tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45933881404548674282013-11-23T14:34:04.904-08:00A Suitable WardrobeEditorial ArchiveWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.comBlogger2339125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-20163992731757067132013-11-22T08:44:00.000-08:002013-11-22T08:44:17.182-08:00Video: Padding The Chest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/79857755" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe> <br /><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">In last week’s episode of “The Making of a Coat,” Rory Duffy assembled the elements of a chest canvas, basting a significant amount of fullness into the haircloth and domette. In today’s installment, Duffy distributes that fullness with a dense series of pad stitches that will help lock in the desired shape. That’s pretty much it.</div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Despite this simplicity -- or perhaps because of it -- it’s my personal favorite in the series so far. It captures the essence of so much bespoke tailoring: fluid and efficient movement, guided by trained touch and muscle memory, never exactly repeated. It’s a soothing physical rhythm that lets the mind wander and the trap flap, and as Duffy reminisces about his training at Henry Poole, it’s easy to imagine the chatty camaraderie among tailors. They may have had to trade their upper-story sunlight for the lower-rent fluorescence of basement workshops, but the archaically deep bond between Savile Row masters and apprentices remains. Duffy knows he was fortunate to have experienced this as an apprentice, and now as a master tailor he’s committed to sharing his training -- whether with his former Poole apprentice Emily Squires (who in 2013 won the Golden Shears herself), his students today at Parsons, or with viewers of these videos. </div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Duffy’s comments here on the shortcomings of subdivisional tailoring are particularly interesting, and they help provide a rationale for his brand of soup-to-nuts “handcraft” bespoke beyond the romantic appeal of having one’s clothing made by a single artisan. How compelling that rationale is depends on the individual -- Duffy himself invites each of his clients to consider a more inexpensive bespoke line partially made in Ireland -- but the notion that each step in tailoring must be made with a solid understanding of the larger process is fundamental. </div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Toward the end of the video, Duffy describes the number of pad stitches put into a canvas as an index of quality, but it’s worth nothing that he prefers a more structurally shaped coat, and that certain other tailors -- notably Stephen Hitchcock -- advocate having fewer. In the highly partisan trenches of #menswear, one man’s drapey softness is another’s shapeless mess, but considering that even machined-padded canvases suffice for many well-regarded makers, one suspects that such distinctions tend to be exaggerated. </div><div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-left: 216px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> - Text and video by Andrew Yamato</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-left: 216px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><b>“The Making of a Coat” episode archive:</b></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;"><b></b><br /></div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-making-of-coat.html">Episode #1: Introduction</a></span></div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;">Episode #2: Drafting the Pattern (In production)<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/10/striking-pattern.html">Episode #3: Striking the Pattern</a></div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-elements-of-structure.html">Episode #4: Cutting the Canvas & Lining</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-crookening-and-markstitching.html">Episode #5: Crookening & Markstitching</a></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-man-vs-machine.html">Episode #6: Making Patch Pockets</a></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px; min-height: 12px;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-constructing-chest.html">Episode #7: Constructing the Chest</a></div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><br /></div></div><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /></span>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-82581640388339271342013-11-21T08:09:00.001-08:002013-11-21T14:58:19.743-08:00Madrid's Calvo De Mora<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xPGvhdSPwDk/Uo4vCkKpgSI/AAAAAAAAMdI/PdZX6rmPlIE/s1600/DSCN0575%255B4%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xPGvhdSPwDk/Uo4vCkKpgSI/AAAAAAAAMdI/PdZX6rmPlIE/s400/DSCN0575%255B4%255D.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />Tailoring in Madrid can be staid, at least among many of the top tailors, whose house styles though different rarely venture away from a cut that highlights, or manufactures, masculine attributes: powerful shoulders, and a firm, developed chest. It is a look meant to convey strength, elegance too to be sure, but the lasting impression of Madrid tailoring, whether seen in person or in an old black and white photograph, is solidity. When it comes to tailors, however, formality and staidness is nothing to scoff at. One may not acquire a wardrobe replete with details that set the internet aflame, but one can feel reasonably assured he won't discover his closet(s) full of impractical items, too precious or daring to be worn. Nonetheless, the photograph-stiff look is not for everyone, and in Madrid many of those men visit the tailoring house Calvo de Mora.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>The firm is known for a softly constructed jacket and a modern silhouette, the shapeliness of which is an area of particular aesthetic concern for its owner and main cutter, Manuel Calvo de Mora. “The jackets are cut for comfort, but they must improve a man’s shape,” he said, and proceeded to show me the proper curve along the waist and skirt, pushing downward with a rigid hand, drawing a shape in the air. He was so enveloped in the act that it seemed a compulsion, as if he was not really showing me at all. Further in our discussion, he was similarly emphatic about proportion, pointing to the width of the shoulder and lapels, the height of the collar, and the length of the jacket as details that provide harmony between the wearer’s body and the garment. “It is the most important part of how a suit should look,” he said. “And the second and third most important, too.” <br /><br />Like most tailors, he got the trade into his hands inside his father’s workshop. Later, he refined his technique at the School of Tailoring and upon graduation became assistant cutter to the well-known tailor Moses Cordoba, with whom he stayed for a few years before opening his own shop. Today, that shop employs two other cutters, Mr. Calvo de Mora’s sons Alberto and Caesar, and seven tailors. The space itself is expansive. There is large salon-like front room where the cutting is done, two fitting rooms, and a well-lighted back room where the tailors construct every garment Calvo de Mora produces, which is to say everything is done in-house and monitored closely by Mr. Calvo de Mora.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AvLOnNvPfBo/Uo6Neih8vKI/AAAAAAAAMdc/y12y4uXv0as/s1600/DSC_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AvLOnNvPfBo/Uo6Neih8vKI/AAAAAAAAMdc/y12y4uXv0as/s320/DSC_0001.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>Of course, as one can expect when visiting a top Madrid tailor, the quality of make is very high. Nearly every stitch is made by hand and it takes some seventy hours of labor to produce a suit. And according to the Calve de Mora customers I spoke with the firm accommodates client tastes and requests with more than just a perfunctory nod. In the shop I saw pleated shirt shoulders, lapped seams, buggy linings, and all manner of pocket detailing. I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention that not everything on hand was perfect. I noticed two finished jackets whose patterns were not entirely aligned (pinstripes at the shoulder seams, and a glen plaid between arm and body). These are not insignificant flaws to those reading these pages, but readers unfamiliar with Spanish tailoring should consider that perfect pattern matching is not something so commonly requested by Spanish bespoke customers, especially in the past. More importantly, the tailors at Calvo de Mora are amicable fellows. One gets the impression that if one were to make a point of it, they’d happily oblige.<br /><br />Indeed, when asked about changes to the trade in recent years, Mr. Calvo de Mora mentioned that his clients have gotten younger and more knowledgeable about tailoring. They’ve also fairly specific ideas about what they want and how they should look. Now, while I’ve heard more than one Madrid tailor bemoan such client (one told me his clients were exponentially more in need of a therapist than a tailor), especially those educated by clothing blogs, Calvo de Mora appears to welcome them. During our conversation Mr. Calvo de Mora admitted that though these clients prove challenging they are more rewarding. “When they come to get their orders, they really appreciate the work we do,” he said. “More so than other clients.” On the page, such a statement appears just another potentially bogus sentiment in an industry rife with malodorous marketing. There was, however, nothing disingenuous in how it sounded, and unlike other tailors I’ve met Mr. Calvo de Mora didn’t seem to be waiting for the discussion to turn to business. He talked only about tailoring, his enthusiasm for which is captivating. <br /><br />Fortunately for his clients that enthusiasm is evident in the clothes, too. <br /><br /><i>In Madrid, suits start at 2900 €, a price approaching that of the more expensive top tailors here, but a relative bargain when compared to other Mediterranean tailors.</i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">Words and photo by Anthony Eleftherion</div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-15121251776022015612013-11-20T08:19:00.000-08:002013-11-20T08:19:55.872-08:00Neckties For Fall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qyRwkOcU0Qo/UozX7hirRmI/AAAAAAAAMc0/RJ0wCj5om7Q/s1600/Will-11-5-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qyRwkOcU0Qo/UozX7hirRmI/AAAAAAAAMc0/RJ0wCj5om7Q/s400/Will-11-5-13.jpg" /></a></div><br />Gianni Agnelli wore them and Alan Flusser praised them. The them in this case being wool and cashmere neckties that complement the heavier jackets of fall while adding interest to what might otherwise be mundane business dress.<br /><br />Heavy is all relative of course. The reduced diameter threads that make those lightweight Super fabrics are even better suited to neckties that are lighter and airier than the wool ties of the past. Consider if you will the subtle glen check on the tie in the photo whose weight sets off the 10 ounce (300 gram) jacket perfectly.<br /><br />Another change for the better at the mills that weave these things is their increased propensity to mix different kinds of thread, for example cashmere with wool, into blends with effects and qualities that were difficult if not impossible in the past (our new semi-solids are examples). And then there is Scozia, which means Scotland in Italian. It also means a fabric that is 80% silk blended with 20% merino wool for a soft, textured hand and a beautiful muted look that makes up as a great necktie.<br /><br />Check out these and more stunning, if we may say so ourselves, new necktie arrivals in <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.gostorego.com/new-arrivals/new.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New Arrivals</a>. <br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-78505959609522108922013-11-19T08:13:00.001-08:002013-11-19T08:18:40.862-08:00A Bond's Breakfast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BtDwLQClIf0/UouNzU6IScI/AAAAAAAAMck/m6zT64iGnNc/s1600/littlescarlet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BtDwLQClIf0/UouNzU6IScI/AAAAAAAAMck/m6zT64iGnNc/s400/littlescarlet.jpg" /></a></div><P> His creator’s description of the literary James Bond’s breakfast could make Daniel Craig’s Bond lose his lunch. Then again, those awful Tom Ford pants were probably too tight anyway. Ian Fleming, author of the original James Bond novels, famously once described his Bond as a dull, uninteresting man to whom things just happened. Still, Fleming’s own taste for the finer things in life, which he drew on to provide a sort of brand-name verisimilitude to the Bond novels, meant that Bond’s cars, meals, toiletries and the like always enjoyed exacting, vivid, expensive detail.<P> Bond’s breakfast was a case in point full of rarefied luxury touchstones, the Bond novels describing coffee from De Bry in New Oxford Street brewed in an American Chemex and served in a Queen Anne silver coffeepot, an egg from Marans hens (whose eggs are very distinctively dark brown) boiled for the suspiciously short and precise time of three-and-a-third minutes, along with toast with Jersey butter, all served on Minton China with a particular pattern. Jersey butter not being sufficient for Bond’s toast, it required the accompaniment of “three squat glass jars containing Tiptree ‘Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam; Cooper's Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum's.”<P> Many Bond fans may have attempted to copy Bond’s breakfast particulars, in the same way that they likely kept Aston Martin in business during its lean periods in the 1980s and early 1990s. Fleming himself seems to have anticipated Bond emulation by providing a recipe to be tried at home for “Scrambled Eggs James Bond” in the short story “James Bond in New York” (it’s in Fleming’s travelogue <i>Thrilling Cities</i>, Bond pedants, and is not bad). Personally, I prefer espresso or plunger pot coffee to the Chemex, which is still available for purchase at many coffee shops. However, I suspect that today’s Bond would favor a more modern gadget like the Aeropress that my more interesting e-friends recommended to me. Bond’s coffee shop De Bry is no more, although HR Higgins “the Coffee Man” is a worthy and homey substitute.<P> But Bond’s breakfast spreads are consumerist-ready, exhaustively branded and qualified. They are even all made by royal warrantholders, suppliers by appointment to the Queen’s household. Fleming loved to engage in this sort of best-of-British snobbery, making Bond observe in another novel that the best British cooking is the best in the world (I do quite like it and my favorite cheese, Stilton, is British, not French). Despite the fussiness of Fleming’s description, in the case of at least one of these confections he got it quite right. <P> Years ago in a more callow age I tried to track them down. Unfortunately, Fortnum’s told my spies that they could not in living memory recall ever having sold honey made from Norwegian heather, although Scottish heather honey was available (that same spy also categorically refused to pick up Fortnum & Mason cat food, which I’d requested having read that real-life sybaritic spy Guy Burgess would receive it for his cat following his 1950s defection to the Soviet Union). Frank Cooper’s Vintage Oxford Marmalade, which is made with slightly bitter Seville oranges, is still available and quite good if you like marmalade. Tiptree’s Little Scarlet is another story.<P> The “Little Scarlet” in its name comes from the tiny wild strawberries, about the size of a cocktail onion, picked on the Tiptree estate from which this jam is made. Little Scarlet is supposedly the only jam made with them. It took me a while to realize this, but jam is made from fruit, jelly is made from juice. As such, Little Scarlet jam is full of the small, succulent, vibrant little things. It makes a lovely complement to your breakfast, which does not need to be specially toasted or served on Minton china.<P> Little Scarlet may perhaps even be the least precious thing about Bond’s breakfast, although, true to Fleming’s form, Little Scarlet is probably the most expensive jam around, with the exception of the rather disappointing Confiture de Bar-le-Duc, a legendary red currant jam where each individual currant is pitted by hand using a goose quill. I’m a big fan of red currant jam but learned from trial that I prefer normal, ungoosed red currant jam, which itself is hard enough to find (as opposed to red currant jelly).<P> Little Scarlet can be a bit hard to find in person – shops that sell it tend to run out of stock. However, as in many cases, it is fairly easy to order online. Unlike certain other of Bond’s choices, such as Pinaud Elixir shampoo or nylon undies, it’s still available and advisable, and far more affordable to try than the Bentleys or Rolexes in which the literary Bond indulged – both of which nowadays sixty years on may not bear much resemblance to the versions Fleming enjoyed. In contrast, sometimes the simplest things can give us the most pleasure, with the least amount of change.<P> Words and photo by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans<P>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-53695377874937950262013-11-18T10:32:00.000-08:002013-11-18T10:32:19.692-08:00Style<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-adSwJdVsvDc/Uoo4pWaSxmI/AAAAAAAAMcI/4fdF-HFVdho/s1600/cary+grant+and+sean+connery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-adSwJdVsvDc/Uoo4pWaSxmI/AAAAAAAAMcI/4fdF-HFVdho/s400/cary+grant+and+sean+connery.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Taste and style are not synonyms. Simplicity of the sort demonstrated by Cary Grant and Sean Connery in the photo is tasteful, but the man who wears little that is more adventurous than white shirts, solid neckties, and navy blue suits or gray tweed jackets almost never has style. Too much simplicity is timid and inspired by fear of being perceived as different or out of place. <br /><br />True style begins with good taste in my opinion and adds something individual to it. It is not the over the top conformity of the bracelets, tight jackets and short trousers on the Italian retailer at Pitti Uomo, but rather one or two touches that add character. Mr. Grant's lighter colored socks, for example, retained the simplicity for which he is known but gave his ensembles style. <br /><br />The key to dressing with style in my opinion is to add only one out of the ordinary element to what is otherwise simple good taste. Whether <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.gostorego.com/accessories/umbrellas-and-sticks.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a Malacca walking stick</a>, <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.gostorego.com/accessories/neckties/cashmere-and-wool-neckties.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a cashmere necktie</a> worn with a worsted suit or a bright yellow Mackintosh in the rain, a single element adds individuality without drawing too much attention to the man. <br /><br />Have style. <br /><br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-85372707959430005852013-11-15T09:45:00.000-08:002013-11-15T09:45:31.777-08:00Video: Constructing The Chest<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/79227468" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe> </div><br />Episode #4 of The Making of a Coat introduced three elements of a coat’s internal structure: canvas, haircloth, and domette. In today’s installment, Rory Duffy demonstrates how he assembles these materials with basting stitches that lock in a fourth essential element of structure: fullness. A properly made chestpiece reflects the convex shape of the chest it covers; the first step in achieving this is to slightly ripple the haircloth as it is basted to the flat canvas beneath it. This fullness will be more precisely distributed later with pad stitches before being shrunk away with the iron, leaving a gently convex shape. A third layer of bias-cut cotton domette serves to smooth and soften the feel of the chestpiece while insulating the coarse fibers of the haircloth.<br /><br />New York city tailor Leonard Logsdail has observed that the internal structure one finds in many RTW coats isn’t actually doing much. Manufacturers know that their increasingly knowledgeable consumers are demanding canvassed coats as a benchmark of quality, but they also know how easily many of those consumers are satisfied by well-marketed half-measures. A manufactured chestpiece made with the same materials and superficial construction as Duffy’s but without his expertly added fullness will create structure, but not shape. Knowing how to build in that fullness -- and how much, and where -- is one of those coatmaking skills that, as Duffy observes, only comes with training and experience.<br /><br />So far in this series we’ve been looking at basic steps of coatmaking common to any true bespoke process. They may rarely all be undertaken these days by a single individual, and perhaps not to Duffy’s standard, but they are traditional methods to which no tailor would lay personal claim. With the chestpiece construction, however, Duffy is beginning to build in stylistic elements which will help distinguish my coat as his work. The straight horizontal lay of his haircloth, and the fact that it extends all the way to the armhole, will help to push out a strong, deep chest. This stands in contrast with, say, Anderson & Sheppard, who lay in their haircloth on the bias and cut it back from the armhole, encouraging the chest to collapse and break into soft vertical folds. The actual difference between a clean and a draped chest tends to be somewhat exaggerated, and in any case is not one of quality, but personal style; I myself tend to prefer the latter, but I believe that each tailor does his best work in accordance with his own taste, and I look forward to seeing what Duffy’s approach does for me.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">Text and video by Andrew Yamato</div><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>“The Making of a Coat” episode index:</b> </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #1: <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-making-of-coat.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Introduction</a> </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #2: Drafting the Pattern (In production) </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #3: <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/10/striking-pattern.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Striking the Pattern</a> </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #4: <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-elements-of-structure.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cutting the Canvas & Lining</a> </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #5: <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-crookening-and-markstitching.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Crookening & Markstitching</a> </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #6: <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.blogspot.com/2013/11/video-man-vs-machine.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Making Patch Pockets</a> </span>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-31484223477235847662013-11-14T07:01:00.000-08:002013-11-14T07:01:00.328-08:00Overcoats Should Be Double Breasted<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jNf7cff_62s/UoQd86SLD2I/AAAAAAAAMbQ/YF8tlCJKitU/s1600/Esq+Hurd+Black+homburg.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jNf7cff_62s/UoQd86SLD2I/AAAAAAAAMbQ/YF8tlCJKitU/s320/Esq+Hurd+Black+homburg.JPG" width="265" /></a></span></div><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A menswear writer's<em> métier</em> is the justification of his own predilections, both in the sense that the creative act of writing mitigates, perhaps without totally excusing, the essentially unproductive personal passion for clothes horsemanship, and also in the sense that much of the writing itself is devoted to a search of the historical record and the practical sensibility for evidence in support of the collection of whims and affectations we call our personal style. The modern fascination with psychoanalysis has rendered the inexplicable preference obsolete. And so we dissect our taste buds in search of phlogiston ready to release itself upon contact with the coolest paraphernalia and desiderata. We eff the ineffable.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is in this excavatory spirit that I will attempt to explain why I prefer double-breasted overcoats. The first reason is practical. The overcoat's principal function is to keep you warm. Two overlapping layers of fabric on your chest are better than one for this purpose. Even people who wear single breasted overcoats must know this, because on cold days I see them walking down the street with one side of their coat pulled taut over the other, as if to create a second breast by force.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The second reason is aesthetic. Long, interrupted stretches of solid cloth are boring. Coats should be long (at least to the knee) for the same already-mentioned uncool reason that they should be double-breasted. A single-breasted coat leaves swaths of fabric unadorned. If it's cut with a dramatic silhouette, or a lengthy, seductive peak lapel, it can still capture the imagination. But most overcoats are not cut this way, and are instead straight and boxy, or even oversized. The single-breasted varities end up looking like Snuggies with buttons. Double-breasted overcoats are more dynamic. Lapel lines are longer since they're generally either peak or the still more rambunctious Ulster collar. The double rows of buttons and the overlap of the two sides of the coat provide width that balances the length of the coat. The double-breasted overcoat is both more harmonious and more exciting than the single-breasted.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, as no iGent polemic is ever complete without references to <i>Apparel Arts </i>illustrations, 19<span style="font-size: small;"><sup>th</sup>century dandyism, and the Duke of Windsor, I first appeal to the one issue of <i>Apparel Arts</i> that I own, which happens to be a Fall preview for 1936. I can report that most of the overcoats depicted are double-breasted. The 30s have voted, and double-breasted overcoats have won. I can also quote no less an authority than Farid Chenoune on the nautical-cum-dandiacal origin of the overcoat:</span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Around 1835 there emerged a fashion that provoked wariness among tailors – the overcoat....Double-breasted, back-vented, firmly buttoned and endowed with large pockets, it had nearly all the features of the sailor's coat that, according to legend, the comte d'Orsay borrowed one rainy day.”</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At least according to Chenoune, the first overcoats (and, by the rules of menswear, therefore the best overcoats) were double-breasted. Having name-dropped a Count, let me move up to a Prince, failed King, or Duke, whichever you think ranks highest. Although there are many photos of the Duke of Windsor wearing beautiful double-breasted overcoats, the most famous of which was his </span><a href="http://www.assetstorage.co.uk/AssetStorageService.svc/GetImageFriendly/721257780/700/700/0/0/1/80/ResizeBestFit/0/PressAssociation/14A40BED9DE2EC3095F35A03EB6D847E/royalty-duke-and-duchess-of-windsor-southampton-dock.jpg"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">polo coat</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, in the only </span><a href="http://www.e-reading.biz/illustrations/1007/1007828-_40.jpg"><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">photo</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I have seen of him wearing a single-breasted overcoat, he looks like a blind person. Maybe we can just assume someone gave him that coat to wear as a practical joke and told him it was double-breasted, which a half-century later inspired the gift of a dead parrot to a blind 8-year-old in the comedy classic Dumb and Dumber.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In keeping with <em>A Suitable Wardrobe</em> tradition, I will trust that even if my explications haven't convinced you, a simple restatement of my thesis will be enough to demonstrate that I have convinced myself.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overcoats should be double-breasted.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: right;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Words by David Isle and illustration from <em>Esquire</em></span></o:p></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-44090336086704960352013-11-13T07:25:00.003-08:002013-11-13T07:25:59.799-08:00Grenadine, Updated<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P0mx8UC-Sd4/UoLt9bmKhqI/AAAAAAAAMbA/BzLEGJaZ5g8/s1600/wovengrenadinenavybrnnavy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P0mx8UC-Sd4/UoLt9bmKhqI/AAAAAAAAMbA/BzLEGJaZ5g8/s400/wovengrenadinenavybrnnavy.jpg" /></a></div>The popularity of the silk grenadine necktie is due in large part to the late Ian Fleming, who placed it around the neck of a certain Mr. James Bond in his books. A loose, even lacy weave produced on jacquard looms, grenadine's texture gives added interest to what is traditionally a solid colored necktie.<br /><br />There are several variations to the grenadine weave with the more popular being the more heavily textured Garza Grossa and the finer Garza Fina. Grenadine ties are lined, lest the wearer's shirt be visible through the loose weave of the Garza Grossa in particular. They are also thicker than other ties, which limits their construction to three folds and restricts the knots used to tie them to four in hands as they are otherwise too bulky.<br /><br />The versatility of the solid colored necktie and its attachment to the aforementioned legend (Bond wore a navy blue) meant that grenadines were generally solids until the last couple years, when tie makers began commissioning stripes and dotted weaves from the mills. Having gone through that phase, we now return to the original with a literal twist where the use of different color silk threads for the warp and the weft produces an updated look that is <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/silkwovengrenadineneckties.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">not quite a solid</a>. In eminently conservative colorways, had they been available fifty years ago the not-quite-a-solid grenadine would surely have been in the closet of our favorite secret agent.<br /><br /><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;">It’s more than a few months overdue but we expect to be launching the new ASW site </span><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.us5.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=3798b8db749085a01a5fe070c&id=e5cac01bac&e=6ae1ed4a30" style="background-color: white; color: #007df1; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.asuitablewardrobe.net</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px;"> this week. Unfortunately, we have to redirect our internet addresses in order to do so and you may not be able to access the site for up to 24 hours. It’s not permanent! If we seem to have disappeared just try again in a few hours.</span></i><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-1217407588988003092013-11-12T07:01:00.000-08:002013-11-12T07:01:00.157-08:00The Rise Of The Internet Gentleman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zcWYJb8r4WA/UnwjkDghWII/AAAAAAAAMaM/TlEHzGbjqyc/s1600/IG+pithhelmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zcWYJb8r4WA/UnwjkDghWII/AAAAAAAAMaM/TlEHzGbjqyc/s400/IG+pithhelmet.jpg" /></a></div><P> The recent influx of discussion on this and other websites about the Internet Gentleman led me to consider what defines this by no means elusive species. As in many other subcultures, it’s a term that originated as an insult and has gained occasional adoption as a self-deprecating badge. But what is he really, a straw man with feet of clay, stuffed with murdered metaphors?<P> From the various chatter about him on clothing blogs and forums, it would seem that we all know the Internet Gentleman type: apostolically repeating a gospel of hearsay; faithfully adopting the whims of a handful of tastemakers; clumsily using overly formal language and syntax in an attempt to live up to the laborious illusion that liking nice clothes somehow makes someone part of a fraternity of men of refinement and distinction. Unfortunately, it just makes us someone who cares enough about clothes to talk about them on the Internet. <P> It would be too easy to demonize Internet Gentlemen, whom I will inconsistently also refer to as iGents, as Internet clothing lovers other than us: latter-day Walter Mitties, men who use embarrassingly florid fantasy to transcend embarrassingly dull reality, where they would encounter far fewer people interested in discussing their particular proclivities. In truth, back in 2009 Wikipedia’s cleanup team quickly deleted the Internet Gentleman subject page someone had created. As Wikipedia’s commenters noted, the Internet Gentleman epithet does not exist outside of the Internet Gentleman subculture, the milieu of the more self-involved members of the clothing blogs and forums. Like our clothing fantasies, the term did not exist outside of that virtual world. In other words, the only people calling other people Internet Gentlemen were Internet Gentlemen themselves. <P> Thus, I do not except myself from the tars and feathers of the Internet Gentleman moniker. How could I? I’m a boring quasi-suburban dad who writes (and writes and writes, I’ve read the snipes) about odd clothing on the Internet. All of us who found a community of the likeminded online where it was easier to discuss putatively classic clothing than in real life may also be, hard as it is to admit, Internet Gentlemen as well, for as I have suggested in prior posts, using the term or even knowing it is a petard that hoists us all. <P> I could go on about the various Internet Gentleman subspecies – the Colonel, whose turn-ons include guns, zipties, pith helmets and the trappings of an empire he did not build, never having visited Britain or the Commonwealth; the Fauntleroy, who has the most toys (including Mystery Bespoke Tailors (© voxsartoria)) and displays them online along with pictures of a lifestyle so glamorous you’d think he wouldn’t bother showing it off to we <i>hoi polloi </i>(but you can’t spell “Fauntleroy” without “flaunt”); the Padawan of disappointingly excessive faith in what others online tell him to wear (cordovan, chambray, knit ties, that elusive buttondown collar with a real roll, non-gemmed shoes); and the Trad, who needs no snarky epithet worse than that and dresses like a suicidal 1970s boarding school teacher… <P> In point of fact, dissecting each subspecies gets us to no deeper truth beyond the fundamental one: what makes an Internet Gentleman is simply an interest in what he thinks is classic clothing (which concept differs among subspecies), a reliance on received wisdom (that is, knowledge that is secondhand at best), and a life that is more richly lived in Internet fantasy than in mundane reality. The last two are true of just about everyone on the Internet: Nothing is more widely and contagiously passed around than received Internet wisdom, except, perhaps, Yo Mama (joke). And the first quality, a liking for supposedly classic clothing, may soon lead to the Internet Gentleman being threatened with destruction in the inevitable backlash against the pseudo-quality trend (so-called heritage brands, the myth of timeless style, ersatz integrity) of the last five or ten years. The Internet Gentleman may become an endangered species, a man on the run. If this were the sort of movie I enjoy watching, he would then be placed in some sort of terrordrome where Lance Henriksen, Ursula Andress or Yaphet Kotto would proceed to hunt him for sport. Thus, rather than try to apply the term seriously to others, I suggest a series of aphorisms by which we can recognize them and ourselves as Internet Gentlemen, with apologies to comedian Jeff Foxworthy and his “You might be a redneck” comedy routine: <P> If your new Alan Flusser book is sitting on top of your old Alan Flusser book;<P> If you get all dressed up with nowhere to go but online;<P> If you look for jobs that are business formal;<P> If you have to decide between your Brigg or your Smith when it rains... and you post your dramatic decision online;<P> If you wonder if your kid's diapers have seven-fold construction;<P> If you have a favorite salesperson at the Off 5th at Franklin Mills;<P> If you tell your tailor you met fellow customers online;<P> If you pay $10 an issue for a magazine without people committing lewd acts inside it;<P> If you buy magazines about shoes and clothing in languages you can’t read;<P> If your suit would have cost more than your car if you hadn't bought it on 95% clearance;<P> If you like it, the lamb, but know brown is for farmer;<P> If you ask strangers to look at clothed pictures of you on the Internet;<P> If you ask other men to post selfies from the men’s room and are not a conservative politician;<P> If you've derived the function for making a chambray pattern.<P> If you know where the outlet centers are in countries you have never visited;<P> If you watch bad movies to comment about the clothes;<P> If you own one or more pocket squares with cats on them;<P> If you used to use the expression "pocket square" until you saw everyone else using it;<P> If you have gazed into the abyss, and it has gazed into you, and you wrote a clothing book about it;<P> If you drink espresso out of Limoges cups with 18th-century dandies on them;<P> If you think clothing “fora” have jumped the shark but hang around to talk about decor and food;<P> If you think your post count makes you part of the solution;<P> If you have ever used the words “suitings” or “shirtings,” (even correctly);<P> If you have unironically referred to yourself or someone else as a “sartorialist;"<P> If you get dressed up for a date with an iGent;<P> And if you laughed at these... you just might be an iGent.<P> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">Words and photo by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans</div>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-54059706537150228722013-11-11T09:23:00.002-08:002013-11-13T17:09:56.951-08:00A Mutt Of A Jacket<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pUz_bgFgPUA/UoD8EEqctkI/AAAAAAAAMaw/-vrsN-N6Ji4/s1600/Bogart+Bow+Tied.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pUz_bgFgPUA/UoD8EEqctkI/AAAAAAAAMaw/-vrsN-N6Ji4/s400/Bogart+Bow+Tied.jpg" /></a></div><P> The quintessential American odd jacket has three buttons rolled to midway between the top and the center button with flapless patch pockets, as worn by Humphrey Bogart in the photograph. This particular style is a mutt, without real historical provenance so far as I know. The button stance is a deliberate imitation of what happens naturally to a three buttons rolled to the top tweed over time - the lapels inevitably fall open with wear until they become a three roll two and a half - and the pockets are a cleaned up version of those used to hold shotgun shells during a shoot. The changes to the original Norfolk are an effective point between a coat designed for serious sport and one intended for shopping. <P> Some men do not care for a patch pocket on the chest as the required top stitching means that the pocket interior is smaller and normally sized linen handkerchiefs balloon out flagrantly. The countervailing argument is that odd jackets are best accompanied by silk squares and that same smaller size helps alleviate silk's slip out of sight syndrome. Bogart has chosen linen, and his handkerchief may be smaller than the usual 17" (45 cm) as I cannot get mine to behave so discreetly.<P> In his personal life, Bogart frequently accompanied his odd jackets with a <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/bowties.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">bow tie</a>, a particularly effective combination when tweed is paired with matte silk or wool. The higher the jacket's closure, the better looking the combination (an odd vest or knit waistcoat is another visual aid). Bogart and Ms. Bacall are dressed for an afternoon party or an event of similar formality. And that is the perfect setting for a mutt of a jacket. <p> Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-77906259203452783282013-11-08T07:01:00.000-08:002013-11-08T07:01:00.022-08:00Video: Man Vs. Machine<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/78688343" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br /></div><p> Installment 6 of “The Making of a Coat” introduces that most maligned and misunderstood of a tailor’s tools: the sewing machine. The relative merits of hand vs. machine sewing is regularly debated among tailors and menswear aficionados, with the general consensus predictably favoring the well-wielded needle, drawing each stitch according to its own logic. Looking past the obvious romantic appeal of such craftsmanship in our artisanally-obsessed times, hand sewing is indeed essential to the supple look and feel of tailored clothing, particularly on those curved seams which most closely trace the body and draw the eye. <P> A handsewn seam is not, however, categorically superior. Machined seams have their own virtues -- not only with regard to economy of production, but also quality of product. Rory Duffy’s technique of making the inverted pleat patch pockets I’ve requested on my coat illustrates both sides of a key tenet of his bespoke philosophy: to sew by hand whenever there is the slightest structural or aesthetic benefit in so doing, but to otherwise use a machine for what it does best -- and better than hand sewing: strong uniform seams. In this instance, my pockets are bagged out by machine, affording them the strength they’ll need to accommodate my bad habit of overstuffing them (hence the inverted pleat). Machine stitching joins the cloth and the silesia pocketing flatly, however, leaving the latter slightly visible along the outer edge of the pocket. To conceal it, Duffy then bastes around the circumference, gently rolling the cloth over the silesia with his fingertips as he goes. Thus prepared, the pocket will eventually be applied to the coat by hand with visible stab stitches, lending it a delicate handsewn appearance belying a rugged internal construction.<p> Duffy has observed that making pockets is his least favorite part of the bespoke process; they are clearly laborious, relatively unglamorous, and traditionally consigned on Savile Row to dedicated pocketmakers. For our purposes, however, they provide a good example of how quality tailoring is ultimately guided less by rigid principle than flexible practicality. <br /><div class="text-align:" right=""><br /><div style="text-align: right;">Words and video by Andrew Yamato</div> </div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>“The Making of a Coat” Episode Index</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/10/the-making-of-coat.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode #1 - Introduction</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #2 - Measuring and Drafting the Pattern (in production) </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/10/striking-pattern.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode #3 - Striking the Pattern</a></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/10/the-elements-of-structure.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode #4 - The Elements of Structure</a></span><br /><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/11/video-crookening-and-markstitching.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Episode #5 - Crookening & Markstitching</span></a> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-53467537412603089042013-11-07T07:01:00.000-08:002013-11-07T07:01:00.790-08:00A Certain Exquisite Propriety <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HZO_2aywONA/Unq8uaRnM4I/AAAAAAAAMZc/94ffBeyxhxo/s1600/prince+philip+side.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HZO_2aywONA/Unq8uaRnM4I/AAAAAAAAMZc/94ffBeyxhxo/s400/prince+philip+side.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"></span></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The world of iGents is poorly stocked with men seeking to dress so perfectly that they draw no attention; in fact rather the opposite is true. However, there is a strand of masculine style that runs back at least as far as Brummell that has always embraced this aspiration. It is, after all, what Lord Byron was referring to when he said to Leigh Hunt that Brummell possessed “A certain exquisite propriety.” It’s the fine line between sharp dressing, and sprezzy hints of dishevelment, and it’s one with few contemporary role models.</span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I first understood the power of this approach when working on a story about Prince Philip’s style. The Prince’s tailor, John Kent of Kent, Haste & Lachter, explained his client’s abiding preference for jetted pockets, and studying photographs of the Prince the effect of his approach became apparent. This is someone who, for the two-thirds of a century that he’s been married to Queen Elizabeth II, has dressed so perfectly that the draws no attention to himself. He eschews pocket flaps even on country suits, wears black shoes with tweed jackets, folds rather than puffs his pocket square, routinely wears white shirts, is loyal to single-breasted jackets and was last photographed without a tie about forty years ago.</span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">The result of his sartorial strategy is that his appearance is almost never discussed. It attracts no criticism, and enjoys no praise. If you wish to indulge an affection for classic clothes, but are concerned about the reaction you’ll receive in the office, then follow Prince Philip’s discreet example. Here is a way to dress that gives no quarter to the depravities of modern life, while doing little to reveal the depth of a man’s passion for tailoring. In practical terms this could take the form of solid-coloured single breasted suits in unusually heavy fabrics, cut with jetted pockets, and worn with the most sober of shirts and ties as well as black oxford shoes.</span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">It’s a complete reversal of the Christmas tree approach to dressing exhibited so flamboyantly by the guys at Pitti Uomo twice each year, and is, in a way, a Northern European version of <em>sprezzatura</em>. It creates an elegance that can’t easily be accounted for, because it relies on what isn’t there (ticket pockets, eye-catching shoes, zany socks, puffed pocket squares, tie bars, bracelets and all the rest) for its effect.</span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">P.S.</span></span></div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">I cannot ignore the fact that after I finished writing this article Vox Sartoria, the <em>ne plus ultra</em> of iGents, posted an old </span><a href="http://www.voxsartoria.com/image/66010155615"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Cambria;">photograph</span></a><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> of Prince Philip looking superbly, but uncharacteristically, rumpled, which a) deserves the widest possible audience, b) rather undermines my argument.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></span><br /> <br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><em>Words by Mansel Fletcher</em></span></div>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-30470396506646669682013-11-06T07:01:00.000-08:002013-11-06T13:33:23.638-08:00A Context For Jacquards<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QvQYrvVWSHo/UnlZnjmbpjI/AAAAAAAAMY8/tWr3KoM3nQ4/s1600/will-10-30-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QvQYrvVWSHo/UnlZnjmbpjI/AAAAAAAAMY8/tWr3KoM3nQ4/s400/will-10-30-13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />City suits of course are usually gray and blue, but a man may be excused for wearing browns and even greens in town on what used to be the presumption that he is headed to or returning from the country and is now that no-one cares whether he does. The clothes that best exemplify those city/country differences actually go further than color alone, extending to texture, pattern and the types of accessories that bring out the best in them. <br /><br />Among the more important accompaniments to textured jackets of tweed or flannel are the intricate weaves and rich handles that are the hallmarks of <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/silkbasketweavesjacquardreppeandtwillneckties.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">silk jacquard neckties</a> like the one in the photo. And since most of those autumnal jackets also have directionless patterns, jacquards with large design repeats serve to further complement autumn's checks. <br /><br />If and when they choose to wear something other than jeans and a black tee shirt, men pursuing less formal careers (operating an art gallery on 1st Dibs, selling antique furniture on eBay, or publishing their blog on Freud's five stages of psychosexual development) have the best excuse for <em>rus in urbe</em> throughout the week. Like the 15 ounce/450 gram herringbones worn by their predecessors in more physical pursuits, today's city versions of country clothes, whether made from Hardy Minnis' Worsted Alsport, Harrison's Moonbeam or something similar, look great framing a silk jacquard. <br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-42248694286585377812013-11-05T07:40:00.000-08:002013-11-05T07:40:57.365-08:00If The Tree Fits<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7uuVc5mkVLk/UnkOx6opkbI/AAAAAAAAMYE/h5K3Yc7SbYU/s1600/trees.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7uuVc5mkVLk/UnkOx6opkbI/AAAAAAAAMYE/h5K3Yc7SbYU/s400/trees.JPG" width="298" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal">A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having learned from book, magazine or internet that shoes need to be treed after being worn, some men have made a cult item out of dirt cheap cedar shoe trees from a foreign shoe brand (as it’s based in Paris with a fake English name and makes its shoes God knows where I don’t know how better to qualify it), going in on group buys to save on shipping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fuelling this race to the bottom are three misconceptions:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you only need one pair of shoe trees for all of your shoes; the proportions of those trees don’t matter as long as they keep your shoes stretched out; and they need to be in unvarnished wood in order to wick out moisture from your shoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seeing the very wide heels of these cheap trees deform the shoe collections of various internet collectors long ago inspired me to note the following, proceeding from the observation that there is a reason why good bespoke shoe trees are hinged (not sprung), made to the exact shape of the last (the wooden form) on which the shoes were made, and in polished wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal">Most of the French bespoke shoemakers use a treemaker named Hervé Brunelle, who makes gorgeous hinged shoe trees with fronts and backs drilled out for lightness (three-piece trees featuring a phallic handle called a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">queue de castor</i> or beaver tail are also available for a significant upcharge), all made to the shape of the bespoke shoe last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Brunelle’s website used to have an image of the trees he made in five different stains of wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the course of my orders from Anthony Delos, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">à la</i> Ash Ketchum, I got to catch’em all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bespoke shoemaker Dimitri Gomez, who inhabits a corner of Crockett & Jones’ Paris shop was a bit of an exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True to his independent, almost contrary, nature, when I ordered handmade shoes from his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ligne Bottier </i>semi-bespoke line, Gomez produced (for an additional charge) bespoke trees he appeared to have made and drilled out himself.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s difficult to get lasted hinged trees in ready-to-wear today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the best luxury ready-to-wear shoemakers usually sell sprung shoetrees with generic toe shapes for all widths and most lasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, the shoe trees provided with the ready-to-wear shoes from Massaro in Paris (pictured) are exemplary and resemble those made by Brunelle in both design and precision, being made to the exact size and width of your shoes and hollowed out for lightness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Massaro’s ready-to-wear line may be the best ready-to-wear shoes sold in France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some may carp that Massaro, a bespoke shoemaker owned by Chanel (for whom it makes the couture shoes), does not make its own ready-to-wear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is true, but it has its own exclusive designs and proprietary ready-to-wear last, made by the best ready-to-wear shoemaker in England, and its shoes are finished and antiqued to a higher standard once in Paris – while the service is miles beyond the usual English or French sales prevention standard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As to French manufacture, the only French luxury men’s shoe houses who actually make their ready-to-wear shoes in France are J.M Weston and Corthay: Aubercy and Berluti have theirs made in Italy, and Lobb Paris ready-to-wear is of course made in England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t give a crap where Sené is made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dimitri Gomez’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ligne Bottier</i> is not ready-to-wear but made specifically to order with a high degree of customization of fit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As someone who had him make me three wonderful pairs, I should know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal">Good bespoke trees are made to the shape of the last on which the shoe was made, whether round or chisel-toed, and to the specific size and width of the last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember that shoes aren’t made to the exact shape of your feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A last for a well-fitting shoe has to take into account the extra space in front of your toes for the toe box, accommodate how a foot flexes in a shoe when you walk, and allow enough space for the shoe to be put on and removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of all of that, a good tree should resemble the last as much as possible, filling out the shoe without stretching it in order to return the shoe to its original shape once you take it off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hinges are advisable instead of springs since trees are supposed to fill, not stretch, the shoe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Strongly sprung trees, like those Church’s used to sell, risk deforming the shoe, especially in loafers where there’s no way to tighten the shoe around your foot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">On that note, I remind you that loafers and lace-ups are always made on different lasts as they need to fit differently. Thus, the number of shoe trees you should own is directly related to the different proportions of shoe you own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t need trees for each pair of shoes, but it’s preferable to have trees for each different last your shoes are on and to be able to let your shoes rest on trees for a lengthy period before swapping the trees out into another pair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal">Rest does more for your shoes’ hygiene than trying to absorb sweat with unpolished wood ever could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason some off-the-rack shoe trees are made out of unpolished cedar is <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/shoeaccessories.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">because cedar smells nice</a>, not because it will magically clean and dry the inside of shoes you’ve been wearing day in day out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While few of us can own as many shoes as Adolphe Menjou, who poses coyly in his shoe closet in Alan Flusser’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dressing the Man</i>, you should own at least enough pairs of decent shoes to not wear the same pair two days in a row.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your shoes need to dry out on their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever moisture is in them from a day’s wear should evaporate if you rest them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, never try to dry them out by putting them near a heat source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your shoes have gotten extremely wet from rain or snow, stuff them with newspaper and leave them somewhere dry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The newspaper should draw out the wetness (on the same principle as the internet saw about leaving a waterlogged iPhone in a bowl of rice).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t tree and store them until they’ve dried out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the same reason, it doesn’t matter if the shoetrees you use are polished wood or, horrors, plastic (the plastic trees Berluti and Crockett & Jones Paris provide free of charge are light, screw in or out to fit, and are excellent for travel, the one time it’s OK to wear the same pair two days running if you packed light).<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As with their owners, helping shoes stay in shape over time is a difficult but rewarding task.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least with shoes, longevity is an unambiguous blessing. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-align: right; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span 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UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <!--EndFragment--><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-76053223395602793322013-11-04T07:01:00.000-08:002013-11-04T07:01:00.190-08:00Layer Your Knitwear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bTRkuKPggxg/UncU_z7WHII/AAAAAAAAMXk/_Pz8I_49BUw/s1600/clark+gable+in+Portofino.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bTRkuKPggxg/UncU_z7WHII/AAAAAAAAMXk/_Pz8I_49BUw/s400/clark+gable+in+Portofino.jpg" /></a></div><br />You probably do not want to layer knitwear under an odd jacket - a shirt will do just fine there - but otherwise the most luxurious way to stay comfortable in cool weather is to layer your knitwear. Knitwear keeps a man warm the same way a flannel suit does, by trapping air against the skin so the body warms it up. And, as Mr. Gable demonstrates in the photo, the time to be trapping that air is whenever the temperature is right for flannel, corduroy or moleskin trousers. <br /><br />The textures of heavier trousers complement the look of wool or cashmere knits as well while inhabiting the same range of temperatures. Rollnecks are the best for layering in my opinion. Wear them under a crew neck or even a vee neck if you must (vees were designed to be worn with a necktie). Equally pleasant is either a rollneck or a knitted sweatshirt under a cardigan or a knit jacket. There is no need for a collared shirt in either case - a comfortable polo or a tee protects your knits from sweat while leaving your arms free to feel the good stuff. <br /><br /> Layering works as well indoors as it does outside in the elements. The keys are to wear lighter knits, and pieces that are looser fitting (that air trapping again). That means layering works as well in Scarsdale as it does in Portofino. <br /><br /> Layer your <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/knitwear.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">knitwear</a>. <br /> Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-45000351616010310392013-11-01T07:16:00.000-07:002013-11-06T14:33:10.638-08:00Video: Crookening And Markstitching<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/78114953" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe></div><P> <div style="text-align: left;">Part 5 of The Making of a Coat opens with Rory Duffy “crookening” the left forepart of my coat -- that is, bringing it further onto my body to help offset a more developed left side. The concepts of “crookening” and its opposite, “straightening,” are fundamental to coatmaking, and we will be returning to them later in this series when they can be better visualized and explained. For now, this is only the first of many adjustments Duffy will be making to accommodate my asymmetry. <p> The sewing technique demonstrated in the remainder of the video is an example of how so much of bespoke tailoring is simply the painstaking process of accomplishing seemingly mundane tasks -- in this case, transferring pattern details from one coat forepart to the other. <p> Markstitching (also called threadmarking) involves putting short baste threads through oppositely mated pieces to indicate defining lines and points of the pattern. The two pieces are then carefully separated and the stitches cut, leaving two mirror-marked halves of the pattern. The idea behind this labor-intensive process is twofold. First, it is needlepoint-precise; even the most exacting re-measuring is subject to drift. Secondly, while chalk markings tend to fade as the cloth is handled, markstitches will remain in place until they’re removed later in the coat’s construction.<p> <div style="text-align: right;">Words and video by Andrew Yamato</div><P> <div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><b>“The Making of a Coat” Episode Index</b></div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/10/the-making-of-coat.html">Episode #1 - Introduction</a></span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;">Episode #2 - Measuring and Drafting the Pattern (in production)</div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/10/striking-pattern.html">Episode #3 - Striking the Pattern</a></span></div><div style="color: #106dd6; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 11px;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/10/the-elements-of-structure.html">Episode #5 - Crookening & Markstitching</a></span></div><P> </div>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-57325344672668627832013-10-31T07:01:00.000-07:002013-10-31T07:01:00.201-07:00Winter Is Coming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YXXN_f3uEGw/UnAWze4A6SI/AAAAAAAAMVU/XGOZdzmAmEo/s1600/will-10-28-13-b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YXXN_f3uEGw/UnAWze4A6SI/AAAAAAAAMVU/XGOZdzmAmEo/s400/will-10-28-13-b.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br />The combination might not be quite warm enough for a member of House Stark but an under-appreciated tieless look for cool weather is a rollneck pullover worn under a lambswool jacket like the ensemble in the photograph. The collar gives the combination a finished look without the shirt and scarf that must often accompany a crewneck <br /><br />The weight of a rollneck determines just how cold the weather can be without sacrificing comfort. You might not want to put it on to stay indoors all day but <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/cashmererollneckpullover.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">two ply cashmere</a> can be worn outdoors without an overcoat in near-freezing temperatures. Conversely, <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/lightweightcashmererollneckpullover.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lightweight cashmere</a> or <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/thegentlemansrollnecks.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">single ply lambswool</a> is fine for heated rooms but should go outside when the temperature is not quite so bitter. <br /><br />Winter weather will soon turn against you but a rollneck is a stylish way to face it.<br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-92210041596439404732013-10-30T05:00:00.000-07:002013-11-02T09:39:21.870-07:00Evening Enhancements<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/evening.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="357" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OscD7o1nCLI/UnA2f9Td6tI/AAAAAAAAMVk/PCi3KOlhB_Y/s400/wallet-and-marcella-tie-b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> A Suitable Wardrobe is happy to present a couple of evening enhancements for your consideration this season. For one thing, a man's pockets are not supposed to bulge when he wears black tie and well dressed men should consider carrying our ultra-slim Zonta calf dress wallet. Designed by London's famed RBJ Simpson to be worn upright inside a jacket, its two full length pockets and two credit card slots hold the essentials without calling attention to their presence. Then there is the small but equally important matter of what to do about the stand-up shirt collar. Adjustable bow ties leave an unsightly adjustment mechanism visible at the back of the neck. The fix for that of course is a sized bow tie made to fit without an adjustor, and for that we have begun offering a white Marcella version of the full dress tie in a classic diamond point, to be followed real soon now by black grosgrain in a modified butterfly for wear with a dinner jacket. To the best of our knowledge we are the only online source in the world for sized bow ties of this outstanding quality. Enhance your evenings with either, both or any of our other elegant <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/evening.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">after 6:00 PM offerings</a>.<br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-17906523285075327142013-10-29T07:55:00.000-07:002013-10-29T07:55:37.054-07:00Book Review: Vicuña: Queen of the Andes <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fv6LQZnoIfU/Um_MK3E3ZbI/AAAAAAAAMVA/uzJBNoSB3cU/s1600/vicuna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fv6LQZnoIfU/Um_MK3E3ZbI/AAAAAAAAMVA/uzJBNoSB3cU/s400/vicuna.jpg" width="372" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>When a book says that it was edited by a brand’s “marketing communication” department I don’t expect much. However, the recent publication of Loro Piana’s <i>Vicuña: The Queen of the Andes</i> offers a pleasant opportunity to learn more about the near-mythical fiber, and to reflect a bit on its myth and reality.<br /><br /> In form and substance, <i>Vicuña: The Queen of the Andes</i> follows two other Loro Piana books, <i>The Lotus Flower: A Textile Hidden in the Water</i> and <i>Baby Cashmere: The Long Journey of Excellence</i>. Like those two, it’s a large coffee table-size book describing the exotic delights of a very rare fiber carefully harvested according to ancient traditional folkways, featuring extensive photography by Bruna Rotunno of the locales, the people, the process and the animals or (in the case of <i>The Lotus Flower</i>) the plants at the source of the material. As with the earlier books, Rotunno’s photographs effectively convey the stunning remoteness of the hardscrabble environments where some of the finest fibers on the planet are to be discovered. Like cashmere goats, the vicuña owes its softness to the extremely fine fibers of its undercoat, which have to insulate it in punishing cold and summer heat. The smallest member of the camelid family, the vicuña also makes a knockout subject for Rotunno’s camera, resembling artists’ conceptions of the Dahou or Sidehill Hoofer of folklore with its enormous, twinkling eyes, babyfaced, half-smiling snout, slender neck and graceful back. Never domesticated, vicuñas roam the mountains of Peru and Argentina. Again as with cashmere goats, my understanding is that it would be impossible to cultivate them for their wool in more hospitable areas as its fineness depends on exposure to those extremes.<br /><br /> The history of vicuña wool is inextricably bound up with exoticism, colonial and postcolonial rapacity, and current ecological concerns through a sort of latter-day sybaritic sustainable development. Both <i>Vicuña: The Queen of the Andes</i> and Meg Lukens Noonan’s recent <i><a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/07/book-review-coat-route.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Coat Route</a></i> take pains to inform us that the indigenous populations of the region treated the vicuña as sacred, gently shearing and releasing the animals in a ceremony involving a huge human chain that would tighten around them until they had nowhere to go. Only royalty could wear its cloth, spun by specially chosen maidens in a way that almost anticipated the marketingspeak of centuries later. The Spanish conquistadors discovered the cloth and, more impatient than the Inca, decimated the vicuña population in order to harvest as much of its wool as possible. In the ensuing centuries, the popular wisdom held that (as a wild animal) the vicuña could only be shorn when hunted and killed. As a result, populations and supply stayed low and prices high, so that by the 1950s vicuña had become synonymous with a morally suspect and unmasculine self-indulgence, offered to William Holden “as long as the lady’s paying” in Sunset Boulevard, bringing down an official in the Eisenhower administration who accepted a gift of a vicuña coat, and appearing under the Anderson & Sheppard jacket of Count Lippe, a Bond villain “with the yellow streak of the man who lives on women” in Thunderball. Dr. Franco Loro Piana, father of the current brothers who ran Loro Piana until recently, dealt in vicuña then, and <a href="http://asuitablewardrobe.dynend.com/2013/07/limit-your-exposure.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">my own vicuña</a>, acquired vintage of course, dates from that time, the pre-ban period, though not from that maker.<br /><br /> It wasn’t until 1976 and near-extinction that the vicuña obtained protection. Restrictions were finally eased in 1994. Loro Piana triumphantly emphasizes that, following its establishment of protected reserves and reintroduction of traditional and humane shearing practices, it now has rights of first refusal to the entire vicuña fiber production of Peru. It is also establishing similar reserves in Argentina for the vicuña there, whose fiber is even lighter. A special “Vicuña Peru” logo now goes on all new legally harvested Peruvian vicuña, some of which will have come from vicuña who flock through a reserve named for the Loro Pianas’ late father. The harvest, atavistically patterned after the ancient Inca chaccu ceremony, takes place only every two years, with shearing by hand. The book leaves the reader with the impression that the ancient myths of near-divine purity that accompanied the vicuña have been revived. One can only imagine what Loro Piana’s new owner, LVMH, of legendary rapacity, will do with these myths and the delicate realities of the vicuña today.<br /><br />Luxury brands deal in myth, in stories that could have been composed by ancient troubadours, familiar only at a distance with their subjects. At such a distance, myths and <i>chansons de geste</i> tend to amplify themselves with each telling, just like internet received wisdom today. Today, brands also get to use science and throw figures around: <i>Vicuña: The Queen of the Andes</i> and <i>Baby Cashmere: The Long Journey of Excellence</i> tell us that vicuña fiber is 12 to 13 microns in diameter (a micron being a millionth of a meter, since you were about to Google it), baby cashmere 13 microns, and normal cashmere 15 microns, before taking into account the differences in the structure of the fiber that supposedly render vicuña even warmer than cashmere.<br /><br /> It is easy to exoticize what we don’t have personal experience with. However, a friend I’ll call <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide#Secondary_characters" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Signor Pococurante</a>, a man of wealth and taste like our mutual e-friend voxsartoria, once observed, “Vicuna just feels like a really nice, warm cashmere. It is not some secret fabric with totally different properties.” My personal experience with pre-ban vicuña from some of the very best knitters tends to confirm this – it’s lovely to handle, but not the dazzling life-changing experience today’s troubadours would have us believe. The nap of my alleged vicuña robe is incredibly soft, but I try not to keep stroking parts of my clothing when others are present.<br /><br /> The myth is out there. You can tell by the strange forms vicuña has taken. I’ve seen a Marinella tie in certified new vicuña, in the plain tan color associated with vicuña, a difficult tie color which must only be for convincing and impressing other crass <i>Robb Report</i>-reading sugar daddies and the women who pretend to love them. A vicuña dressing gown that didn’t sell held pride of place at Selfridges back around the beginning of the Great Recession. At 20,000 pounds, it must have been there only to start conversation.<br /><br /> Contra Aesop, familiarity need not breed contempt, but mythical luxury fibers need unfamiliarity to thrive, which is why we have these books on vicuña, baby cashmere and carefully hand-untangled lotus fiber (which is embargoed in the United States as Loro Piana’s stuff comes from Myanmar). For some years, even more obscure cryptids have crept into the dream menagerie, among them guanaco (a relative of vicuña) and qiviuk, which is so rare no two publications appear to spell its name the same way, like with Qaddafi. It’s easier to spin a figurative yarn that gets the attention of new customers than to spin good real yarn and knit it well. I give Loro Piana props for its conservation work and its beautiful books, and hope the brave little animal has a future.<br /><br />In any event, based on my experience, I would never pay the retail amounts being asked for new vicuña, although I was glad to pay the painfully high prices of the late knitters who made the best, densest cashmere sweaters (as well as one of my vicuña sweaters). There is a virtue in doing something well, and a virtue, on a purchaser’s part, in recognizing the value of that without the distraction of fashion’s neophilia.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">Words by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans</div>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-61443759007059915872013-10-28T07:01:00.000-07:002013-10-28T07:01:00.067-07:00Autumn Begins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9EWz8imWNQ8/Um3C87VSnZI/AAAAAAAAMUc/72WnIkX2AwU/s1600/AC+tweed.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9EWz8imWNQ8/Um3C87VSnZI/AAAAAAAAMUc/72WnIkX2AwU/s400/AC+tweed.JPG" /></a></div><P> The temperature dipped into a corduroy trouser and cashmere sweater range this weekend, and lighter tweeds became seasonal in both northern California and southern Tennessee. Mine was a green Worsted Alsport faux tweed with an orange overcheck. André Churchwell's was slightly heavier as well as somewhat more visible. <P> Non-directional neckties like clubs (as seen on the good doctor) and <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/silkjacquardnecktieswithpaislydesigns.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">paisleys</a> work well with tweeds in the shoulder season, with wools and cashmeres to follow as we move a bit further into Autumn. A man need only put on a pair of brogues for the first time since last winter ended.<p> Autumn begins. <P> <div style="text-align: right;">Photo by Doreatha Churchwell</div><P> Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-84319532286408787812013-10-25T07:01:00.000-07:002013-11-06T14:35:33.868-08:00The Elements Of Structure<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/77006417" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p> Since Schölte’s day, certain tailors have tried to distinguish themselves from their ostensibly fustier peers by “taking the stuffing” out of coats and jackets, removing pompous padding and stiff interlinings to create softer, more comfortable clothes for modern living. It’s a compelling pitch -- in keeping with the last century’s narrative of progressively virtuous and vigorous informality -- and it has produced some seriously beautiful clothing from London and Milan to Naples and New Haven. In the echo chamber that is #menswear, however, such “soft” tailoring has become somewhat fetishized, leading to exaggerated distinctions between makers and styles which obfuscate the common project of any good tailor: to make clothes which help his or her clients look their best.<P> Anyone who’s ever handled a modern bespoke coat (or even high quality MTM or RTW) knows that they’re <i>all</i> pretty soft. The chest may be clean or draped, the shoulders structured or natural, the sleeveheads roped or shirred, but in the end it is primarily handmade construction and the relative lightness of the cloth and canvas used which makes coats supple, regardless of styling. Moreover, where a garment truly <i>needs</i> stiffness (notably the coat collar and the trouser waistband) the really good stuff still has it. <P> In episode 4 of “The Making of a Coat,” Rory Duffy describes the elements of traditional internal structure he puts into his own coats, and the philosophy it’s based on: that well-tailored clothing should not only complement, but <i>improve</i> its wearer’s figure. Whatever the latest fashion for unstructured coats may be, it’s worth remembering that a core clientele for bespoke tailors like Duffy are men whose irregular proportions preclude buying off the rack; they’re looking for their clothes to give them a more idealized shape, and structure is how this is accomplished. Structure does not however translate into an uncomfortably heavy or stiff coat; notwithstanding #menswear’s penchant for pinch-testing, the guts of a coat aren’t there to be felt, and in a properly cut and balanced garment, they never are. <P> <div style="text-align: right;">Words and video by Andrew Yamato</div>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-17188610558367084982013-10-24T08:40:00.002-07:002013-10-24T08:40:39.993-07:00The Near-Invisible Square<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PvxyRE7zFRc/Umk8rWmj_AI/AAAAAAAAMTI/ptzAvn_YUXk/s1600/tie+formality.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PvxyRE7zFRc/Umk8rWmj_AI/AAAAAAAAMTI/ptzAvn_YUXk/s400/tie+formality.jpg" /></a></div><br />Looking for a change of pace? Consider the near-invisible pocket square, where the ground of the square blends into the jacket so well that an otherwise extravagant handkerchief display no longer stands out (the square in the photo is a paisley with brown borders folded so that the design is only slightly visible).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-76670307478300424132013-10-23T07:00:00.000-07:002013-10-23T07:00:00.650-07:00See In Style<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tIfDOnBSNj4/Umby8E95FSI/AAAAAAAAMS4/bcwZZ6k7PII/s1600/glasses-and-gloves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tIfDOnBSNj4/Umby8E95FSI/AAAAAAAAMS4/bcwZZ6k7PII/s400/glasses-and-gloves.jpg" width="370" /></a></div><p> Cary Grant wore Francois Pinton sunglasses in To Catch A Thief and, to drop a few more names, Aristotle Onassis, Grace Kelly and Jacqueline Kennedy wore one or another model of the firm's glasses as well. It is fifty years later but A Suitable Wardrobe is happy to present for your viewing pleasure <a href="http://store.asuitablewardrobe.net/eyewearandjewelry.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a small assortment of Pinton's eyewear</a> that any of those impeccably dressed folks would almost certainly have been happy with. <p> Acetate frames, which have always been better looking, have been enjoying a renaissance at the expense of metal frames these past decades since acetate overcame what were longevity problems in its early years. The advantage of the stuff is that it emulates natural materials like tortoise without endangering species or selling for prices that truly make strong men weep. <p> Handsome in blond, dark tortoise, and either black acetate or black wire fronts with tortoise arms, these frames are, like our other models, available without lenses so they can be fitted with your prescription by your optometrist, as reading glasses in various strengths, or as polarized lens sunglasses with an anti-reflective coating (please allow 5-7 working days for lenses). Each pair includes a carrying case.<p> If the 1930's were the great decade for tailored clothing, the 1950's were the epitome of eyewear style. See in style. <P> Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-85853629356462839592013-10-22T08:03:00.000-07:002013-10-22T08:03:30.133-07:00Book Review: The Best Dressed Man In The Room<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VMQnQrtSjfQ/UmaMkWqtX_I/AAAAAAAAMSo/mxFuQji4HAU/s1600/Best+Dressed+Man.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VMQnQrtSjfQ/UmaMkWqtX_I/AAAAAAAAMSo/mxFuQji4HAU/s400/Best+Dressed+Man.png" width="327" /></a></div><br />Into even a clothing book reviewer’s life some light must fall. It’s thus been a pleasure to read and review Dan Flores’ new <i><a href="http://www.blurb.com/b/4608993-the-best-dressed-man-in-the-room" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Best-Dressed Man in the Room</a>, </i> an extensively illustrated monograph on the flashily dressed American gangsters of the early 20th century. Flores has previously written a history of the defunct clothing brand Sulka for this site and blogs about clothing under the name An Uptown Dandy.For this new book, he turned to the history of the neighborhoods where he had grown up in New York City, some of whose favorite sons were as infamous as they come.<br /><br />Interest in gangster style has never been far out of fashion. While Dick Tracy may have had a grotesque rogues’ gallery, flashily dressed hoods occupied the popular imagination at least since the 1920s and made cinematic forays as early as those played by Jimmy Cagney and George Raft, all the way through Warren Beatty’s turn as Bugsy Siegel and even, of course, the various movie incarnations of Gatsby himself, the bootlegger Count of Monte Cristo. Raft, who never quite shook his ties to real-life gangsters, and Bugsy appear in <i>The Best Dressed Man in the Room</i>, as does Arnold Rothstein, who was both a real crime boss and a current fictional one in Boardwalk Empire, which I understand is a sort of 1920s cosplay show. Indeed, Flores notes that his book covers a time when a generation of Irish and Jewish mobsters saw itself mowed (mown?) down and replaced with the Italian mob that made it big during Prohibition. As such, along with Bugsy, Rothstein, Rothstein’s celebrity attorney William J. Fallon and Legs Diamond, <i>The Best Dressed Man in the Room </i>features Lucky Luciano and Machine Gun Jack McGurn (suspected of having organized the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre), who adopted an Irish pseudonym to replace his Italian name when he started out as a boxer.<br /><br />But it was Pittsburgh Phil Strauss, a founder of a group called “Murder Inc.,” who lent this book its title when his magnificent attire at one arrest, including a “pearl-grey fedora” and velvet-collared chesterfield overcoat, drove New York police commissioner Lewis Valentine to call him “the best-dressed man in the room.” Flores informs us Strauss was known as “the Beau Brummell of the Brooklyn underworld.” Rather ironically, in a different age Strauss might have been tasked with breaking Brummell’s knees for nonpayment of gambling debts. Faced with his sartorial splendor, Commissioner Valentine could only suggest his cops hit the gangsters where it hurt, by ruining their clothes and their carefully cultivated look: make them bleed on their velvet collars and “Don’t be afraid to muss ‘em up. Drive ‘em out of the city.” <br /><br />Many of the mobsters discussed are pictured gazing out at us from their wanted posters and even mug shots, of all places, with enormous panache and, it must be said, rather lovely clothes. Flores even provides a picture of two mobsters shackled together on a train on their way to “the death house” at “Sing Sing,” the colloquial name for the prison at Ossining, New York, rumpled but smiling raffishly in herringbone overcoats and insouciantly, sharply tilted fedoras. It’s easy to wonder whether this book risks glamorizing violent criminals, especially when we learn that, for example, one of Lucky Luciano’s well-dressed lieutenants ran “a network of murderers, rapists, kidnapers, loan sharks and extortionists” or that Lepke Buchalter, overseer of the ominous-sounding “enforcement branch” of a crime syndicate, was “the preeminent garment industry racketeer in New York” and thus “undoubtedly had his choice of the finest tailors in the city.” Lucky Luciano himself appears cocksure and dashing, with an overcoat rakishly thrown over his shoulders while being deported from Cuba, and “more amused rather than concerned by his arrest” in another photo. Bugsy Siegel, resplendent in a shiny double-breasted suit, looks surprisingly like Warren Beatty. On reflection, Flores rather adroitly juxtaposes the charisma his subjects conveyed with visual flair against anecdotes of the awfulness of their actions. <i>The Best-Dressed Man in the Room </i>isn’t long enough to provide full biographies of the many characters who sashay through it. But it isn’t intended to. Instead, its author doesn’t fail to inform us in brief but vivid detail that his fashion plates walked a more precarious, shorter catwalk than today’s runways. And most of them never got a chance to turn back. If the chapters are brief, so were the lives of their subjects.<br /><br />Dutch Schultz, whose suits didn’t do justice to his accessories, died of a gunshot wound from behind as he stood at a urinal in a Newark chophouse. Pittsburgh Phil Strauss, whose Murder Inc. assassins had dispatched Schultz, met his end in conditions similar to his antecedent Brummell. Unlike Brummell, Strauss’ babbling, disordered insanity was only a sham, and couldn’t keep him from the electric chair. Even Arnold Rothstein, who used his discreet distance from the action to sample the delights of Charvet ties and Sulka silk shirtings (sharing some with Lucky Luciano), died, if my math is right, at only 46. The last member of Dutch Schultz’s gang to die, decades later, was perhaps the lowest form of life of all: his grandstanding lawyer Dixie Davis. The most sordid of sartorial endings, however, could come as a warning to the more existentially troubled of today’s clotheshorses: Machine Gun Jack McGurn, gunned down in three-piece suit and spats and discovered dead in “a rundown bowling alley,” along with the poem<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>You’ve lost your job, you’ve lost your dough;</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Your jewels and cars and handsome houses!</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>But things could still be worse you know…</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>At least you haven’t lost your trousers!</i></div><br />I would not have thought it, but perhaps the last thing to go really is a sense of style. Highly recommended.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">Words by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans</div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4593388140454867428.post-56178009323539867752013-10-21T07:01:00.000-07:002013-10-21T09:10:55.274-07:00Cause For A Smile<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OB0k9zmXxCg/UmSjbR9KkLI/AAAAAAAAMSY/ft3svWjUs5w/s1600/will+glasses+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OB0k9zmXxCg/UmSjbR9KkLI/AAAAAAAAMSY/ft3svWjUs5w/s320/will+glasses+3.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><P><p>The unexpected thing about seasonal wardrobes is that though a man may have several times as many clothes as his friend with year-round clothing, his set of things for each season is usually not any larger. And if he is anything like myself, rotating the same pieces every day for months on end means boredom sets in even when there may be what some consider far too much in his closets. Fortunately, a new season brings relief. <p><p>The joy of the seasonal wardrobe (in addition to its weather appropriate weights) is that boredom is alleviated several times each year. The pleasure of the change in the weather does mean that, perhaps inevitably, the new comes out a couple of weeks or a month too soon (I may never forget a lunch in San Francisco a couple of years ago where I was dressed in a tweed jacket and flannel trousers in 85 degree (30 C) sunshine). But generally any pain is outweighed by satisfaction. <p><p>This would be neither here nor there were it not that I began my changeover this week. Even though I am still wearing some lightweight clothes, there is enough of fall in the air here for me to move a couple linen things each week into storage and bring out a few of fall's lighter pieces (the flannels will need to wait a while). The change applies to more than just tailored clothing - hats were swapped in September, but that still leaves boots to replace the spectators and heavier walking shoes to fill the space that has been occupied by lightweight slip-ons. Living as I do in San Francisco there is always some mid-weight clothing in my closet and now the rest of it begins to emerge. The checked odd jacket is welcome. <p><p>A new season is cause for a smile. <p><P>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01173316804999411413noreply@blogger.com3