How to wear socks with a suit: Reader question

Colours that go with tan

Dear Simon,

I'm getting stuck putting an outfit together, and what it comes down to is the socks.

I'm wearing a mid-grey worsted wool suit with a sky-blue shirt and regimental tie of burgundy and navy stripes. The hank/pocket square has a white ground with checks of light blue and wine. The shoes are brown.

I feel if I keep to the grey of the pants for the sock choice, it will be too boring but if I wear socks that are burgundy it will look odd with brown shoes. Do I wear sky blue socks? I don't seem to be arriving at a solution that seems to work well.

Thanks in advance,

Joseph

Spot the matching, and the harmonising

Dear Joseph,

That’s a very specific question. Let’s see if I can give you some general principles and work through those to get a specific answer.

First, you’re thinking along the right lines in picking up a colour from above the waist with your choice of sock. Burgundy could work well, and there’s no reason it won’t go with your brown shoes, particularly if they are dark brown rather than tan.

Burgundy is probably the second most-versatile sock colour after dark green (once you’ve ruled out anything that matches the trouser). Burgundy works best with navy, for me, but may still compliment your grey suit.

Second, grey may not be that boring. It sounds like you’ve already got a lot going on up top, and adding burgundy socks may be a step too far. Coco Chanel had a line about looking in the mirror before you leave the house, and taking off one item. In your case, it may mean swapping the burgundy socks for grey.

In fact, I would say that the most common error I find with readers I meet is that they try to hard. Dial down one item and the chances are you will be better dressed.

The other risk with burgundy socks is that the outfit becomes too ‘matchy-matchy’, too obvious and thought-out. Matching a colour in your tie, shirt or handkerchief is a good place to start, but it’s not the only option. Colours should harmonise with each other, not copy each other.

What do I mean by that? Well, think of another tie or handkerchief that would look good with the combination you described. Would dark green work, or burnt orange? Perhaps even a patterned brown (if different enough from the shoes)? The same colours that would be alternatives for the tie or handkerchief will also work for the socks.

The reason it is a good idea to pick up a minor colour from something else you are wearing is that the designer has already picked that as harmonising with the major colours. He has decided that navy and burgundy are in harmony on your tie, and light blue and wine work like ebony and ivory on your hank.

I hope that helps. If you want to put colours together in an outfit, look at how your favourite brands combine specific shades of colours in their ties, handkerchiefs and anything else.

And I’d go with grey socks.

Simon

Too matchy-matchy?

Images: The Armoury and Opumo

The Dege & Skinner Phitwell jacket, and more on The Rake

Regular readers of The Rake will be pleased to know that I am once again contributing regularly to the website, TheRakeOnline.com. Recent articles include a look at Dege & Skinner's trademarked Phitwell jacket, which incorporates lacing in the back lining of the jacket to help keep its pleats in place.

I have also recently been appointed The Rake's Editor-at-Large.

Photograph: Luke Carby

The Stoll cotton-collar knitter

Fans of traditional weaving and knitwear brands are funny about old machines. They often equate old machinery with superior techniques, when the new machines usually do at least as good a job – just faster. Usually the reason the brand still has old machinery is that new looms or knitting machines are just expensive, sometimes costing hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Fox flannel is no longer finished by bashing it against a wall, for example – as my visit to WT Johnsons witnessed. Most Bresciani socks no longer have handlinked toes – a machine was invented in 2000 that did the job, with no loss of quality. And while touring John Smedley a couple of weeks ago, it became clear that the old fashioning techniques have no inherent advantage. John, our tour guide, said he still thought the quality was better, but colleagues disagreed.

There are some areas of menswear, however, where the demand is relatively small and therefore modern machinery has yet to penetrate. One of those is knitted cotton garments, hence the advantage of this machine. 

It was made by German company Stoll in 1955 for the Smedley factory. No more have been made since. It uses an old-fashioned system of punched wooden slats to input the desired design - similar to the paper cards still used on a lot of other knitting machines, as seen at Bresciani and Corgi (and indeed on mechanical organs).

The machine is used to make the trimmings - collars, cuffs and ribbing - for Smedley’s Sea Island Cotton range. No other machine can make cotton collars. They can’t create the rigidity necessary to support the elongated shape of the old-fashioned Smedley collar, as seen on the Isis and Leander models. Wool trimmings are made on another, more modern machine that works with a different tension. 

As long as Stoll, Shima Seiki and other designers of these machines remain convinced that the market for cotton-collared knitwear is not a lucrative one, this process will remain unique to Smedley. 

And the company can spend its money on £125,000 Shima whole-garment machines instead. 

For anyone tired of Derbyshire-based knitwear, don’t worry - normal service will be resumed on Friday.

The John Smedley drum

This is the drum of the old John Smedley silver band, which sits in the newly opened Smedley archives and is the focus on my favourite anecdote from the factory’s history.

Smedley was known around the region for its silver band – different to a brass band, at least in the early days, in that it could afford silver-plated instruments as well as lacquered, or brass.

In 1912, Smedley workers went out on strike in support of the nationwide coal miners strike – which began in Derbyshire, not far from the Smedley factory. The silver band played in support of the strikers, and as a result John Smedley (the son of the founder, and now the owner) took away its funding.

When John Smedley demanded the band’s drum back, the drummer threw it up into the rafters of the building, declaring “if he wants it he can bloody well get it himself”.

It remained there, in plain view, for over 100 years – until it was taken down at Easter this year to be included in the archives.

And here's a bit of fun, a letter from 1958 (click to enlarge):

Photography: Luke Carby

John Smedley: the factory

Last week I visited the John Smedley factory in Matlock, and it has quickly become my favourite anywhere. The oldest factory in the world still in production, it is nestled in between Derbyshire hills, with a babbling brook (the Lea) running through the middle of it.

The Lea, of course, powered the original mill wheel and was the reason the factory was located here – down the road from the first such factory in the world, Arkwright’s. There is a canal cut through the countryside, which took the cotton (the mills all started as cotton spinners) out for export, and the railway came here for the same reason. This was the start of the industrial revolution, and it is picturesque.

The factory grew and shrunk over the years. It successfully expanded to cope with government contracts during both the first and second world wars. Stand in the middle of the compound and you are surrounded by buildings from 1783, 1844, 1911 and 1950, all cobbled together with various buttresses, balconies and ironwork.

The inside of the factory is a rabbit warren as a result. Four floors, two of which are underground, with lots of half floors and ramps from one to the other. No matter which direction you go in, you end up and a big, central room that has had a section cordoned off because of an oil spillage. Some joker has drawn a chalk outline of a body in the middle of it.

John Smedley has gone through tough times in recent years, with less investment in design and product until Ian McLean took over in 2010. (He is the eighth generation of the family to run the business – can anyone else match that?) Fortunately that is now changing, with the classic collection expanding into slim fits, cashmere/silk mixes and different collar types. The basics stay the same, so men can buy the same pieces season after season, but there are now more options.  

There is also a sleeveless cardigan coming in for A/W 2013 – which commentators on my recent post on such cardigans will welcome.

I always like to think that I care about quality and fit of menswear, to the exclusion of all else. But you can never escape emotion, inspiration and aspiration. The desire to identify with a brand and be part of it – by being a customer. I felt that at John Smedley.

More on the knitting process and the wonderful archive at a later date.

Photos by Luke Carby

Anderson & Sheppard DB jacket

I have a few Anderson & Sheppard DB suits, but no jackets. I have found that the jacket of my royal-blue flannel suit, however, works well on its own, and that led to this commission last year for a lightweight DB jacket in a brown Loro Piana cashmere.

To work on its own, of course, a jacket must distinguish itself from a regular suit in either pattern or cloth. This does both, with the large Prince of Wales check and spongier finish of cashmere setting it apart from a hard-finished worsted in plain navy or grey.

Anderson & Sheppard DBs work well, I think, because their large and drapey look needs some style injected from somewhere else – whether that be in the cloth or in design details such as the double breast. A friend of mine has a single-breasted A&S suit black mohair with peak lapels, which works for the same reason.

The old phrase is that A&S suits were for me who had their own style, and didn’t need any from their suit; I prefer to add something to them myself.

If you are slim, as I am, the drape-cut DB also creates a particularly complimentary effect in the chest. Both the sweeping lapels of the DB and the extra draped cloth create an impression of bulk, and together the effect is exaggerated.

Last week, in the first of these posts, I said there was little point in a direct comparison between the four jackets. But I’m intrigued nonetheless, as to which is everyone’s favourite. So tell me, which do you like best, and why?

Other jackets:
- Solito, Naples
- Liverano & Liverano, Florence
- Vergallo, Varese

Photography: Luke Carby

Sartoria Vergallo houndstooth blazer

Gianni Cleopazzo of Sartoria Vergallo is one of those tailors that is always interested in new ideas. He was intrigued, therefore, by the bells and whistles I suggested putting on this houndstooth jacket we made last year.

I wanted, primarily, to give it a casual touch, so we put grey suede under the collar and in the overlap of the cuff – to create very subtle changes in texture. The change under the collar will be much more obvious, of course, when it is popped up, and we deliberately cut the foreparts of the jacket so that it buttoned all the way up, with a high third button and then a fourth under the top of the lapel.

Most ready-to-wear jackets use an extended collar or throat latch to achieve this, but that is rarely satisfactory – the collar is often uncomfortably tight and the lapel below it bows open. Far better to make use of the lapel buttonhole and put a button underneath the opposite side to attach it to, cutting the lapels of course so that they join cleanly up the chest.

The cloth is a loosely woven silk that dates back to the 1960s – thanks are due to Richard Wainwright of Choppin & Lodge for selling me that. (Choppin & Lodge now has its own store on Cornhill in London, by the way, which opened a couple of weeks ago. Suits are not being cut by Russell at Graham Browne anymore, but by another cutter offsite and have all the advantages of GB, including the price.)

Shirt, sweater and trousers as on previous posts in this series.

Photography: Luke Carby 

Liverano & Liverano jacket

This is a jacket from Liverano & Liverano, Florence. Readers of the Armoury’s excellent Tumblr account will be familiar with various Liverano jackets, but this was my first experience of the Liverano cut.

Although it has many things in common with other north Italian tailoring, such as the construction that sits squarely between Savile Row and Naples, and the former’s traditional shoulder and seams, Liverano is also noticeably different in a few areas.

The jacket tends to be cut rather short, with most of the length coming off the skirt rather than the chest. The sleeve is narrow and the chest cut quite close. The overall result is a jacket that looks quite contemporary, and this is at least one reason it has become popular.

Antonio Liverano also has a wonderful eye for colour, which he will deny with a wide, modest smile, but then throw on a pastel pink scarf with a doughnut pattern that he designed himself.

It was that eye that convinced me to go with this rather strong shade of purple, in a vintage woolen cloth from among his collection. Those that have come along to the Armoury’s trunk shows in London or been to the Liverano shop in Florence will be familiar with Antonio’s homemade swatch books.

The fit was faultless, as you might expect, and the overall look of the finished garment was dressier than I expected. Even at the forward fitting I anticipated a rather casual piece that I would wear with jeans, but the sharp finish and bright horn button make it more akin to a blazer, albeit in a rather unusual tone.

Liverano is expensive, which I can’t account for, but the style in both cut and cloth is unique – and that’s pretty rare among Italian tailors.

Shirt by Turnbull & Asser, tie by Drake's, handkerchief by Anderson & Sheppard

Photography: Luke Carby