespoke cut where the jacket carries two buttons that are placed higher than normal because they are both buttoned during wear. One button is about 2" above the waist and the other 2" below it, making the wearer look a bit taller. Kennedy was a six footer, but he apparently liked the illusion of height. Here he is at the White House with his brothers years later. Same style jacket.

As an adult, Kennedy wore conservative Savile Row suits in 10 or 11 ounce worsted, dark neckties, white shirts with french cuffs and discreet cufflinks, black oxfords and a white handkerchief in his breast pocket. Here are the Kennedy brothers again, at Hyannisport. John is wearing an odd jacket instead of a suit, with the same paddock style cut. The man had style.

Much Ado About Cloth

It seems to me that there's a fundamental misunderstanding about Super-numbered cloth. People are worrying over it because they are concerned that it doesn't "wear." I have to ask, "Compared to what?"

Luxurious feel (known as the "hand") is what has made the Supers so popular and the suit is a luxury item for many men. They own a few that they wear on special occasions and aren't worried about them holding up for years under a once a week pounding. As more and more men indulge themselves in more expensive suits with a more luxurious feel, the wool industry has been encouraged to take greater care of Merino sheep that yield the finest fibre and to sort those fibres into separate lots. The finer the hair, the higher the Super number and the higher price for it when it becomes cloth.

Now walk into the nearest Nieman Marcus and look at the suits on the rack. Some may be cashmere, or cashmere blends. The rest, at least the ones worth discussing, are made of wool. And, until the invention of the Super grading system, "wool" was the only information the consumer was given. The supplier of the cloth doesn't matter at the point of sale because it is not specified, but the Super number does matter because the higher the number, the higher the price. At the high end, the Super 170s suit from a good source commands thousands more than the unlabelled one in the next rack. And if you don't care about Super numerology, the only other cloth-related considerations are color and pattern. The only thing a consumer can do to compare the expected life from one maker's Super 120 cloth from an anonymous mill with another maker's Super 140 from another anonymous mill is guess, and probably guess wrong.

He'll guess wrong because where there's money involved there's a lot of mis-labelling and mis-direction. The UK has a grading system but the Italians, Chinese and Indian mills often don't pay any attention to it. And the width of the fibre is but one consideration in durability. Weave, for example, is another. I'll take Barbera cloth of any Super number for durability over Loro Piana versions any day because Barbera uses a traditional 2x2 weave and Loro Piana sometimes compromises. I had one of those compromises split, unstressed, at the hip on the third wearing.

Leaving Nieman's, walk into the nearest bespoke tailor and look at the cloth selection. Every bunch is identified by source, weave and weight. Most men of my acquaintance spend more time considering the choice of cloth for their next bespoke suit than they do any other detail. They're not thinking just about color and pattern either, but weight, weave, surface interest, guts and the reputation of who made it in addition to the hand. If they want a Super they can have one (many tailors charge no more for most of them than they ask for non-Super cloth), or they can make their choice based on the other criteria. Most do.

I have to conclude that the Super number provides useful information for ready to wear suits, in that it's just about all the information that a buyer can get his hands on. And it's one of a portfolio of considerations that a man can take into account when he is choosing his own cloth. But in my opinion, questioning its durability is much ado about very little for the ready to wear buyer that represents 99% of the market for suits.

The Fit of a Suit

To look good, a suit must fit. And fit is the wearer's responsibility because he can't count on anyone else to do it for him these days. Most bespoke tailors won't let a customer out the door with a garment that isn't a great reference but I've seen some poor work from at least one great name recently. And ready to wear is let the buyer beware.

Fit has little to do with silhouette, fashion or construction, though all of these have a great deal to do with how well a man looks in his clothes. By fit, I mean the criteria that a jacket and trousers should meet to look as though they were made for the wearer and not his uncle or older brother.

First, the jacket must be long enough to cover the seat, but not so long that the legs seem to be shorter than the torso (another writer submitted recently that a man's fingertips should be able to curl under the jacket's bottom when his hands are hanging at his sides but that must have been written by a guy who never saw someone with short arms).

The jacket's shoulders should not be wider than the wearer's shoulders, and the jacket collar must sit snugly where the nape of the neck meets the upper back, staying in place through a reasonable range of motion. It should also lie flat behind the neck and across the collarbones in front.

The jacket should button without strain and there should be no more than three inches of space between the button and the chest.

Jacket lapels should fall straight down the chest without buckling or pulling away from the chest in any other way and the jacket back should not have horizontal creases anywhere along its length. If a coat does buckle or crease it is almost certainly too small, and no amount of alteration can make a RTW coat larger.

Jacket sleeves should not be creased where they cover the upper arm; creases here indicate that the sleeve is too tight or the shoulder has not been extended far enough. The sleeves should extend to the wristbone, allowing for a quarter to half an inch (depending on personal preference) of shirt cuff to show beneath.

Trousers should fall flat in front with no wrinkles, pulling, or creases over the stomach, and no tugging in the crotch. The pleats on pleated trousers, and suit trousers should be pleated unless a man buys them in an atelier in Naples, must be parallel with the trouser crease and must not pull open. Trousers should fall in a straight line, without ripples, to the shoe, where plain or cuffed trouser bottoms should touch the instep in front and just cover the back (some variation here is permitted as a matter of style rather than fit).

Thomas Mahon: A Basted Fitting

I had my first basted fitting with tailor Thomas Mahon of Cumbria England yesterday. Thomas and his assistant, Ms. Alice Early, were in San Francisco for two days between stops in Chicago and Atlanta.

From a technical standpoint, Thomas skips the basted stage and goes directly to a forward fitting, however I'm calling this one a basted fitting as it's his first try and the pieces require many more modifications than they would if we already had a perfected pattern.

So the suit's pattern has been made and the cloth cut, but the major parts are sewn together temporarily so the tailor can adjust the fit to the customer's body This garment will be a quarter lined ten ounce Scabal mohair and wool double breasted with turnback cuffs, and there's a lot of work still to be done. The adjustments identified were typical of every first effort I've been a part of, including trousers that were too tight in several critical places, shoulders with a lot of extra cloth, not enough drape in the chest, and a bit of an issue with the coat bottom in front.

In the photo below, Thomas is smiling because, while the jacket won't have much lining, he's noting that what there is is to be paisley.



Since Thomas will not be back to San Francisco until Fall, I'm planning another fitting while I'm in England in July. That way the suit may be completed in time for our Indian Summer. I hope that's not too optimistic - in the final photo I've decided on a 10 ounce Lesser glen check in gray with a red windowpane that I'd like to get started before they sell out of the cloth.

A Basted Fitting

Peter Harvey of Fallan & Harvey was in San Francisco this week and I had an appointment for a basted fitting. Fallan & Harvey are tailors based on Sackville Street in London, near Savile Row (there is no web site).

I'd come to Peter last year on the recommendation of a friend after I decided to find a second tailor, one who would make me single breasted jackets with a traditional three button front. I commissioned a summer odd jacket of ten ounce fresco that will have a minimum of lining for our hot wine country summers.

The jacket, which at this stage is held together with cotton basting, felt as light and airy as I'd hoped it would be when I ordered it. I'll need to be careful putting it on as the unlined fresco grabs at the shirt sleeves a bit, but I elected to experiment with unlined sleeves in the hope that they will be cooler.

Since this jacket is from a new pattern, I expected it to require adjustments and it did. In the first two photos, Peter is noting that the lapels are a bit off at the top and the quarters are too straight at the bottom.The armholes are also too high and in the third photo Peter is marking the adjustment before he removes the sleeves.

Once we were comfortable with the work that is to be done before my forward fitting in London this coming July, Peter let me know that the gilt buttons I'd requested (there will be two gold buttons on each sleeve) are no longer available from Holland & Sherry. In the fourth photo he's showing me substitutes in the same pattern that he'd found from another source.

I've learned the hard way to limit myself to one jacket or suit at a time until a tailor's pattern is perfected but I'm hoping that the coat will need little more than sleeve buttons at the forward fitting so that it can be delivered no later than this Fall. That will be a year after I ordered it. I'm not traveling to Europe monthly any longer and delayed gratification is the new name of the game. It comes from living in a city without much in the way of local tailors, but that's been true all the time I've been living here.

Some of the CSE Artisans

Kelly Christy, hatmaker, and Joelle Kelly, haberdasher

Jon Greene, tailor

Dean Girling, cordwainer

Victoria Taub and Carl Goldberg, CEGO shirtmakers



Alex Kabbaz, haberdasher

Ghillie Collared Jackets

Unlike casual coats that are intended to be removed indoors, suit jackets provide us with useful advantages in all but the warmest weather. They help maintain body temperature, provide a variety of pockets so it's not necessary to carry a purse, and the long line of the coat is a better look for the majority of men due to our genetic propensity to pack poundage around the waistline. Other than cost, which is not trivial, the principal negative I hear about jacket wearing is that many men don't want to wear the associated necktie.

Now I would have no argument with tie-less men, except that they usually approach the thing without enough thought. The deep vee of the single breasted jacket is designed to display a strip of silk. Left unfilled, the observer is left to gaze at a row of shirt buttons, and that's, frankly, unattractive.

When a man doesn't care to wear a tie with his jacket, a turtleneck or other sweater looks better than a dress shirt. But a still better alternative is a jacket that closes at the neck, perhaps similar to the ghillie collared version from the Hardy Amies studio that's pictured to the left.

There is plenty of precedence for this. The single breasted jacket originally closed at the neck and if they were present the necktie's predecessors were worn outside of the jacket. The ghillie collared Deeside or Tweedside coat that appeared in the 1860's was a morning coat with the tails removed. As worn by King Edward VII, there was space for a bow tie or the knot of a four in hand when the lapels were open. A modern version in thirteen ounce brown flannel would be just the thing.

Bring Back the Vest

Central heating has just about killed the vest, which is a shame. I don't know if anyone has calculated the environmental impact but it strikes me that we'd all be better off if we turned down our thermostats and wore vests and sweaters to keep warm. There's no question in my mind but that we'd look better.

You feel the value of a vest whenever you're walking outdoors on one of those cool days that are too sunny for an overcoat. Jacket and trousers by themselves leave the chest vulnerable, with only a thin layer of cotton shirting for temperature control. And I value a vest's pockets for carrying cigars, cutter and lighter when I plan to sit in the park and smoke.

It's important to note that there's no requirement that your vest, on the days that you wear one, matches the rest of your suit. Cream, buff, and dove gray linen odd vests don't stand out from their accompanying worsted. They add a discreet layer of interest to an otherwise ordinary charcoal or navy suit. I like mine with lapels, like the fellow in the drawing to the left.

In a time when ready to wear suit makers are selling summer weight fabrics all year round because they're less expensive, it's time to strike a blow for elegance and the environment. Bring back the vest!

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.

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.

A Closet Full of Coats

A man needs a coat, or several of them, for the rain and the snow.

Every wardrobe has to start somewhere. If you have one coat it should be a tan raincoat with a zip-in lining that will help keep you warm when the temperature falls below freezing.

Your second coat should be designed to get you to and from your work in cold weather, like the navy guard's coat in the drawing. Less useful than a raincoat in the rain, an overcoat can literally keep you from freezing on very cold days.

Variety being the spice of life, larger wardrobes have five or more coats for different purposes. In addition to the raincoat and an overcoat, you could constructively add a topcoat, like the covert coat pictured in the center of the drawing, for milder days.

A more formal overcoat, such as a charcoal Chesterfield with a black velvet collar, will be more appropriate than a conventional coat at solemn occasions and in the evening.

Finally, a tweed coat with raglan sleeves will look fitting worn over tweed suits and odd jackets.

We differentiate between overcoats and topcoats because a topcoat is four to six inches shorter than an overcoat and less cumbersome on a train or in an automobile. It's also lighter.

Coat fabrics come in several different weights. Very heavy overcoat fabrics, suitable for a Moscow winter, weigh as much as 30 ounces and are increasingly difficult to find today. Normal overcoat fabric runs 20-22 ounces, and topcoat cloth 17-18 ounces. In warmer climates such as Naples or San Francisco, topcoats may be made from suiting fabric weighing as little as 13 ounces.

The classic colors for overcoats and topcoats are the usual navy, charcoal and tan. For variety, you should acquire one of each color before considering a second or third in a similar color. For example, your closet might contain:

• Tan raincoat
• Charcoal Chesterfield
• Navy guard's coat
• Fawn covert coat
• Brown and cream houndstooth tweed

If you prefer other choices, such as a camel polo coat instead of the navy guard's coat, you can maintain color choices in your closet by substituting, for example, a black and white herringbone topcoat for the covert.

If you've earned an indulgence this winter, remember that coats may be the best opportunities to employ luxury cloth in your wardrobe. Cold weather is significantly less uncomfortable when you're wrapped up in a cashmere overcoat.

A Tweed Coat Story

Many of my favorite articles of clothing have histories attached to them. This is the story of a tweed topcoat that took about two years from thought to realization.

The best source I've found for ideas on classic men's clothing are drawings of what men were wearing in the 1930's. Most of those are found in back issues of the late and lamented Apparel Arts magazine.

The drawing to the left of a topcoat for country wear struck a cord with me. I needed a light coat to wear over a jacket in the Northern California countryside and this design seemed just right. Unfortunately, I didn't see a cloth that I liked in the swatches that were available to me at the time. So, like many other of my clothing ideas, it went in a drawer and stayed there for a while.

Months later, I stumbled upon Magee in Dublin. The parent company of Magee is the largest weaver of Donegal tweed and Magee Shops in Ireland and the UK offer lengths of it that have been hand woven by artisans using traditional manual looms. Magee showed me swatches of a blue 15 ounce cloth that was a blend of mohair and wool, with nubs of maroon and other colors, and I ordered a length. It was out of stock but arrived eventually. When it did I sent it to my tailor.

When the coat finally arrived it was Spring, and the coat sat in my closet for most of a year before I got a chance to wear it. But when the weather finally turned cold it was perfect. It looks comfortable with tweed caps and over tweed suits. The cloth repels moderate amounts of rain, and the weight is just about right for the Northern California winter. Best of all, I get more wear from it than I do from a covert coat made from 18 ounce wool because, unlike the covert, the sun can come out and the temperature rise without my starting to perspire.

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.

A Suitable Wardrobe

At a certain point in their lives, most men begin wearing suits. Some may wear them only for particular ceremonial occasions; others may wear them seven days a week. By wearing them they participate in a world-wide custom that arose when the British were the mercantile rulers of the earth.

Successful participation in the custom of wearing suits requires a wardrobe that is sufficient to each man’s requirements. Many men need only a couple of basics. Others wear suits every day in their professional lives and require a more substantial wardrobe that offers them a choice of appropriate clothing for a variety of occasions.

In 1960, the columnist George Frazier singled out the late A. J. Drexel Biddle, then sixty-three and the Adjutant General of Pennsylvania, as the best-dressed man in the United States. It’s worth examining what was in his closet because it was much less than we might expect.

Biddle's wardrobe contained seven suits:

• three blue solids, two of them double breasted and one single breasted
  
• two blue pinstripes, one single breasted and one double breasted


• one charcoal gray single breasted
  
• one double-breasted light-grey semi-solid in a lighter weight cloth

This collection was supplemented by formal day wear, which was worn more frequently in 1960 than it is today. Biddle had a charcoal-grey cutaway with waistcoat and trousers as well as a charcoal-grey single-breasted sack coat with trousers.

Most men no longer require Biddle’s formal clothes for wear during the week, and will want a selection of clothing suitable for a wider range of temperatures. But we can conclude from Biddle’s wardrobe that a man can be well dressed with a relatively modest amount of conservative clothing.

Building a Basic Wardrobe
The basic suits in a wardrobe should be made from high quality fabrics in unremarkable colors and patterns. The suit is the most expensive garment a man wears during the day, and the purpose of conservative suitings is to minimize the number of suits required to realize a reasonable variety in his appearance.

Accessories let you achieve different looks with the same suits. A dark gray suit, for example, will be comfortable paired with a pink checked shirt, maroon necktie and dark brown shoes, and look different but equally appropriate with a wide spread collared blue twill shirt, dark green foulard necktie and black shoes the next wearing.

The man who wears a suit infrequently, or is just beginning his wardrobe, should begin with suits in dark gray and navy. The navy is better for evenings and for more formal occasions such as a wedding. The gray is a basic daytime suit, appropriate for a job interview.

The next step up, for the man who wears suits every day, is five suits, with a sixth recommended to allow for cleaning and repairs. The additional suits give each garment time to rest and recover its shape between wearings in addition to providing greater wardrobe flexibility. For example, midnight blue is a better choice for evening wear than navy. Navy is a better daytime color for most complexions.

A basic selection of suits could include:

• Dark gray solid


• Midnight blue solid


• Medium gray semi-solid


• Gray pin stripe


• Navy blue chalk stripe

The sixth suit can be less formal than the first five, for wear on Fridays as well as less formal weekend occasions. A black and white check, with or without a blue or red over check, is a good choice.

A Bit about Cloth
The two components of any suit are the tailoring and the components, principally the cloth. Cloth deserves its own chapter – here we’ll just explain about fabric weight.

Men in temperate climates should begin with a basic wardrobe made from medium weight cloth. Fabric weight is measured in ounces per linear yard (36” x 60”) or linear meter of fabric. Standard medium weight cloth of 10 - 11 ounces per yard is considered “ten month” suiting that can be worn on all but the very warmest days.

If you’re having your suits made to measure or made by a tailor, you’ll choose the cloth from swatch books containing actual samples. An established tailor may offer thousands of choices.

The challenges grow greater when you are buying suits off the rack, as your choices are limited to those chosen for you by the retailer. Few stores will offer heavier cloth for winter or the best open weave cloths for summer. Your best defense is to visit a tailor and learn to feel the different weights for yourself. Suits are expensive, and the education will prove worthwhile

Expanding a Basic Wardrobe
For most men, building a wardrobe takes years. To expand your wardrobe you’ll need to acquire more suits each year than you wear out, a formula that varies according to the frequency that you wear each suit and the quality of its construction.

As you expand your basic wardrobe your objectives should be to extend the lives of your existing suits, provide choices for different occasions and acquire clothing that will be comfortable in a broader range of temperatures. Men in temperate climates who wear suits every day should initially supplement the basic six suits with three suits for hot weather, and three suits for cold weather.

Cold weather suits of 13 ounce wool will provide durability, warmth and drape. 13 ounce suitings are comfortable without an overcoat in temperatures as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit as well as in normally heated offices. They wear, hang and keep their shape better than suits made from lighter weight cloth.

Open weave 10 ounce cloths are best for warm weather suits, which should be no more than partially lined as the lining material inhibits air circulation. The warm weather standard for tailor-made suits is a quarter lining, which means that the sleeves are lined so your arms slide smoothly in and out, but most of the rest of the coat is unlined.

Loosely woven fabrics for warm weather include high twist wool fresco, mohair and wool blends. Ten ounce versions of these combine temperature control with reasonable drape and durability. They are actually cooler to wear than lighter weight tropical wools that do not breathe, but they are also more difficult to find unless you have them made for you.

If at all possible, most men should avoid tropical weight cloth of 7-8 ounce fabric in their basic wardrobe. Suits made from tropical wool are prone to wrinkle, less durable, and are warmer to wear than medium weight cloth that has been loosely woven to permit air circulation in hot weather. Unfortunately, tropical wool is also the ready to wear cloth sold most widely because it’s less expensive than heavier cloth of the same quality. It is usually offered with a full lining that further inhibits air circulation.

Spring and summer suits can be in lighter shades of blue and gray, as well as tan, because lighter colors look better in bright sunlight.

If you have reason to wear suits on weekends or holidays, one or two tweed suits for cold weather and one or two linen suits for hot days are excellent choices.

Irish linen’s typically rumpled look is also too casual for many offices but it’s an elegant choice for warm weather weekends and holidays. Like the Holland & Sherry cloth in the photo, it should weigh as much as 14 ounces, to minimize wrinkling but its open weave promotes air circulation and keeps you cool. A cream double breasted linen suit is one of the classics.

Tweed suits became rarities once central heating became commonplace. Typically 18 ounce cloth, they were too warm to wear indoors. Fortunately, there is now a selection of tweed weighing as little as 12 ounces that offers excellent alternatives for travel and suburban wear. Since they won’t usually be going to the city, choose country cloths with a brown or green base.


The Medium Wardrobe
As your suit wardrobe grows, you should continue to balance it so as to provide a selection of clothing for any weather and occasion. A medium-sized suit wardrobe in a temperate climate might be comprised of two dozen suits:

• Ten city suits for spring/summer



• Two country/weekend suits for spring/summer



• Ten city suits for fall/winter



• Two country/weekend suits for fall/winter

Of the ten suits in each season’s wardrobe, six or seven should be of the same types of conservative stripes, solids and semi-solids that make up the basic wardrobe. One or two others should be particularly elegant, such as a blue mohair and wool blend with a sophisticated sheen, for a speaking engagement or a night at the opera.

If you are so inclined, the remainder of each season’s suits can be “Friday suits” that are more relaxed and fun to accessorize. In fall and winter, your Friday suits could include a textured brown cheviot and a soft black and white flannel with a red windowpane check. In spring and summer they might be a black and white houndstooth check that appears gray at a distance and a silky tan gabardine.

Whether your suit wardrobe grows to fill all your closets or never needs to expand beyond the two basic suits that every man should own, an appropriate suit for the occasion places a man in the company of gentlemen around the world.