Reader question: Trouser waists

Anonymous: Do you prefer adjustable metal tabs or adjustable buttons on your suit pants? Is one more formal than the other? Also, I assume your suit pants do not have belt loops...correct?

I’ve had a few such questions over the past few months, so let’s try and cover all the bases at once.

I always wear ‘metal tabs’ (side adjusters, side straps, strap and buckle) with my suits and similarly formal odd trousers. And I prefer belt loops with my casual trousers (chinos, jeans, cords).

With formal trousers, belts and therefore belt loops should be avoided for several reasons. They detract from the formality of the suit; they interrupt its clean, well-tailored lines; they are uncomfortable on thinner, worsted cloths (would you wear a belt with pyjamas?); and when cinched tight, they buckle the trouser waist, creating an ugly bunching.

So no belt loops. Why not tabs with buttons? Because they tighten elastic inside the waistband all the way around the back, creating similar bunching. At their tightest, the look is not that far off the elasticated waist of tracksuit bottoms. Side tabs, even when highly cinched, restrict any bunching to a couple of inches on either side. Plus they offer a continuous range of settings – buttons are discrete.

And why not braces? Well, I can see their virtues and I’ve tried them consistently on one suit, but they are not for me. Yes, the line of the trouser is cleaner and no shirting is exposed below the jacket’s waist button. But I spend some time every day in just trousers, and the high rise then looks unstylish and frankly unflattering. I also find the comfort of greater room in the waist is outweighed by the discomfort of having barathea wrapped around my shoulders.

By the way, side straps should be positioned on the waistband seam, not the waistband itself. This makes them more comfortable and, if worn at the hips as I do, adds an extra inch to the rise. The waistband is amply hidden when wearing a waistcoat.

I enthusiastically recommend side straps, particularly if you currently have belt loops on your suit trousers. Belt loops can easily be removed by a tailor, and side straps can be made out of the turn-up on the inside of the trouser leg, if enough excess has been left.

And then why belt loops on casual trousers? Because side straps don’t work as well on very heavy cloths, and their weight makes slippage less of an issue. Plus, I like belts. They are another opportunity to wear beautiful, hand-stitched leather and to accessorise effectively. A good belt can add colour in a way that would be garish in leather anywhere else.

[Pictured: Charcoal suit from Toby Luper, with side straps on the waist seam]

Update on Deco

Following several requests, here are a few more details on Gaziano & Girling's new Deco line:

- Shoes will only be available made-to-order to begin with
- Retailers will be offered the option to carry stock, so that may change
- The models will be released on the Gaziano & Girling website in the third week of January
- The price is £1250 including VAT
- That includes lasted shoe trees and a handmade shoe box (pictured), reflecting the same treatment as bespoke

Materialism, not consumerism

Christmas seems an appropriate time to discuss materialism.

It is fashionable to characterise any attachment to material possessions as shallow. Any man interested in clothes knows the feeling of being considered superficial or – perhaps more revealingly – the fear of being considered so.

But there is a difference between materialism and consumerism. A love of physical objects does not necessarily involve transient tastes, accumulation or waste.

A man that doesn’t care about his clothes may keep them until they wear out; but because he buys cheap clothes and doesn’t take care of them, he may still buy more than a devotee of permanent style. The latter will spend a lot more money, but that is his prerogative and his passion will bring him long-lasting pleasure. There is no waste. It is environmentally friendly and it preserves traditional craft. But most importantly, it is not shallow.

Even fashion isn’t necessarily shallow. Couture produces artistic marvels. The problem is changing it every six months and leaving a dump of suddenly unfashionable ripped jeans in the dumpster behind Primark.

A love of objects is often a deep one. This is particularly true today, when one’s music collection, photographic memories and literature are often stored digitally. In a few years’ time, if Microsoft is to be believed, it will all exist in ‘the cloud’. It doesn’t get much more immaterial than that.

The theme was illustrated by two popular books this Christmas: The Hare with the Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal, and A History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor. Both demonstrated the evocative power of objects: an inherited set of Japanese carvings and the best of the British Museum, respectively. Objects can have extraordinary aesthetic and emotional power, whether a seventeenth century Shi’a parade standard or inherited ivory animals. De Waal believes some objects emit an existential hum, and “retain the pulse of their making”.

I don’t think my Edward Green Oundles hum. But my knowledge of the craft involved in their construction, my long hours of polishing and brushing, and their faithful service, endow them with rich personal significance. I think the world could do with a bit more of this sort of materialism.

Merry Christmas

Here's hoping everyone had a lovely Christmas, and has already secured something super from the sales. Back to normal service on Wednesday. Best wishes to all.

Sneak peek: Deco, from Gaziano & Girling

A little Christmas treat for you here, a sneak peek at the Deco line from Gaziano & Girling that will come out next year. The shots, taken exclusively by Andy for Permanent Style, are of the first finished model, a black whole cut. 

Deco is intended to be a hark back to the 1920s in terms of styling, with a longer last culminating in a subtly rounded toe. But more importantly, the waist is finished to a much higher standard than classic G&G shoes, being sewn by hand and cut closer, to create a rounded finish similar to bespoke. Traditionally this finish, with a rounded waist (high but not ridged like the fiddleback) coupled with a slimmer line to the foresole, is called a 'spade' waist as it is supposed to resemble the Ace of Spades.

The waist and foresole are also edged by hand, and there is a long inside stiffener that would usually only be used on bespoke. After the waist, though, the most beautiful part is the pitched heel. This is cut by hand and, like a bespoke shoe, follows the curve of the heel cup. That pitch always looks both more attractive and more natural to me, unlike the straight, square lines of a normal heel. On the bottom the heel is also curved inwards towards the waist, accentuating the shape of the middle of the sole.

Deco shoes will be first seen at Pitti in January and will be available soon after. The price will be around £1000, similar to both Edward Green's Top Drawer and the ready-to-wear Anthony Cleverley shoes. I can't help feeling it's a good sign for the industry if companies are launching such ultra high-end shoes. New, luxury ranges are normally driven by growing demand for the standard product. So these new shoes are nice to see - in both senses.

Photography: Andy Barnham

Ribbon shoe laces

I've never been a fan of Albert slippers with black tie. With a normal tux they look out of place and with a velvet jacket they drag the look back to the domestic engagement that the jacket is trying to escape from.

Equally, patent shoes have never held much appeal. First, because patent leather is essentially cheap skin with a plastic coating - even good patent leather is not great leather - and a beautifully polished calf shines with greater depth and subtlety. And second, because the shoe is so restricted to just that handful of formal occasions during the year.

An interesting alternative is to wear those calf Oxfords with ribbon laces - as shown here, with a pair from Gaziano & Girling. The ribbons can be inserted before an event and removed afterwards, lending a new look to an existing shoe.

Shoemakers buy these in by the box, but I don't know of anywhere in London that sells them retail. (I acquired my pair from Tony and Dean at G&G.) If anyone does and can recommend a supplier, please let us know.

UPDATE: Cleverley normally sells them, priced at £10, but they are out of stock at the moment. Thanks for your comments.

Photography: Andy Barnham

Cleverley video

Nice video here from Cleverley. Customers or London residents will doubtless have seen and heard it all before, but for those that haven't it's a nice upgrade on my photography.

Also, it's worth noting that Cleverley will be touring Asia in February, going to Singapore, Seoul and Beijing for the first time in the company's history. The dates are below.

Tokyo: Beams House on 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th February.
Singapore: Bespoke and MTO event at The Four Seasons Hotel on 9th & 10th February.
Seoul: The Shilla Hotel on 12th & 13th February.
Beijing: The Westin Chaoyang on 15th & 16th February.

The virtues of a shawl-collar cardigan

I’ve always liked shawl-collar cardigans. One reason is that I have a long neck, which benefits from a collar. T-shirts and round-neck sweaters tend to make me look scrawny. Shirts, polo shirts and polo-collared sweaters provide more support.

This links to the second reason, which is the shawl collar’s versatility. A T-shirt is fine for Sunday mornings, but a shirt and tie also works for dress-down Friday. And it is the default choice when I get home because I know it will work with whatever else I am wearing.

The shawl-collar cardigan is more comfortable than a jacket around the house and more stylish than a normal cardigan. I always like clothes that are functional as well, so the fact the collar can usually be turned up and buttoned across appeals.

I have a few favourites. One is an old charcoal Ralph Lauren I bought during a conference in Chicago years ago. A second was an acquisition earlier this year from Albam – in a chunky cotton, which is unusual, and the last style they had made by Stevenage Knitting. And the third is the Drake’s cashmere sweater pictured.

Michael Drake calls the sweater iconic. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it has certainly been popular (as demonstrated by the special orders now available) and I’ve coveted the flannel grey version for going on a year. Having finally secured it, I recommend going for a relatively big size – I’m a 39-inch chest, but the XS (38 inch) was rather too short in the body and the S (42 inch) fit far better. It is not a very slim fit, but then a comfortable sweater like this shouldn’t be.

Offer at Graham Browne

From January 1 next year, prices at Graham Browne will be going up, largely as a result of the rise in VAT - to £890.

In anticipation, they are offering a brief 'VAT-busting' sale for Permanent Style readers: £695 for the three days before the end of the year, between December 29 and December 31.

The price is for a two-piece suit, with most standard bunches included. Russell and Dan will be in each day from 10am till around 3pm.

Huntsman tweed suit: Part 5

A final fitting on the Huntsman shooting suit last week, and only David Ward's little tweaks stopped it being taken away. Good as the fit might look here, David insisted on taking a tiny tuck just below the right shoulder on the back of the jacket and taking in a little of the fullness at the back of the britches.

I questioned David on the lack of pattern matching. His answer was that the belt is pulled tight across the waist while the back has a good amount of drape (making it easier to turn and fire), so the difference in the check is that difference in tautness. 

The checks across the chest and sleeves now match. As mentioned in the previous post in this series, David deliberately did not match them in the previous fitting to allow the sleeves to be raised or lowered.

Hopefully final suit next week.

The Today programme on British style

Good discussion on Radio 4's The Today Programme yesterday, on what makes British style and whether taste has really declined. Interesting points include the fact that Anthony Eden was considered suspiciously well dressed, cared a bit too much and was perhaps too 'European', rather than being a style icon in Britain. Also the argument that young men care more about what they wear today than they did 40 years ago, given the reduced cost of clothing.

The discussion can be heard here. Not sure whether US audiences will be able to listen as I know BBC iPlayer can't be accessed abroad.

Get your jeans altered

Few people get their jeans altered, even if they would do so with a suit or dress trousers. A few reasons spring to mind. It may seem incongruous to try to perfect the fit of such casual trousers. It may be assumed that the designers of jeans know what they’re doing. Or it may be presumed that a tailor cannot alter jeans.

Let’s handle the first two together. Jeans, like all readymade trousers, are designed on a standard block that it has been calculated will fit the most people – or, perhaps realistically, that the fewest people will complain about. As to the design, some men may specifically want the low-slung shape that dominates the jeans market, but in my experience they are the minority. Most men like the styling of jeans but find the waist too large for the fit they want elsewhere. Hence the ubiquity of jeans with belts.

They should have their jeans altered. Taking in the waist will do little to alter the styling of the jeans, as long as it is not extreme. And it’s pretty hard to make extreme alterations on jeans, because after a couple of inches the back pockets collide. Leave a decent gap between your back pockets and you’ll be fine.

Which brings us to the third myth: any decent alterations tailor can alter jeans. As with any alteration, I’d prefer a proper tailor (one that makes things as well as taking them apart) but all of them should be able to do it.

The only problem will be that the thread may not match. It will be very close in colour (usually orange) but perhaps not as thick. That doesn’t bother me but I’m sure there are denim junkies out there for which it would be anathema. If it bothers you, a good haberdasher should be able to source something closer. A high-end jeans maker may supply spare thread or even offer to do the alteration themselves.

Other advice I would have is to make sure jeans are worn in before you have them altered. This is particularly true of raw denim. Pictured are Albam’s regular leg jeans.

It’s time for overcoats 2

The overcoat commission from Graham Browne – a grey herringbone DB, Bateman & Ogden 600g – was ready this week. Russell returned it initially to the coatmaker because he wasn’t happy with the finishing of the pleats, but the extra week’s wait was worth it.

The pleats in the side seams had been cut as separate pieces to the main coat, then attached to the inside afterwards. While this is easier to cut – as you don’t have to build the excess into the coat pattern – it creates a sharper edge both at the opening to the pleat and inside. My polo coat was cut as a single piece and the pleats have a tendency to roll outwards as a result, even when tacked. This was the first time Russell has attempted a coat cut in this way, and he was justifiably pleased with it.

The coat was half lined – I wanted the style of a double breast without all the warmth, as this coat is intended to be a good step cooler than the polo. You can see the taping on the seams inside, which is particularly useful at covering the join between the different sections in the pleats.

The half-lined overcoat is an idea I took from Piombo, a Milanese brand that has just started to be stocked in the UK in Trunk. In common with many Italian outfitters, their coats are usually unlined or half-lined to enable the use of heavier cloths while remaining suitable for south European temperatures.

Elsewhere on the coat, the buttonholes were all sewn by hand at my request (only some of the standard Graham Browne suits have hand-sewn buttonholes, depending on the coatmaker). Russell says he’s now prepared to offer that to any customer that wants it. Generally, he is also taking on new coatmakers that do hand felling on both buttonholes and linings along the bottom edge – even one that does the lining’s side seams by hand. Currently there is no extra cost, only the potential for a slight delay if a coat has to go from one maker to another for finishing.

As I’ve said, a new overcoat makes a man feel wonderfully complete. This feeling is enhanced in bespoke as its sculpting effect is played out on a larger scale. Russell’s overcoats seem to give me a particularly broad chest and shoulders, coupled with a narrow waist and skirt, despite being cut quite close to the jacket underneath.

Makes you feel almost heroic.

 

The P of W's raglan sleeve

Wherever you go you'll meet this coat

Esquire, May 1935: "We talked about this raglan sleeved tweed topcoat last month and we'll probably have to come back to it again more than once in the future, because as a fashion item it's going, and growing, like a snowball down hill.

"The P. of W. started it (we hope you can't penetrate that incognito because every month we swear off mentioning his name in these pages again) and you can recognise it by its fly front and peaked lapels, as well as by its slash pockets and bold checked pattern.

"The rest of the outfit, in this instance, consists of a brown Shetland sports jacket and grey flannel slacks, shoes of brown calf, with red rubber soles and heels, in a wing tipped model, a red madder foulard muffler with a yellow Paisley design, which obviates the necessity for collar and tie and a grey Glen Urquhart cap. Note, we beg of you, that the cap shouldn't match the coat, either in colour or pattern."

Coats don't really follow fashions these days - mostly because men don't buy another long coat until the last one has fallen apart - but even if they did I can't see this catching on. Too sporty, too bright and really only for the man that already has a half dozen coats at least sitting in his wardrobe. Ignoring the cloth, though, I like the design: slash pockets, raglan sleeve, fly front (covered buttons) and turn-back cuffs. I'm not sure the peaked lapel fits in, however - a little too sharp for the otherwise informal design; notches might be better.

And the image reminds me, I need some pale grey flannel trousers for winter. Heavy and cuffed, but pale enough to pair with mid-brown shoes such as his.

Reader questions: Snow, shoes, soles

Ed, London: I just bought a pair of boots and was considering putting rubber soles on top of the leather ones, to make them harder wearing and more suited to the rain and the snow. Is this a good idea?

Pearse, London: With the weather being the way it is, is it ever appropriate to buy a rubber soled shoe? Or is there anything which can be done to negate the damage that rain and puddles causes to leather soled shoes?

Anonymous: Is the application of a half sole encouraged or discouraged for an Edward Green or any other quality shoe? I personally have been a blind advocate of them as they allow me to be much more flexible with regard to the weather and protect the original sole/shoe from refurbishment.

Not surprising, this flurry of questions. Last week it snowed in November in the UK for the first time in decades. It caught men's shoes off guard, it seems, as much as it did Network Rail.

Rubber soles may seem like an obvious choice when the weather is icy, but the grip on a flat rubber sole is not necessarily that superior to leather (rubber soles with a tread are another matter). When damp and worn, leather provides decent friction in most situations.

The bigger advantage of rubber is that it is waterproof where leather is not. I have a pair of Swims galoshes that I wear with light dress shoes (such as the Cleverleys) on damp days like today for just that reason.

But the real problem with leather soles is that men aren’t looking after them properly. In a follow-up email to one of these questions, the reader mentioned that he is wearing his leather-soled shoes everyday, not drying them on their sides and not using shoe trees. It’s no wonder the soles are getting shredded – they’ve probably never fully dried out.

Leather soles can be very hardy if treated right. If it’s too difficult to take care of them, go for rubber and sacrifice something in elegance.

Some leather shoes are also more robust than others. You can have double soles (keeps the sensitive upper further away from the wet), storm welts (stops moisture seeping in at the sides) and waxed or cordovan uppers (I’ve been wearing the Lodger Ibano (pictured) through the snow on more casual days and they have done wonderfully – no dampness, no damage.) Silicon waterproofing sprays also give some protection against light showers. So if style is a concern, stick with leather but treat it right.

If you still want rubber soles, they can be easily and inexpensively added to welted shoes. Get someone to take off the old sole and put a rubber one on though – the leather underneath won’t rot if it’s covered, as one reader feared, but it isn’t designed to be covered either.

Finally, it’s always worth going for a full rather than half-sole if you can afford it. The cost is only a little more and it will both look better and prevent water getting in at the join. Certainly if you have Edward Greens. Get them sent back to the factory and they’ll be resoled, generally refurbished and come back looking better than new.

Fitting at Timothy Everest

This was the fitting for a velvet jacket being made by Timothy Everest.

I was pleased with the fineness of the velvet, the grosgrain facings and the contrast between the two. It felt very odd to have no vents on the jacket, both as regards the way it felt and the reduction in flair at the skirt. But I think that is simple unfamiliarity.

We ended up changing a fair few points, mostly on the balance of the jacket rather than the fit. So one side of the collar was shortened slightly and one of the bottom hems brought up so the foreparts sat square and the silk cord matched up on the inside and outside (the jigger button attaches by a length of cord on the inside similar to that on the outside).

Other minor changes included taking in the waist by a half inch each side and shortening one of the sleeves by the same amount.

Hopefully it will be ready for the Christmas season. (The shots will also feature on Tim's excellent and rather eccentric blog, which I've been contributing to occasionally.)