Building a shoe collection - the pleasures!

A friend of mine started investing in good shoes around six months ago. I find it reassuring that I get such vicarious pleasure out of it: perhaps I’m not as self-centred as all that.

His first pair was a lovely set of mid-brown, cap-toe Derbys (above). It was a perfect first purchase – adaptable to casual wear, around the office and business meetings, with jeans, chinos and suits. Apart from charcoal they went well with all his suits, both grey and blue. I had a small role in this decision so it was a relief to see his delight in them.

(As well as his near-obsessive interest in polishing and general maintenance. This was a man more used to wearing trainers that only looked scruffier as you wore them. Little did he realise the pleasures of looking after leather shoes, restoring them and creating a personal patina.)

For his second pair, he was tempted with brogues in pale suede. But in the end opted for Oxfords in a hand-painted oxblood (above). Darker, sharper and smarter, they will go well with dark denim as well as blue suits, while retaining a little individuality.

Finally, he mentioned to me that his next investment, sometime next year, will likely be black whole-cut Oxfords. He already has one pair of black shoes (though not of the same quality as these others) so black was not his first choice. But he recognises that black is an essential for business in Britain, as well as elsewhere. So they deserve to be the next pair.

This seems to me like a great trio of shoes. Each will probably only be worn once a week, as the office is rather casual, so rotation won’t be a problem. Brushed after each use and stored with shoe trees, they should be the foundation of his smarter wardrobe for years.

I can see them in my mind, sitting proudly in a row. Perhaps that gives me a little too much pleasure. But having introduced him to the world of classic footwear, it’s great to know his non-work wardrobe now has a grown-up option, alongside beloved trainers. And at work he will look far more professional.

Indeed, it reminds me of a question another friend asked a few months ago – what to invest in when you begin working, and want to steadily look more serious, professional and ambitious? My top three would be:

1 – A suit that fits you. Good material tends to wear better rather than look tremendously better. So buy an inexpensive suit and have it altered everywhere so it fits.

2 – Buy decent shoes. This isn’t hard. In the UK just buy Loake, Barker or Cheaney to begin with, look after them well and trade up when you can.

3 – Buy good ties. Cheap ties look cheap. Get good ones, again look after them well and make sure they are tight to your collar.

Those three things will change your look from graduate to junior management. Buy shirts, socks and expensive suits later.

[The shoes shown here are from Lodger, before someone asks. Apologies to readers who are sick about me carrying on about the brand – but it was my friend’s choice not mine!]

Get value for money in cashmere

It’s hard to pick apart the value for money in much of menswear. But cashmere is particularly difficult. There are Uniqlo sweaters for £39.99 and Ralph Lauren ones for £395. What could possibly explain the difference?

A recent article in The Economist’s spin-off magazine Intelligent Life went some way to an explanation. Apologies for merely reporting their investigative journalism, but it’s good stuff and I know it is not distributed everywhere in the world.

Cashmere used to be universally expensive because its import into the European Union was limited. I don’t know the facts in the US, but a few years ago there seemed to be a flood of cheap cashmere here in Europe. This was because the import quotas were raised in 2005. Suddenly Scotland and Italy did not dominate the market.

At the same time, many Chinese factories had switched from just producing cashmere to producing cashmere garments. It was this ability to produce a finished product, together with the quotas, that enabled western stores to offer cashmere at such radically reduced prices.

So part of what you pay for is location. Scottish and Italian factories will tell you that with their cashmere comes more attention to detail, more quality control and more ethical production. I don’t know (and Intelligent Life didn’t mention) anything about the truth of these points. The Chinese factories certainly make it greater bulk – up to 400,000 pieces a day in one case. But their standards are also getting better every year.

There are definitely differences in quality between cashmeres, though.

Cashmere is the long-haired wool that goats grow as an extra coat in the winter. It falls off in the Spring unless the farmers comb it off. Once it is combed, the cashmere needs to be spun to separate any remaining short body hairs. Some producers don’t bother to do this.

There are also short and long cashmere hairs. The longer the hair, the more robust the product will be that is woven from it. You can spot short hairs (and the shorter body hair) by looking at the surface – the fluffier and fuzzier it is, the more hair ends are standing up. Shorter hairs will also pill more, though this can happen to all products (better cashmere should pill less after its first wash).

Be suspicious of sweaters that feel too soft immediately. Like many things of value, good cashmere will be feel better and softer over time (and with occasional washes). The product will last longer as well.

Finally, cheap products tend to be woven thinly. So the sweater up to the light – better ones will tend to be denser, because more wool has been used and because of the longer hairs.

There are also figures for the length and width of hairs. Good cashmere is around 35-40mm in length, 15 microns in width; top producers compete over each micron. It is also slightly harder, and so more expensive, to create strong colours – cream, brown and grey are far easier than plum, orange or pink. The whiter raw cashmere is, the more expensive it is but the easier to dye. But this is just for the really high-end. The biggest price difference is due to purity, location and weaving.

So what’s the best value for money? Unsurprisingly, small brands that produce great product yet don’t pay for marketing, stores or advertising. The article mentioned Pure Collection as a good example (www.purecollectioncashmere.com).

Thanks for the journalism, Intelligent Life.

Merry Christmas to all

The search for a sponge and press

Most men destroy their suits by having them dry-cleaned too often. That much is uncontroversial. A high-street dry cleaner will stick your suit in a large drum, soak it with chemicals that spread the dirt around more than they get rid of it, and then put it in a big industrial press – which will stamp it flat, ruining any curve in the shoulders, chest canvas or lapels.

The chemicals wear away the cloth, shortening its life. The press forces a three-dimensional object to become 2D.

Much better is a sponge and press. This has to be done by hand and involves someone lightly sponging the suit before pressing it with a steam iron. The lining has to be done first, and makes a surprising difference to how comfortable the suit is. Then the pockets. Finally the outside is pressed – in small sections and rolling the lapels, chest and shoulders. A wooden mould is often used in the sleeve to retain its shape.

This is what a Savile Row tailor will do for its clients every few months, often as part of the service. It can make a suit look and feel like new.

For some gentlemen, this is all that is ever required. I remember David Gale at Turnbull & Asser telling me with great animation that “first, you only ever need a sponge-and-press, and second, it should always be free”.

For most, dry cleaning is still required, it just has to be kept to a minimum. Some have everything dry cleaned once a year, before it goes into storage for the season. Others keep it for extreme situations, such as a bad stain. I try to dry clean as little as I can – and I don’t feel it’s required that often when the suits are in consistent rotation.

But they could certainly do with a regular sponge and press. Which is where we hit a snag. There are very few, if any, dry cleaners with a spotless (sorry) reputation for hand pressing. I’ve had the shape of more than one suit ruined by a supposedly high-end cleaner.

So I’m conducting an experiment. I am collecting recommendations for companies, individuals and dry cleaners that offer a sponge and press, and trialling each one in turn. (Tell me if you have a recommendation.)

This week I tried Stephen Haughton, a professional valet who spends most of his time working with VIP clients. He has their keys, takes their suits (and shoes) when they’re away and returns them before the client returns. Some have so many they wouldn’t notice if the suits weren’t returned.

Stephen sponged and pressed a grey flannel suit of mine and returned it within a couple of days. I then took it to my tailor to get their verdict on the job – which was very good. The shape was excellent and, for want of a better phrase, it felt like new. It did.

The service cost £19.95. That includes securing any loose buttons and threads. If it was heavily soiled, ripped or had silk lapels it would have been £25.

Stephen does pick up from businesses as well as people’s homes, and has worked with tailors in the past including Kilgour and Welsh & Jeffries. If I use him in the future, I will probably leave a few suits at Graham Browne and have him pick them up from there. Stephen can be contacted at: stephenhaughton at aol dot com.

Next time I’ll give an old suit to a ‘good’ dry cleaner.

Factory visit: Turnbull & Asser shirts

There are so many facts, figures and geeky points about the construction of Turnbull & Asser shirts that I could be writing about them for days. And you’d be reading for hours. I’ll try to keep the description of my visit brief and chronological.

When a new customer’s measurements arrive at the Gloucester factory they are entered into CAD (computer-aided design) system. David Gale’s team at Bury Street in London sends in old-fashioned paper patterns. New York sends measurements by email. There isn’t much advantage to either, but those from America certainly get to Gloucester quicker (particularly given Britain’s striking postal service).

The paper pattern is pressed to a large plastic work table, which has copper wires running beneath the surface. A member of the CAD team then runs a “very expensive mouse” over the surface (above), clicking on every turn or corner in the edge of the pattern, completing the circuit each time and so sending a picture to the printer. This prints off a paper pattern that can be taken to cutters on the factory floor below.

Turnbull & Asser customers used to have their shirts cut from the same cardboard pattern each time. This was fine for the first two or three orders. But by the fourth and fifth time, with the cardboard taking a little nick here and a little slice there, it got ragged. This way the cutters get a fresh pattern each time.

On to the cutting. This is mostly done with a small hand saw. The paper is slightly glued on one side, so it can be laid on the cloth and ironed on. This again is more reliable than cardboard, and the cutter can run the saw around the edge in big, long sweeps. The edges are then often finished off by hand with a pair of shears – particularly on an edge where pencil marks have been used.

[Why would there be pencil marks, I here you ask? Because one of my sleeves was half an inch shorter than the other – otherwise they were identical. So it was simpler to cut one sleeve pattern and measure off the half inch and mark it on the cloth by pencil. End of digression.]

A big band knife (above) is used for some parts of the cutting, usually for those where there is more than one identical piece of cotton to be cut. So my cuffs and sleeve gauntlets, for example, were cut on the band knife.

[Quick additional fact: there are two band knives, one for bespoke and one for ready-to-wear. You pull the cloth through the first and push through the second. That’s because it’s easier to cut bulk when you push – and up to 50 layers of cloth are cut at a time for the ready-to-wear in the band knife. Last digression, I promise.]

Next, the sewing. This is all done by hand-worked sewing machine. Some parts, such as the buttonholes, used to be sewn by hand. But T&A says the machine produces a stronger seam – and it’s still a far cry from mass production machinery. Having trained women (they nearly all are, women that is) working a sewing machine means clean lines and the ability to slow down and do difficult points with the pedal. The rounded end of the tie gap, for example.

The care and attention involved in sewing the shirt is encapsulated by the side seam. Here both front and back are folded over and the concave pushed against the convex, creating a clean French seam. That seam is then folded down and sewn onto the cloth itself. So there are four layers of cotton and three lines of sewing, all within 3/16 of an inch. It’s no wonder the women will swear by its durability.

The French seam around each part of the body does mean that there is no single seam running between the front and the tail of the shirt. So to reinforce this point, Turnbull & Asser adds a signature white octagon of cotton to create a gusset. All ready-to-wear shirts have white gussets; bespoke shirts have self-gussets.

Finally, the buttons. While again sewn by machine, these benefit from a nifty reinforcement technique. Elasticated cotton is wound around the stalk and then fused to the thread with heat. This stands the button away from the placket and binds it together, adding greater durability.

[One definitely final digression: a strip of cotton canvas is fused to the back of the placket, meaning it stays crisp. The collar and collar band, on the other hand, have a floating strip of the same canvas inside.]

That’s it. A quick press, paper wrapping and the shirt is bagged up and ready to go. All Turnbull & Asser shirts go through this process, whether bespoke or ready-to-wear. That makes the construction of off-the-rack shirts a country mile better than most others. Gloucester produces around 500 of each type of shirt a month at the moment – how many factories could claim that ratio?

It should be emphasised though that Turnbull & Asser’s bespoke shirts are truly bespoke. You can change anything. One regular client has his right sleeve a little looser because he does a lot of hand-shaking. Another has different numbers of buttons on his pyjamas depending on whether they are going to his English house or the holiday home. I changed my buttons from white to black halfway round the factory. Nobody batted an eyelid.

Thank you very much to Bette, Kath and all the others in Gloucester for taking the time to walk me through this. And for putting up with my questions.

Photography: Andy Barnham

Wear a contrast tie with a contrast collar

A shirt with cuffs and collar (usually white) that are a different colour to the body is not easy to wear well. Sometimes known as a contrast collar, it is more often worn badly than flatteringly.
It should be a slightly unusual part of a man’s outfit, rather than something that glares. The key, for me, is to wear it with a tie that is dark enough or colourful enough to push the contrast collar into the background.

White collar and cuffs hark back to the days when both items would be removable. As the only items that would really be seen – the body buried beneath tie, waistcoat and jacket that was not removed – the collar and cuffs needed to be clean, smart and crisp. Hence the starch.

(And that moment in the Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit where one character is revealed to have packed piles of collars and cuffs for his journey to America, but no shirts. All one needed was the starched white extremities to give an impression of respectability.)

Being detachable was very practical. The collar and cuffs wear out quickest, so having replaceable ones considerably lengthened the life of the shirt. Even today, Turnbull & Asser tell me that they frequently reinvigorate bespoke customers’ shirts by replacing the collar and cuffs with white ones (the original colour sometimes being out of production or difficult to match).

But the men (usually bankers) that you see wearing them often look garishly, not to say cheaply dressed. That’s because the tie they choose is often too pale or too plain to draw attention. And the outfit becomes about the contrast between shirt body and shirt collar.

So with a blue shirt with white collar, say, a pale blue tie or one with only a small geometric pattern is not going to be strong enough. If it were replaced with a navy-blue tie with silver club stripe, attention would shift to the tie and away from the collar.

Pattern is as important as tone. Yesterday I saw a young banker wearing a plain black tie with a blue/white contrast collar. Aside from the fact that plain black will often look cheap, the lack of pattern ruined the combination. In contrast, I observed a slightly older man in the City wearing a dark grey tie against the same shirt, the tie patterned by silver paisley motifs. It was still subtle, but there was no question of the collar dominating.

Think of the contrast between shirt and collar in the same way as you would the stripes of a suit. If the stripes are so strong that they dominate the outfit, the wearer is unlikely to look chic or sophisticated. And the tie is, in its way, a little like the pocket handkerchief: usually it is meant to stand out against the suit, just like a tie. The collar should not.

Oh, and it goes without saying that the contrast collar and cuffs looks a lot better when you keep your jacket on.

Loro Piana dressing Italians at the weekend

Recent acquisitions at Loro Piana have led me into a deeper investigation of the brand. Expect a full-length piece on its history, production and craft sometime next year.

In the meantime, the good people at LP sent me over the look book of images for Spring/Summer 2010. I’ve often picked this up in the store in previous seasons, as they have a good eye for colour combinations and layering. It is a little, professional glimpse into the ‘How Italians Dress at the Weekend’ aesthetic that so much of the Anglo-Saxon world aspires to.

(Indeed, one of my favourite-ever fashion shoots was one with just that title in the Spring/Summer 2009 edition of US Esquire’s Big Black Book – those that got the issue, you know what I mean.)

The first picture I have highlighted here is very simple. Pale grey/green, unlined linen/cashmere jacket, grey silk/cashmere cardigan with hounds-tooth detail, cream silk shirt and white cotton trousers. Plus brown suede belt and shoes, and white linen handkerchief. Very light and summery, only to be worn on a bright day.

But I love the use of different greys – particularly the touch of green in the jacket – and the way the simplicity of tone makes the whole outfit crisp. The cardigan suggests a waistcoat (and as such looks far better with the jacket than without) and the brown suede provides perfectly neutral shadow, sucking light in.

Wearing both white shirt and trousers is dangerous – if worn on their own they can wash you out or make you look like a hospital orderly. Here the cardigan, belt and jacket break them up enough.

The second image I have chosen succeeds in the same way. The peach of the jacket, cream of the cardigan and khaki of the trousers are all from the same colour wheel – each with more or less saturation, more or less brightness. So the simple, summery shades work together well. And as before the shirt and handkerchief are bright accents, while the belt and shoes are deep shadow.

There is little difference in the materials, save that the jacket is linen and silk, and the shirt is now linen.

My final choice demonstrates the power of adding one bright tone to the outfit. The burnt orange cardigan is connected to the creams that surround it, while being far brighter and stronger. Take away the cardigan in your mind’s eye and the outfit is bleached and lifeless. It needs that colour to bring it to life (as well as to separate the shirt and trousers, as before).

The tricky thing about wearing bright colours like this, of course, is that if you are ever too hot to wear the jacket the orange is too strong on its own, cheap even. So when layering, make sure the layers are thin.

The chest of an Anderson & Sheppard suit

Anderson & Sheppard probably has the most individual silhouette on Savile Row (though strictly they are, of course, off the Row on Old Burlington Street). The original, draped style developed by Frederick Scholte has become a firm house style, the soft shoulder, high armhole and large sleevehead now instantly recognisable.

But the chest of an Anderson & Sheppard suit gets little attention. Its beauty is subtler, softer and less immediate. There are three different body canvas options, but each is lighter than those of most of A&S’s peers. All are wool or horse hair, all are loosely woven and – perhaps most importantly – all are cut on the bias.

The body canvas is the longer piece of material pictured above. On top of it are sewn the other two elements of the construction – the chest canvas and, on top of that, a piece of soft white felt. Most tailors position the body canvas so that the weft and the warp (the directions in which it was woven) are at right angles to the suit. This makes it stronger, firmer and more rigid.

But cut the canvas at a slight angle (around 30 degrees or so on an A&S jacket) and it can stretch. In the picture you can just see the lines of tension as I stretch the canvas. That would not be possible if it were cut straight. You can also just about see the lines of warp and weft in the material. The chest canvas (the smaller section at the bottom of the picture) is kept straight, as you want less movement to be possible here.

In a similar way, the stitching of the chest varies along its length – as well as between tailors. Anderson & Sheppard stitching tends to be looser, allowing for greater movement. In the picture below the chest portion is on the right, with stitches an inch or more in length. This is relatively large compared to A&S’s peers, but with everyone the stitches are smaller higher up the chest and on the lapel (the central portion of the picture).

The grey taping runs around the inside of the lapel to retain its shape. And the far left section of the picture is the edge of the jacket, showing basting stitches.

The Anderson & Sheppard jacket is also given greater movement by the stitching along its shoulder seam. Even some of the most expensive tailors prefer to sew this part by machine, either because it is easier or because they believe it produces a cleaner line. A&S does it by hand, so there is greater movement in the seam. Pick a jacket up if you have the chance and try to stretch the seam – holding the shoulder in one hand and the collar in the other. Then try it with a normal suit. The difference is marked.

Finally, for a little nostalgia, below is a page from a 1960s guide to being a tailor – with the man illustrated sewing part of the chest. This guide was given to managing director John Hitchcock when he joined Anderson & Sheppard and he was kind enough to show it to me. Behind the book is Mr Hitchcock’s exercise book from the time, with each page containing painstaking illustrations and neat commentaries. Nothing about the Anderson & Sheppard chest has changed since then.

Of course luxury is changing

Luxury is not defined by price, quality or comfort. Luxury is simply what you don’t have. Or, more precisely, what you aspire to. Generally, it is that which others have or you once had.

So, obviously, what is considered luxurious is always changing. After the Second World War, material was rationed. So it was luxurious to have a waistcoat or cuffs on your trousers. The aspirations in quality of cloth would seem very low to us today. But then, manmade cloths were aspirational in the 1970s. Today the opposite is true: everything must be natural.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Guy Hills, of Dashing Tweeds fame, at his flat in north London. Guy is an avid collector, and showed me a pair of old hunting britches he had bought in a charity shop in Hay-on-Wye. The quality of their construction was astounding: rugged, stiff cloth, taped at the edges and handsewn, with buttons that stood out on thick stalks. I swear those stalks were half the width of the buttons themselves – they weren’t ever coming off.

Compare that to the volume of cheap, poorly made clothing that young girls buy today from Primark, New Look and the rest. It is a mistake to think that the past 50 years has necessarily seen a progression in clothing.

The luxury we have chosen there is choice. We demanded more choice and the ability to amass clothing. More clothing than we could need. Capitalism is an efficient, amoral machine and it provided that luxury.

In recent years, luxury has come to mean something else. It means branding and exclusivity. So it is luxurious to have pieces that are rare, and it doesn’t matter if that rarity is a result of price. Luxury today is synonymous with that industry; it is indeed, often referred to as the luxury industry.

So first we demanded choice, freedom. It was a freedom for more people to wear more things more often. Then we demanded the opposite: scarcity; individual items and brands that we could aspire to. Capitalism obliged, producing something rarer and more expensive no matter what your budget. Desire and craving for all!

It is too early to tell, but we might be seeing luxury change again. It might tentatively be shifting to craft, quality and longevity.

Ignore the recession and those magazine features about ‘investment pieces’. If this trend is worth anything it will outlive the recession. If it is worth anything, it will take 10 years to peak – at which point there will be a worldwide competition to make the finest leather handbag with the finest hand-stitching. And the ultimate luxury will be to own that bag, and keep it.

You can’t pick a trend while you’re in it. But here’s hoping.

Back to Bicester Village

It probably wasn’t hard to feel the excitement behind the words of my last post on Bicester Village. One friend’s favourite-ever quote from this blog says it all: “I am at heart a cheap man.” (From a post last year on buying luxury – specifically, very versatile Hermes ties.) The prices and luxury menswear on offer got my heart pounding, as they did many of you given the comments I have had.

Ever since I have been trying to think of an excuse to go back, and last week I found one. The good people at Chic Outlet Shopping, of which Bicester is part, invited me to a Blogger’s Day – essentially an excuse for them to tell us bloggers about the Village, what makes it so unique, and give us a discount card to get some Christmas presents. Not a bad deal.

Of the 20 or so bloggers there, four were men – and the others seemed to be tacked onto other groups rather than being individual bloggers. The female bloggers were American and Chinese, as well as British, and varied from solo writers to managers of transatlantic teams. All a little humbling: I do hope menswear catches up soon.

I learnt a little about why Bicester is so good for up-market menswear shopping. Although Ralph Lauren has many outlets around the country (and makes more money from them than its normal stores, according to one blogger), Bicester is the only RL outlet to get Purple Label. There was a beautiful double-breasted, shawl-collar tux from Purple Label, in the Custom Fit, which is a lot narrower and seems to fit me very well. Reduced from £2200 to £440.

But I resisted – I have one set of black tie already and little need for another, given that I wear it four times a year. Plus I swore to myself to only buy bespoke jackets from now on.

Loro Piana only has two outlets in the world, one in Bicester and one in Italy. So valued is the outlet here that celebrities have been known to land by helicopter in the nearby field and make a beeline straight for the store. And the staff manages a very detailed customer register that allows you to request updates when particular items come in, and even order in advance.

So how did I fare? Pretty well. An Alfred Dunhill doctor’s bag from the traditional English range (all 100% handmade, in London) a ‘Roadster’ cashmere sweater from Loro Piana and a ‘Horsey’ coat from the same store – the model made for the Italian horseriding team at the Barcelona Olympics and featuring LP’s famous Storm System.

One more trip before Christmas would be excessive, right?

Permanent Style in The Montebury

Permanent Style is honoured to appear in Ephemere, the online version of luxury men's fashion magazine The Montebury. The guys featured an extract from our recent post on having a bespoke shirt made at Turnbull & Asser. 

Click here to see the site and link.

Shirt review: Ign. Joseph

I was recently invited to try to the made-to-measure shirts of Ign. Joseph, a shirt brand founded by the eponymous Ignatius Joseph in 1997. Mr Joseph lives in Dusseldorf, Germany and the brand is better known in central Europe – where he is rather renowned for his eclectic dress sense and red socks.

But the brand is now stocked in several London establishments (see list at the bottom of this article). Made-to-measure costs between €220 and €240, depending on fabric, and ready-to-wear between €189 and €210.

I sent the factory (in Castellamontre, Italy) a sample shirt that fitted pretty well – one made by Edward Tam in Hong Kong – and they copied the fit. You can also be measured in one of the UK outlets.

A few weeks later I received the shirt, an Egyptian cotton in pale pink. And I have to say the feel of the material was impressive. I am a beginner when it comes to shirt cottons, but it felt smoother and softer than, say, Ralph Lauren Purple Label and on a par with Turnbull & Asser’s Sea Island-quality cotton.

The collar is a hallmark of Ign. Joseph, all handmade and unfused. It was impressively soft and comfortable, yet retained its stiffness along the front edge. The fit was perhaps a little bigger than I had anticipated, but it has yet to be washed so that may change.

The tails were longer than those of most brands, though still a little shorter than what I prefer. And the waist could have done with taking in an inch or so. But then this is made-to-measure rather than bespoke. The fit was still better than any ready-to-wear shirt I have.

The buttons were nice, chunky mother-of-pearl. Once you have shirts with real mother-of-pear it’s pretty easy to spot imitations. There is far more depth and brightness to the colour.

Quality manufacturing, or rather the industry’s lack of it, is rather a bugbear of Ignatius’s. Indeed his press release begins: “After years in which the luxury conglomerates have bought and consolidated traditional names, everything from watches to cashmere stockings would appear to be made in the same factory but, in the manner of the old vertically integrated US carmakers, just stamped with a different label to capture naive clientele.”

The shirts are expensive but the quality is impressive. The designs also venture into the outlandish, which will suit some tastes. A strong impression, overall.

http://www.ign-joseph.com/

Stockists:
VINCCI LTD, 60 Jermyn Street

RICHARD GELDING, 27 North Audley Street

IVOR SATORIA, Allitsen Road

CATER CLOTHING COMPANY, 43 Howard street, Belfast
UK representation: George Remmler, Fashion Innovations Ltd

An exercise in wardrobe building

I commissioned my third bespoke suit from Graham Browne today, and I had thought about the choice pretty constantly for three weeks. There was one particular bad night in Hong Kong, plagued by jet lag, where I turned over the options for jetted versus flapped pockets for seven solid hours. I like to hope it was the insomnia that made me obsessive.

Essentially, it was a question of wardrobe building. Which suit should I commission next, given my existing bespoke, from Hong Kong and London, and ready-to-wear suits.

The existing wardrobe of suits is:

Graham Browne (British bespoke):

Single-breasted (SB) navy chalk stripe

Double-breasted (DB) blue herringbone

Another British bespoke (coming):

Mid-grey SB plain worsted

Edward Tam (Hong Kong bespoke):

Pale grey SB with bold Prince-of-Wales check

Mid-grey DB flannel

Dark grey SB worsted, with faint purple check

Ready-to-wear:

Blue SB pinstripe

Mid-grey SB Prince-of-Wales

Grey/green SB plain worsted

(Plus a few others either too old or cheap to mention…)

So what to commission from Graham Browne next? I want to build up a relatively conservative, business wardrobe. So the next commission would likely be navy or grey. My previous two suits from Browne were both blue, so logically grey next? But then all three Hong Kong suits are shades of grey…

Plus both the British bespoke suits have been heavier wools (12-ounce worsted and 13-ounce flannel). I haven’t really got a normal, worsted bespoke suit yet – one that would stand out at a conference only for its cut.

I’d also absolutely love a Prince-of-Wales; but I have two already. It would be nice to have a navy suit where the jacket would work as a blazer; but that would probably mean a heavier cloth. A bespoke tweed jacket would be different and practical; but I should probably get a suit while I have the money (a jacket would be cheaper).

It was all rather introverted and narcissistic. And not helped by the various cloths on display, such as a lovely thick, grey herringbone that was just sitting there, left over.

In the end I went for an SB two-piece in mid-blue, one button and with a slight cutaway to the jacket front. The cloth is 9.5 ounce, with a very small herringbone. A basic business suit, really. My only concession to experiment is the trousers – high waisted, to be worn with braces. I’m excited about this, my first ‘braced’ suit. The trousers will be about one and a half inches higher than mine at the moment, which isn’t that much; but there will be a fish-tail back.

Oh, and I couldn’t decide between a peaked and notched lapel. So I went for a fish mouth instead – where the lapel is slightly pointed upwards, but not as much as a peak lapel, and not extended either. It creates a smaller, more pointed notch. And is a compromise between the two traditional options.

Expect pictures of this fishy suit being cut soon.

A pleasant visit to Huntsman

There’s a festive reindeer in the window of Savile Row tailors Huntsman. There is some dispute among the staff as to whether it is, in fact, a reindeer, or a mere stag. But it is definitely dressed in a spotty red silk scarf. And its name is Brian.

Chatting to some of the cutters and tailors there last week, it was interesting to hear that the back part of the ground floor was only opened up four years ago. As this back section houses all the cutting, with five full-time cutters on board now, it seems natural to have it on view. A feeling of involvement with your clothes is a key benefit of bespoke, and without this open plan the connection would be lost.

It’s also a wonderfully bright room, the ceiling being almost entirely skylight. But that does make it noisy when it rains.

Talking of the cutters, it was noteworthy that one is now dedicated to women’s tailoring. Having a woman in this role makes a vast difference, as I have seen with my own eyes when men’s tailors take the measurements, and discuss style preferences, of women. No matter how discreet the tailors are, it is not easy for many a woman to discuss her shape. And even harder to communicate how she’d like something to be cut.

Far easier if the cutter is a woman trained in womenswear and coming fresh to Savile Row tailoring, rather than the other way around.

It was good to chat to some of the other staff as well, who demonstrate an impressive range in ages. The first-floor room is more youthful than any other I have visited in Savile Row, with three young tailors. Looks can be deceiving though – coatmaker David Hayes started as an apprentice at Huntsman 12 years ago and has now trained the other two. One of them showed off a gorgeous tweed shawl-collar jacket of his own design (after some jeering from his colleagues). Down in the basement, a rather older generation is led by finisher Sybil Dance, who has served Huntsman for 57 years. She claims to have started when she was two.

Sybil also loves the reindeer, but maintains it should be called Rudolph.

The pattern room is fascinating to browse – full of both client patterns and works in progress. I was struck by one coat in particular, a wool coat in a large herringbone pattern, alternating grey and bright blue. Lovely.

Being Huntsman, tweeds stand out as well. After a relatively muted range last year, this year’s offerings are far brighter and – in that way – more typical of Huntsman. The Bridgend and Ellen are deceptive, a conservative ground allowing pink, mauve, orange and turquoise to play in the checks. And the Finlaggen and Charlotte, with their stronger vertical lines, have been much photographed in recent magazine shoots. All are exclusive to Huntsman, the collection rounded off with the Bowmore.

Permanent Style in the Financial Times

I'm delighted to say that this weekend's Financial Times featured a debut piece by Permanent Style. The article focused on the increasing tendency of men in London to go for bespoke shirts, given the little amount they wear their suit jackets during the day. It's something President Barack Obama has spearheaded with his ruling that jackets no longer had to be worn in the Oval Office.

For the full article, click here.

Here's to the business community in general taking its dress a little more seriously, and treating it with the dignity befitting to business.