Roasting Bow Ties, Bastards And Purposeful Blades

• The art of the black-tie Roast. Three piece, shawl collars and lovely bow ties.

• Speaking of bow ties, they’re back, apparently. Or at least, boy bands are wearing them.

• And some tips on ‘designer’ tying – as if you needed them.

• Great style in Inglorious Bastards. Can’t say the same about the movie.

• The casualness here seems to centre around the two exposed blades of the tie. But you can’t control that, right?

• And this one is a keeper. Colours of autumn – gun-metal green and russety red.

• Finally, not sure tropical wear brings out the best in Will over at ASW.

Italy Rules, Black Monks and Great Luggage

• Italian style now dominates retail in the US. English style has been eked out, apparently.

• Broguing on black monk straps? I’d go for a floating medallion if I were you.

• Oh, and if you need a great clothes resource, you can now download Andy’s clothes encyclopaedia.

• All shoe bags should be made of bamboo. If you haven’t already, you should check out the Gentleman’s Corner at Lodger (that’s the corner normally sliced off the inside edge of a man’s shoe, by the way.

• And here’s that white tennis shoe. English shoe of the month for April.

• A great resource for doing your own sewing.

• My, Thomas Mahon has some great luggage. And check out that photo of Howard Hughes.

Look at Me! I’m a Banker

The G20 has revealed a lot about bankers’ sartorial taste. It has shown uniformity and a complete lack of awareness of what ‘normal’ people wear.

As protests were announced for the day before the G20 meeting in London, City workers were warned to “try and look inconspicuous” and “dress down to avoid being targeted as bankers”. Protests were scheduled for everywhere from Grosvenor Square to Canary Wharf, the Bank of England to Trafalgar Square – so a large number of people was threatened with disruption and possible attack.

Unfortunately, bankers aren’t very good at disguise. As a columnist in local paper City AM put it: “What a feast for the eyes the streets of the City were – colourful, vibrant and loud. I am, of course, referring to the sartorial elegance displayed by bankers.” Not the protestors.

“Predictably there were some who believed the streets would be transformed into a country club for the day, and opted for the traditional chinos and tweed. At least, if nothing else, they fitted in with each other.”

Which was rather the problem. A man in a suit can be a clerk, a security officer, even a waiter. But a man in chinos, a tweed jacket and loafers is definitely a banker. Fortunately, there were no reports of bankers being targeted with violence. But if protesters had been so inclined, their targets could not have stood out more.

It got worse. “Reports soon started to come in regarding all manner of attire unlikely to go unnoticed by your average anti-capitalist protestor. On one end of the spectrum there were three-quarter length trousers, Louis Vuitton soap bags and St Tropez polo club-branded rugby shirts. On the other was the very well-groomed gentleman who was conspicuous as much for his reeking cologne as for his tassled brogues, pressed jeans and cashmere top,” said the columnist.

A colleague reported similar sightings. “It was hilarious seeing all the bankers in disguise on the train this morning,” she said. “With their perfectly ironed blue shirts, cufflinks and loafers you couldn’t really miss them.”

There were an admirable few that refused to be bowed, however (my father among them). Many cited the IRA bombings in London and said “I didn’t sneak and hide from that so I’m not going to do so now.” It was almost freakish how often that reference came up.

Equally, some bankers deliberately scaled up the traditional dress. City veteran Justin Urquhart-Stewart of Seven Investment Management proudly wore a pinstriped suit, bright red socks, red braces and no less than two red handkerchiefs. Even he conceded he couldn’t get away with a bowler hat, however.

The Style of Ordinary Americans

A rich vein of style runs through American men. It is a style that is partly imported and partly their own. But each part constantly and consistently informs how they dress, and gives them a little-recognised advantage over their peers in England and Italy.

Americans love their history – no other nation reveres and studies the events of its past with such fervour. Perhaps it is because they have so little of it. Perhaps it is because it is all so recent.

As with the Civil War or the civil rights movement, so it is with US sartorial history. Much examined and much loved, American traditions of dress are loyally pursued.

English men have lost touch with their traditions, by comparison.

Go to a city in the UK outside London. Ask an average man on the street about England’s sartorial tradition; he will draw a blank. Ask him what Northampton is famous for; he will not say shoemaking. He may have heard of Savile Row, but he will be able to tell you little about its fame.

And this is the country that stylish Americans usually hold as the source of the greatest style in the world.

Most importantly, there are very few English men that revere England’s traditions of tweeds, three-piece suits and brogues. By contrast, preppy style in the US is held in the highest regard. There are more blogs on that than any other aspect of men’s style.

A friend of mine grew up in Baltimore. (Remove the t and i for the local pronunciation.) He spent his childhood outdoors, camping, skiing and going fishing with his father and grandfather. Not a posh kid from the metropolis.

Yet he told me recently he never wears t-shirts, just polo shirts and dress shirts. They just look better on a man – or at the least flatter more men. This is the great preppy tradition filtering down: polo shirts are the casual standard, not t-shirts.

Equally, he apologised for wearing deck shoes into the office, sockless. Yet to English men, wearing loafers without socks like this is an element of fashion – something continental and stylish they seek to emulate.

One final example, drawn from my day job. During a trip last week to New York, meeting lawyers at the big American firms, I was struck by how well dressed everyone was. To a man they obviously spent more time (and money probably) on their dress. Crisp white shirts, elegant cuff links and a smattering of bespoke.

A rich vein of style runs through American men.

Charvet and Brioni: Mass Producers

The most relied upon measures of luxury today are the materials used in a garment and how much manpower went into it. The second of those measurements might not be as straightforward as you think.

True bespoke is done by one tailor, from scratch, to your precise and individual measurements; a new set of paper patterns is made just for you. Made to measure is individual, an adjustment to a standard pattern; the implication is that there is extra time involved in making those adjustments, and in taking your measurements.

The best ready-to-wear clothes also involve more time – more hand-stitching, fewer stages and fewer tailors. Shoes sell themselves off time – the number of stages in the benchmade process. That quality is one reason some men prefer handmade shoes on standard lasts.
But two of the most famous clothing makers today – Brioni and Charvet – were successful because they automated the tailoring process. They cut the time it took clothes to be made.

Charvet was initially famous because it was the first shirtmaker to set up a shop – so that the customers came to them, not the other way around. And the biggest contribution of Jean-Claude Colban, the current owner, was to create a system of distributing work that organised shirt-making into specific areas of expertise. He created a factory line, essentially, with the same quality of tailors but each doing one stage in the process.

Good old Adam Smith and the division of labour.

Brioni was founded by Nazareno Fonticoli and Gaetano Savini in 1945. By 1959, their popularity had grown so much that they needed a new way to cope with the demand. So they created the world’s first factory-sized sartorial workshops in Penne, a small town with a long history of tailoring. They faced revolt when they first suggested the idea, with local tailors seeing it as the death of centuries-old hand tailoring.

But 50 years later, both of these brands are seen as bastions of quality workmanship. Salvatore Ferragamo was the same. He converted bespoke shoemaking into a semi-industrial process. So who’s to say that the business models we criticise today won’t become the bedrock of future success?

Kilgour was criticised for offering a cut-price bespoke option that involved manufacture in China. But what’s wrong with that? If they’re the best tailors in China? If they’re better than a lot of the tailors in the UK?

Savile Row tailors pride themselves on having most manufacture within the environs of the Row. Turnbull & Asser prides itself in having all bespoke made on Jermyn Street. But why is it better that something’s made on Savile Row? That it’s handmade? That it’s made in the UK even?