Economy

Good times or bad, few of us can have everything we want and we must each establish our own priorities. For me these days, sales hold few bargains. My needs, or rather my desires, are highly specific and unlikely to be found on sale.

It's important to remember that the cost of clothing is not the initial cost, but the price divided by the number of times it's worn, plus some arbitrary amount of bonus points for the pleasure it provides. A bespoke suit worn for twenty years can be a bargain. Conversely, I own a cotton Luciano Barbera suit that had a retail price as high as most bespoke suits. I bought it for 70% off on a whim and have worn it only twice because the collar just does not fit properly around the neck. It may be the most expensive item that I own.

That said, I have my own ways to economize. For example, I buy my own cloth for odd trousers and send it to a factory where it's made up. Trousers are principally straight seams and I don't see enough difference between MTM and bespoke in this instance to warrant paying twice as much per pair. I do the same with overcoats and most of my shirts.

The best economy is a wardrobe of simple, obviously high quality items that give you pleasure every time you wear them. The uncomplicated odd jacket and gray flannels to the left can be dressed up or down with changes to its accessories, so it can be worn repeatedly without becoming tiresome.

In Need of a Change

It's nearly the end of the Fall/Winter season and I need a change. Which is another way of saying that I'm tired of the clothes in my rotation.

Now, this doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense. Some of the clothes I'm bored with have been worn hardly at all. But I'm tired of looking at them, and new neckties don't help.

By that I mean that the best way I've found to stave off ennui is to add a couple of neckties and/or pocket squares periodically. Ironically, when a man stops wearing neckties he gives up the most cost-effective way to add new choices to his wardrobe.

But new neckties haven't been enough lately. So I'm thinking about the stuff that's put away for the season. Remembering how good it felt to wear a linen suit in the tropics in January. And peering into the storage bags to see what strikes me as appropriate for April.

As thought translates into action, I'm starting to take out Spring and summer clothes before, strictly speaking, the temperature warrants it. It's still too cool for tropical weights but 10 ounce worsteds are wearable, which means they can replace my warmest flannels.

The summer things and a few acquisitions will delay the onset of boredom until one day this coming August. That's roughly when I'll find myself wishing for a cool rainy day that will let me wear some tweed.

Reader Questions

From Justin

Assume that I have $5,000 to $7,000 to spend on a business wardrobe and that I have nothing in my closet. Please suggest how you would approach this if you were in my situation.

For your budget I will suggest one charcoal single breasted suit, one navy wool blazer with medium gray wool trousers and one not-too-flashy wool odd jacket with tan wool trousers, all in mid-weight cloth. Pick a neutral odd jacket like the one in the photo. It will work with the gray trousers as well as the tan so you can mix and match the trousers and the jackets. The blazer and the odd jacket will be fine on all but the most formal days and then you wear the suit. Budget about $1,000 per combination - that will buy a respectable quality jacket and trousers from a source like Ben Silver.

Next, go to Alden and buy a pair of black 907 oxfords, a pair of brown slip-ons, and a pair of brown oxfords with some light brogueing. Your bill will be about $1,500. For that you'll get appropriate shoes for most occasions and you shouldn't need to wear the same pair two days in a row. If you need belts, get them now, in the same colors as the shoes.

After that, go to a shirtmaker and order six to ten dress shirts. If you wait until MyTailor comes to town you'll get good quality for less than $150 apiece. You'll want two white and six blue (royal oxford, end on end, broadcloth, bankers stripe, and something lightweight). Thrill yourself with two in other colors. :-) Do not buy off the rack. Get started with shirts that fit now and you'll wear them for the rest of your life.

Finally, go to Sam Hober online and order a solid blue oxford necktie, a black grenadine, a gray Irish poplin, and at least three others of your choice for $80 apiece. Get more if you will wear them daily. And buy a package of three white linen handkerchiefs somewhere for $50 for your breast pocket even if you won't wear them to the office.

You'll also need some socks and underwear. You should have at least five blue, not black, over the calf hose in cotton and five more in wool.

This list is probably $5-6,000 with tax and shipping. If you want to spend a bit more, add a tan single breasted raincoat with a zip-out lining from Burberry or Aquascutum.

Next year, repeat the process with warm weather clothing.

From James

Would you please review and comment on the book London Cut: Savile Row Bespoke Tailoring?

Beat you to it! There's a review here.

The photo is copyright © Scabal. All rights reserved.

More on Blended Dressing

At one point during the 1930's it was said that to be considered "best dressed" a man had to be able to wear the loudest of checked suits without attracting attention. Men that could do so had mastered the art of the blend, combining elements of dress so that none of them stood out from the overall image.

For example, the late Duke of Windsor was able to wear tweed suits with very strong patterns, patterns that would be flashy on other men, and look well dressed at the same time. He was expert at blending.

The secret to the blend is that each element in an ensemble should relate to the other. The first illustration is a combination of the sort favored by the Duke, a black and white plaid suit with a red overcheck. The shirt has a gray body with a white collar, picking up two of the suit's tones, and the necktie's red ground picks up the overcheck. The combination works to reduce the strength of the suit's pattern.

In the second illustration, our man's black lord's hat and shoes relate to the black in his suit. He is wearing an odd vest that picks up the brown in his suit's overcheck. His shirt collar is the same as the white in the suit's weave, and the shirt body is similar in tone to the waistcoat. The look is subdued though the suit is anything but.

These are more extreme examples than may be appropriate in many work places but they are intended to make a point. You may not have a checked suit but you can still see the effect of blending for yourself.

The next time you're shopping for a suit, take out a navy solid and place it next to a white shirt and a maroon necktie. Then lay down a blue flannel with a white chalk stripe, a blue end on end shirt and a maroon necktie with white dots. The combination of the flannel's texture and the white in the suit, the shirt, and the necktie work together to create an effect that's considerably more sophisticated than that of the three solids.

Buy the flannel.

Cotton Kills

Innovation in clothing has long been driven by sport, and a look at today's sport clothing offers some hints of what people will be wearing more of during the coming decades.

Companies such as Patagonia and REI have been driving the use of new materials in active sports such as hiking, climbing, biking and fishing for the past twenty years. When temperatures rise or activity-levels increase, technical clothing made from man-made materials is designed to improve comfort by letting sweat and body heat escape. The same types of technical clothing are also making inroads for travel as they tend to resist wrinkling and dry quickly, so they can be washed in a sink and hung dry by the next morning.

Technical clothing is designed for dressing in several lightweight clothing layers instead of one or two heavier layers. Layered clothing systems let the wearer add or remove layers in response to changing conditions (they also tend to pack more efficiently than heavier clothing). Most systems have four basic layers: inner, mid, insulation and outer. Each type performs a specific task.

Inner layer clothing is worn next to the skin. Its job is to keep the wearer comfortable by wicking sweat from the skin and providing insulation. Wicking keeps the wearer dry and comfortable in warm conditions and retains warmth in cold weather by reducing evaporative and conductive heat loss. Inner layer clothing is available in a variety of thicknesses for different activities and weather conditions.

Cotton is not recommended as an inner layer for active wear. It's comfortable when it's dry, but it absorbs sweat and holds it next to the skin (which can lead to significant heat loss). Cotton also takes a long time to dry, which can cause discomfort and even death when it freezes (hence the phrase "cotton kills" used to warn hikers in mountainous terrain). Cotton-like materials with hollow synthetic fibers made from laminated polyester or nylon such as MTS 2® (Moisture Transport System) or Capilene® (used by NASA) are better.

The primary function of mid-layer clothing is to provide insulation and protection in warm conditions. Mid layer items are often worn alone on short trips in good weather conditions. Pile and fleece mid layer garments are available today in shirts, pants, vests, jackets, pullovers and sweaters with wind and weather-stopping liners built in. And pile weighs about half as much as wool.

Insulation layer clothing is designed specifically to provide additional warmth. It's typically worn whenever mid and/or inner layer pieces are not warm enough for the conditions. Insulation layers, also often made of pile and/or fleece, are designed to be warm, lightweight, breathable and without bulk.

Finally, the primary job of outer layer clothing is to protect the wearer from wind, rain and snow. Outer layer items are ideally designed to create a "chimney effect" where built-in venilation such as zippered necks, high collars, open cuffs and vents allow hot air to rise and moisture to evaporate. Breathable waterproof fabrics like Gore-Tex® are comfortable in a wide variety of situations and conditions.

So what does all this mean to every-day dress? It's become common to see technical clothing mixed into every day wardrobes. The New Zealand native sitting next to me on the airplane yesterday was wearing it from his shirts to his shoes. As suits are replaced by what Anne Hollander predicted will be shirt, trousers and a bomber jacket, more of what people wear will be endowed with technical advantages that were first applied to sport. It's adoption will be speeded as suppliers complement their offerings of brightly colored stuff designed for visibility on the face of a mountain with more conventional looking clothes.

Yellow Gloves

Black gloves are a bit like black suits in that retail inertia pushes them on customers when there are better choices. Just as brown shoes are more interesting than black for day wear, so brown gloves are a step above black. Other colors, such as yellow chamois or gray suede, can also add texture and visual interest. Both are appropriate for most evening occasions as well as day wear.

Once a common gentleman's glove but now seen infrequently, yellow chamois shows dirt easily and because of that has a relatively short lifespan. On the plus side of the ledger, an unlined pair is a soft, sensual pleasure to wear with a dark Chesterfield, a silk or cashmere scarf and a Homburg hat.

I ordered my yellow chamois gloves from Chester Jeffries, a small English company based in Dorset. They offer a variety of made to order gloves (in half a dozen materials with a dozen different types of lining) on their web site, and accept less ordinary requests by email.

After establishing that Jeffries had the chamois I wanted, I sent them a tracing of my hands. About a month later they responded with a made to measure pair of their CDG-4 Classic Dress Glove, which is, according to the company, hand-cut and hand-sewn. I know of few comparable personalized delights for £53.00 (about $105) including postage.

Planning Your Wardrobe

The photo above was taken in one of the late Duke of Windsor's dressing rooms before the auction of his estate. He was a man whose clothing appetite had few constraints. Most of the rest of us have to make choices, and men who have to make choices should have a wardrobe plan to help them make the most of their limited resources.

A good plan begins with an annual clothing budget. Once you've determined spending level that's right for you, review your existing wardrobe and determine both your needs as well as any options that would add to your sartorial happiness. Calculate what you think you can spend per item without exceeding your budget - if you're budget constrained, and few of us are not, one way to arrive at amounts is to set aside about 80% of your funds for a pair of dress shoes and four suits, overcoats or jackets and trousers each year (if you consistently acquire clothing at that rate you will eventually have a respectable medium-sized wardrobe with roughly eight or nine pair of shoes and as many suits or jackets and trousers for each season). The amount available for each item determines whether you are thrifting, haunting the sale racks or getting fitted for bespoke clothing.

With budget in hand, review your wardrobe. For example, I am concentrating on summer suits this year as several of mine are coming due for replacement. Look at the patterns and colors in your closet, compare what you have to what you should have, and you'll soon know exactly what you should be looking for. If, like me, you're buying summer suits, you'll understand that you need to pass on that 13 ounce air force blue flannel suit in favor of something more seasonally appropriate. Your plan will also help you realize when you've over-weighted gray and need to add some blue or have too many solids but not enough stripes. In short, it's the difference between a balanced wardrobe that makes it easy for you to look good every day and a closet full of clothes.

White Bucks

The classic summer shoes are the brown or black and white spectator and the white buck. The buck, which comes in tan for wear in cooler weather, is either an oxford or a blucher made from unlined buckskin or reversed calf. The real thing has red rubber heels and soles (mine were purchased from Church's before the disastrous Prada acquisition but since they closed the San Francisco store and took the web site down I have no idea if they are still available).

Now there are other white shoes made with white leather uppers but they are not white bucks. Frankly, most of them should be avoided in my opinion unless they are intended for jogging or the basketball court. This includes those ubiquitous golf shoes made with white leather. We can help improve the taste of the manufacturers' offerings by just saying no.

White bucks are virtually obligatory with seersucker suits. They also pair well with cream or gray flannels, and linen trousers. Or, go sockless and wear them with shorts. But wear them.

Tab Shirt Collars

It's not seen often in the UK for some reason but I've read that the late Duke of Windsor had a hand in the invention of the tab shirt collar. Whatever its origin, the tab has been worn by style conscious men for at least sixty years (author Tom Wolfe owns the high collared version in the photograph, which is courtesy of Kabbaz-Kelly). The advantage of the design is that the tab, closed with a stud, button or snap depending on your own and your shirtmaker's preferences, elevates the necktie knot to a proper angle without the flash of a collar pin.

Mr. Wolf prefers to wear his collars stiff, but I believe the tab has a particularly graceful shape when it's worn without stays, especially when the collar points are rounded. It's a tie-wearing collar of course, and a four in hand tie collar at that. The construction is meant to be covered by a necktie and mine couldn't be closed around a larger knot even if I was inclined to tie one.

Tab collars are appropriate for both city and country wear, and they seem proper with either button or French cuffs. If you're a tie-wearing man that hasn't had the pleasure, treat yourself.

Summer's Best Jacket

Summer's best jacket was inspired by colonial military tailoring in the 1930's. The safari jacket has all the pockets a man can reasonably need for travel, can be dressed up or down to suit a variety of occasions, and takes abuse better than a regular odd jacket.

The classic safari jacket is made from tan cotton drill, gabardine, linen or fresco and, if your closet can accommodate two, you should pick one from column a (drill and gabardine) and one from column b (linen and fresco). Whatever the material, a safari should have a yoke back and front, epaulettes, a belt, four gusseted pockets with flaps and buttons (the two lower ones should be patch and bellows) and cuffed long sleeves that can be rolled up above the elbow and buttoned to stay there.

The safari pairs well with a panama hat or linen cap and, in Southern Europe if nowhere else, can be dressed up with a silk scarf at the neck. It needs only a polo or a tee shirt under it, a pair of trousers, and summer shoes that can range from espadrilles to spectators.

Buying Clothes

The estimable Esquire magazine surveyed nearly two million male readers in 2006 for their advertising media kit, and the results tell a sad tale about the state of men's clothing in the United States. Of this "affluent and successful" readership, just 10% had purchased a suit in the year prior to the survey. Roughly 30% purchased dress shoes and dress shirts, and a quarter bought dress trousers (37% bought a pair of jeans). Even if I wasn't trying to make my point sound modestly amusing, given that I believe that Esquire's readers are more clothing aware than the average man I am forced to conclude that the majority of American males must dress in some combination of sweat pants, tees, sneakers and similar garb. Of course, that's what I see on the street.

Whether a man's budget accommodates Savile Row or thrifting, dressing well requires a modest combination of taste and consistent expenditure. As I've written before, the key is to build a rotation that prevents wearer boredom and gives clothes time to recover after wearing, as well as for cleaning and other maintenance. I think a man should probably strive to acquire four to six changes of clothing each year (that's for wool jackets, trousers and coats - he'll need more if he wears cotton most of the time) and at least one pair of shoes. Until he's filled out his closet, the shoes and four of those changes of clothing are likely to be replacements for worn out items and a higher level of acquisition is probably required to expand the rotation.

I suggest that every man should sit himself down periodically to plan what he needs to buy in the coming year, and what he can afford to spend. His target price per garment is a simple function of his annual budget and he just needs to continue abusing his credit cards until his closet has what he decided it needed. When that initial rotation is filled out, the budget can be reduced or the number of items purchased can be reduced and the quality level increased.

If every man in America bought one pair of dress trousers, a shirt and a pair of shoes each year, production would have to triple and, once supply caught up with demand, we might begin to see a reversal in the tremendous increase in the cost of quality clothing that we've experienced as demand has declined over the years. Get shopping!

How Many Hats?

I'm probably writing about hats a bit too often since many if not most men, even suit-wearing men and particularly men under 30, don't wear them (baseball caps do not count). Jack Kennedy and the automobile get most of the blame, but that's not the point. There are occasions when wearing a hat is smart (intelligent), as well as smart (good looking). By the time a man begins to lose his hair he should own a few.

There are several styles of hat, in two basic constructions for spring and fall. That's straw in the summer (May 15 to September 15 in temperate Northern hemisphere climates) for protection from the sun, and felt, preferably beaver felt, the rest of the year for protection from the cold.

Formality in headwear descends from top hats to homburgs to bowlers to fedoras to trilbys to more casual hats like the pork pie and finally caps. A man chooses the right hat for the day based on the rest of his clothes.

Top hats of the right sort aren't made any longer and high quality used ones cost more than many automobiles. But that's OK unless you are going to be attending a full dress ball or Royal Ascot. The rest of the time, a black felt Homburg does nicely with black tie and dark city suits.

For less formal occasions, dark gray or navy fedoras look very elegant with suits as do brown trilbys on the weekend and tweed caps to complement - but not match - your tweeds.

In summer, the Panama hat comes into its own as does the straw boater, seen at Henley Regatta and in the evening, and linen caps for casual wear.

That amounts to half a dozen hats and as many caps:

-black Homburg
-navy and gray Fedoras
-brown Trilby
-Two Panamas (alternating them gives the sweat bands time to dry out)
-Three tweed caps
-Three linen caps in cream, buff and light blue

And that's all I'll have to say about hats for a while.

An American Original

I'd been thinking about a straw homburg for next year and thought it time to re-acquaint myself with Paul's Hat Works. Founded in 1918 and occupying a small hatbox of a shop out on the Avenues in San Francisco, Paul's is one of those completely original places that should probably be famous but isn't known outside of a small circle.

Michael Harris, who became the current proprietor in 1980, is the third to own the business. A hatmaker's apprentice early in life, Harris hand blocks, hand stitches, and crafts Ecuadorean straw and beaver felt into some of the finest hats in the world using machinery from the 1930s. B. Brent Black, the leading American importer of hatting material from Ecuador, calls him one of only five or six craftsmen in the United States capable of high quality hand blocking of Montecristi hats.

That reference sold me on his straw hats, which start at $500 and go to the stratosphere (I asked the price of an exceptionally fine sample and was told "It's a car"). And then I got a look at the beaver felt fedoras.

Felt hats were fashionable in Europe from 1550 until 1850 when silk hats took over, and a beaver hat was so desireable that the European beaver was hunted to the brink of extinction. Beaver was held to make the best hats because, after a wetting, beaver holds its shape better than felt made from wool or other types of fur. Water off a beaver's back, so to speak. That matters in San Francisco, and for that matter most of the other cities in the Northern hemisphere.

There are very few true custom hatters remaining in the world today. The best known high end hatters in the world, such as London's James Lock, don't make custom hats any longer, but Harris does. He measures your head individually and takes that individuality into account when he shapes your hat, so you get a height and a brim that works for your head. His fedoras are made of "100% beaver, unlike that stuff they sell you elsewhere." Even the hat bands are made from pre-war material, which he buys up as the few remaining traditional hatmakers go out of business because it resists the elements better than anything made today. $1500 each and worth a special trip to San Francisco.

The Bespoke Shoe Process

According to the census of 1851, there were 28,000 shoemakers in London, or roughly 2% of the population. The machine age put most of those people out of work, and today there are but a handful of firms making bespoke shoes by hand.

One of those firms is Gaziano & Girling, whose partner Dean Girling was in town last week with some new bespoke shoe samples as well as the good news that the company's first made to order shoes from last Fall's launch are finally in customer hands. After we enjoyed a cup of coffee, we spent a few minutes going through the bespoke ordering process.

From the customer's perspective, the process of having a pair of shoes made hasn't changed in decades. First I stood on a sheet of paper while Dean traced the outline of each foot and measured its height at three different places.

Once measurement is complete, the customer is asked to describe the shoe he envisons. It helps to arrive with an idea in mind, but this is also where the maker's supply of bespoke sample shoes helps illustrate the possibilities. For example, a reversed calf elastic sided brogue looks great with suits and odd jackets, and a man won't see many shoes like it in the United States.



Of course, a pair of Adelaide semi-brogues like the shoes pictured might be more practical. And then there are the details to specify. Espresso calf. Smart round toe. Fiddleback waist. Cuban heel. Steel toe caps. Natural beech shoe trees. And perhaps a plum colored lining.

Once the order is written and a deposit taken, all that remains is the waiting.

Shirts in Context

I can think of three ways to wear shirts: with trousers but without a jacket (like the fellow in the navy sports shirt in the illustration), with an odd jacket or sweater, and with a suit. Most of the appropriate shirt details depend on the context in which they'll be worn but one applies to all and that's the length.

Short shirt tails were a pet peeve of mine once. Dress shirts should be long enough so that they don't come out of the trousers when a man's arms are raised above his head. If a shirt has to be re-tucked in during the day it's because the maker tried to save a nickel on fabric and made the tails too short. For a cure, order shirts that are a couple inches longer than standard, with a seventh button on the front.

Aside from specialty shirts for formal wear, suits call for the most shirting formality . I like to pair my suits with shirt that have French cuffs, a placket button on the sleeve and more formal collars. In my own wardrobe that means cutaway, spread, and tab collars. Straight point and Eton collars are also fine, preferably worn pinned. And suits are the only proper companions for contrast collars and cuffs.

The differences between shirts for odd jackets and shirts for suits are minor. I prefer button cuffed shirts for wear with odd jackets. Precious metal cuff links look a bit too bright and glittery with tweed but a two button cuff (the second button keeps the cuff aligned) with a placket button seems about right. I prefer Eton, tab, spread and button down collars on these shirts and point collars are also appropriate. No cutaways, and no contrast collars.

When it comes to shirts for casual wear, which is any time they are worn without a jacket, just about anything goes. Casual shirt details warrant an essay all their own. Today, I will say only that for all the marketing emphasis by some shirtmakers on thick mother of pearl buttons and hand stitching, the only time those features come into play is when a shirt is worn without a jacket. Hand sewing is critical to the construction of a tailored clothing but on a shirt it adds nothing to fit and what it might add to aesthetics is usually covered by a jacket (or, in the case of those extra thick buttons, by a necktie). My advice is to buy machine sewn MTM or bespoke shirts to wear with jackets and use the money saved for tailored clothing upgrades.

Just Say No to Black Socks

Maybe sock manufacturers would make more interesting dress socks if we all stopped buying plain black pairs. Not that I have anything against black socks, as long as they are silk for evening dress, preferably with gray or maroon clocks on the sides.

Dress socks work best when their color either relates to something above a man's waist, or is consistent with the color of his trousers. And since we don't wear black trousers during the day, there's little use for black socks. The racy dressers among us might be customers for colors like brown, rust, hunter, maroon and even lilac, but what most men need for work wear in the Fall are over the wool calf socks with gray, blue and tan grounds and cotton versions of the same for Spring (to keep things simple, I lump cashmere socks in with the wool).

With base colors and materials decided upon, we can talk about patterns. Socks ought to be patterned (a simple rib may be OK when they are brightly colored), so they add visual interest to the day's dress. Widely available patterns include clocks, birdseyes, herringbones, houndstooths, neats and simple plaids. Discreet horizontal stripes, a favorite of the Apparel Arts crowd in the 1930's are also nice, if you can find them (I can't). Argyles and polka dots begin to push the bounds of propriety for suits but add nice touches to less formal clothing.

Note that we are only considering over the calf socks. I strongly encourage men to limit their dress sock wardrobe to OTCs as, unless they are worn with sock suspenders, mid-calf hose have a disturbing tendency to slip down to the ankle, potentially leaving bare skin visible on the calf. And, as you know, that's a transgression on the short list of mortal sartorial sins. Stick with the OTCs and avoid problems.

Pocket Squares Are Important

I couldn't resist. I had to have the new Seaward & Stearn pocket squares (pictured) from Kabbaz-Kelly & Sons.

Frankly, I overlooked them when I saw them in person, laid out on a table in Manhattan. But folded in a breast pocket they are transformed, adding a discreet touch to a worsted jacket that falls into the sweet spot between flamboyant and plain. That's a quality that's hard to find but worth while. Pocket squares are important.

I believe that a well-dressed man needs roughly as many pocket squares as he has neckties (the corollary to this rule is that the majority of men would be better dressed if they had half as many neckties and twice as many squares). It's not acceptable to be insecure about when it's OK to wear one. It's always OK. If a man is wearing a jacket with an open breast pocket, the pocket should have a square in it.

The way I think about it, there are two types of guidelines about pocket squares. One is how to fold them and the other is how to choose one. Folding is simpler - there are two basic techniques (there are a dozen others but only two are required). If you're wearing a silk square, shove it into your pocket until an inch and a quarter of silk is showing, point any waving ends towards your left side, and forget about it. Or, if you're wearing linen, adjust a square fold until the pocket displays a line of white a quarter to a half inch high.

Choosing a square is more complex. An inventory is required, consisting of white Irish linen squares (I get mine on sale from Schweitzer Linens for $15 apiece instead of the usual $25), and a selection of silks. Both types should have hand stitched edges.

Wear the linen squares with worsteds and even flannels if the occasion is formal enough. Otherwise, wear the silks (for extra credit, have some matte silk and cashmere squares to combine with silk neckties and reserve the shinier silks for your matte neckties). The square usually repeats a color in the shirt, the necktie, or even the socks, but some of the best combinations don't repeat any color at all, like the tweed suited guy in the drawing.

Necktie wardrobes that follow the guidelines I posted last week are going to be complemented by pocket squares in a similar, but never matching, palette of colors. Maintain wardrobe balance by acquiring a new square with each new necktie, and weed them both at the same time as well.

Those S&S squares are promised for next week. I'm looking forward to them.

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.

The Necktie Wardrobe, Part 2

Yesterday's essay discussed solid colored neckties and today's will consider patterned versions.

We'll start with stripes. A man probably needs at least four two-color striped neckties, and at least one of those ought to be Irish poplin for its sheen. Block stripes (above, from Ben Silver) and ribbon stripes (as shown below, from O'Connell's) are flexible styles that coordinate easily with patterned suits and shirts. Navy and gold, navy and pacific blue, navy and red, and red and gold are classic color combinations.

For serious occasions, there should be two Macclesfield ties. Mini-dots are discreet and fairly easy to find. White or silver dots on black and the same on wine are useful combinations.

There should also be a couple small checks, either shepherd's or houndstooth in navy on cream and gray on cream like the one below, from Brooks Brothers, as well as a paisley or two (get the paisleys in gummed silk if you can find them but I haven't seen one for about ten years) in a large print.

Next, there should be a couple of non-directional foulards or club ties, one of which should have a ground that complements navy suits. The other should pair well with gray suits. Sportsmen may choose prints featuring ducks or Labrador retrievers but most men will be better served by heraldic symbols, like the pictured tie from Henry Poole, or small flowers, like the tie at the bottom from O'Connell's.

Finally, most men should have four seasonal ties, two linen (or silk and linen) with tan and blue grounds for summer and a gray and a blue ground cashmere or wool challis for cooler weather. The patterns should be similar to the styles discussed above. These ties are to provide some different textures with which to vary your look.

So that's it, a dozen neckties that, combined with the dozen solids and semi-solids from yesterday, comprise a fine basic wardrobe for a well-dressed man.

The Necktie Wardrobe, Part 1

A suit-wearing man needs a minimum of about two dozen neckties. About a dozen of those should be solids and semi-solids with textures that add surface interest. Solids make the most flexible neckties because their relative inobtrusiveness makes them amenable to frequent wearing, and they make it easy to complement a pattern in a suit, shirt, or both.

Knitted silk neckties, like the ones shown above from Paul Stuart, are a wardrobe staple in warm weather, and on less formal occasions (their square bottoms make them more casual). Black, navy and dark red are the most useful colors.

Grenadines, which are also knitted silk but in a tighter weave, are more formal than knits. Pictured above, and also from Paul Stuart, they may be worn where-ever a man might wear a lounge suit. Consider black, navy, burgundy and silver.

A few more solids should round out the collection. A man can never have too many navy neckties and an oxford weave solid (shown above in Pacific blue, another useful color, from Ben Silver) should be one of them.

Finally, there should be a couple ribbed solids in steel blue and in charcoal with a blue tint, either ottomans (the latter have a more visible stripe, as pictured above, from Paul Stuart) or twill (below, from Ben Silver).

Tomorrow we'll look at a selection of patterned ties.