How To Wear A Trilby

It’s not easy wearing a hat. You stand out more in a crowd than a man wearing polka-dot knickerbockers or a cape. The hat radically changes a man’s silhouette, probably more than any other item of clothing.

People look at you if you wear a hat. Anyone that is passionate about classic men’s style is probably used to the stares of others. But a (proper) hat draws stares from everyone, everywhere. I bought my first proper hat – a brown-felt trilby from Lock & Co – a couple of weeks ago and am just getting used to these sensations, this attention.

The comments on that previous post included: “I have been a daily hat wearer for years. While I do get the occasional odd glance while wearing a hat, I mainly get compliments” and also “wearing a hat makes you look like a dope, especially if the hat is a very fine one.” I can completely understand why men are passionate about hats in both directions.

I think the reason is that everyone knows hats are incredibly practical, but they don’t feel comfortable wearing one. And I can’t help feeling that perhaps they resent that. Or they resent that their head gets cold and they feel silly in a beanie. And flat caps look odd, or over trendy.

A hat keeps you warm. It’s an overused fact, but a fact nonetheless, that most of your body heat escapes through your head. When you get older, losing your hair, many years from now (as the Beatles put it) you need something to cover your head in cold weather. It’s necessary.

And a hat keeps you dry. Remember those close ups of Humphrey Bogart, standing in the rain on a street corner, watching the house opposite? The rain was pelting down on his hat and trench coat. But he wasn’t getting wet. It’s an oddly liberating experience when you first where a proper hat in the rain, and everyone around you is either clashing umbrellas or scampering for cover.

If you just don’t like hats, fine. But trust me, if you have even the sneakiest suspicion that you might like one, try it a few times and you won’t want to turn back. Sure, you’ll feel self-conscious, but that’s the case with wearing anything new. I used to feel self-conscious wearing a pocket handkerchief. Now I get odd looks if I’m not wearing one.

Some hat enthusiasts will disagree with me, but I think a hat is also an unusual enough accessory to need balance elsewhere. I won’t wear my hat with a double-breasted suit, tie and briefcase. Because to me that is straying almost into costume – or a lack of individuality. I think my hat looks best with casual trousers, a blazer and open-necked shirt. Perhaps a raincoat on top. In the same way I wouldn’t wear a tie, pocket handkerchief, tie clip and boutonniere to work, no matter how good it might look. It’s a question of balance and personal taste.

Finally, for those that requested it, there are shots here of my hat with its box, and a photo of how it looks rolled up for travel.

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Final Boots From Cliff Roberts

I have written previously about the boots being made for me by Cliff Roberts, an old hand of Northampton shoemaking who started making his own shoes from his conservatory recently. Well, I finally took delivery of them this past weekend.

Cliff was kind enough to bring them down to London personally, partly to compensate for an inability to source a tool for securing the speed hooks, which had delayed the process by a couple of weeks.

I was immediately impressed by the quality of the leather, which was very soft and supple. In particular, the leather lining and suede in the upper half of the boot was especially malleable. The finishing was also impressive, with Cliff taking the time to put my initials, as well as a pattern of arrows, in the heel with tacks.

Cliff’s lasts are slightly wider than average for the various fittings, so my size of 8½ E and 8 F came up a little bigger than I expected. As Cliff points out, boots do need a little more room in order to get the foot in easily – and the high fastening ensures that there’s no chance of any slippage. It’s marginal, but I should perhaps have gone with a D and E.

This is one of the obvious drawbacks of having shoes made remotely: you can’t try on a range of sizes and pick accordingly. Then again, I have frequently bought the wrong size in ready-to-wear shoes in the past even after trying them on.

From a construction point of view, the beveling of the waist on the boots and the greater support for the instep both make a big difference: touches that remind you of bespoke shoes rather than ready-to-wear.

Talking of bespoke, Cliff is considering launching a bespoke business next year, with lasts being made by Springline and being used to make ‘sprung’ or ‘braced’ trial shoes that can then be tried on by the client, and used to adjust the last. Cliff has tried to make shoes direct from a last that has been created by scanning a client’s feet, but the fit is never quite right. As I wrote previously in two posts on finding cheap bespoke, others’ experience shows that bespoke shoes are more a question of trial and error. So Cliff’s service should work well – and after the initial outlay to have a last made (around £230) the price of the shoes would be the same.

Some pictures of the hand-bunking, inking and toe tacks below. I’m off to put the boots on again; they really are very nice.

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Patrick Grant On Dressing Well

The proprietor of Norton & Sons gives his thoughts on dressing up and dressing well.

What’s the key to a great men’s outfit?

The great thing about the way men dress is we have so many bits and pieces we can put together. And if you’ve got an eye for it, a little bit of flair, you can lift an ordinary outfit into something quite special just by, you know, picking up the purple overcheck in a dark-grey Prince-of-Wales and accessorising that with your pocket handkerchief. Someone will see it, just catch that item, and they’ll think: ‘huh, I like that.’

Do many people do that these days?

No. I think it’s a real shame that we’ve got to the point where people who want to dress nicely feel embarrassed to do so. That they feel they can’t wear both a tie and a pocket handkerchief because of how it will be perceived. It’s depressing to me.

So few people get any joy out of getting dressed in the morning these days. It’s a shame because it can be a very pleasant, slightly introspective pause in your otherwise hectic schedule: ‘I’m just going to take 10 minutes and find the right tie to go with this shirt.’

I used to spend hours and hours swapping ties and things around. But you tend to find that, the older you get, the easier it is. It’s just experience like anything else. Our shirtmaker and has been on or around Savile Row for 35 years now, here and Jermyn Street, and he just has a good eye. You almost never see him wearing anything that isn’t spot on. And it’s never just a plain dark tie, a pale shirt and a dark suit. It’s always something with a little colour.

We try to express that sometimes in our shop window. There have been ones there recently with grey shirts and purple knit ties, as well as other colours.

Do you like knit ties as an alternative to silk?

Yes, it’s the sort of tie that gives a little more character. A printed silk tie is fairly ordinary, business-like. A woollen tie feels less dressy and makes you feel more comfortable. Like Lanvin’s ties – someone pointed out to me recently – some of which are crumpled and perhaps don’t make you feel like you’re actually wearing a tie. People would often wear a bow tie before they’d wear a silk tie.

I often feel the same way with woollen handkerchiefs. They feel much less dressy than silk.

Absolutely. Though more people are wearing handkerchiefs these days, almost more than are wearing ties, which is really funny. I’m glad they are, because you need a little bit of colour. If I take out my handkerchief, this automatically becomes a less interesting outfit. Without the tie as well, it becomes very dull. It’s something anyone could put together.

[Patrick is wearing a mid-grey herringbone suit, blue and white Bengal-striped shirt, pale blue silk tie printed with a white geometric pattern, and a silk handkerchief that is a mix of blue florals, cream and navy edging]

You can understand why men feel very uninspired by clothes when they see their peers walking around in just a suit and shirt, or most of the time just a shirt and trousers.

Exactly. If the trousers are beautifully cut and the shirt fits very well – as in it isn’t billowing out around your waist and flapping underneath your arm – it can look nice. But it’s rarely going to be that exciting. It needs something different. Wear a tank top or something that adds a little colour.

Something dark, dignified, but still with interest and sophistication – like a dark purple or bottle green.

Sure. My favourite colour combination at the moment is blue and yellow. We’ve got some really nice shirtings at Tautz in blues and yellows. Some nice bright ties too.

[E Tautz is the ready-to-wear label launched, or more accurately relaunched, by Patrick last year. Available in Matches and Harrod’s.]

Orange, too, is something I’m into. For the summer, perhaps pale blues as the base, indigo somewhere and then a very bright, citrus orange. Almost orange peel. Not a lot of it – just a dash of it, in a tie for example.

I saw you say previously that you are very influenced by what you see people wearing that come into the shop.

Yes, absolutely. It’s all the little details you pick up on. A little bit of colour here and there. Even if it’s just the edge of a pocket square that picks out something in the tie – just that little bit of thoughtfulness. And there’s one customer that always, always wears bright red socks. It isn’t going to match with anything, but it’s a statement.

Another wears his watch over his wrist, like Agnelli. He has his shirts specially made so I suppose it’s easy to get them to work with the watch. But then if you are as prominent in his industry as he is, you can get away with it.

Do you make mistakes in what you wear?

Sure, you shouldn’t be embarrassed by experiments. Particularly when I was younger. That’s what your childhood’s for really, making horrendous fashion mistakes. I remember they used to have a menswear section in the back of Elle, perhaps once a quarter, and I picked out outfits in there, copying them all exactly. I’d think, ‘oh I don’t have that blue tie exactly, so I’ll try something else instead.’ And it would end up being a horrendous mistake.

And then you would see yourself coming in the opposite direction the next day?

Well no this was Edinburgh, so the chances of that are pretty slim. But a lot of it is just trial and error.

There are some people, I suspect, that look at their wardrobe, pick three things out and look perfect. Other people pick three, decide against it, try another combination, reject that and finally decide on something. Still others pick out an outfit, walk out the door and look like a dog’s breakfast without knowing it. I think I’m in the second category rather than the first. There aren’t many in the first.

You develop staples over time, that you know work.

Yes, things you revert to. That’s where experience comes to play, because eventually you’ll have enough good outfits that they will all start overlapping. There will be a Venn diagram that over time has more and more things in the intersections as you add circles. Then at some point in your life you will know how to combine everything. I haven’t got to that point yet but some of my customers certainly look like they have, and they’re all in their sixties so I’ve got a couple of decades to carry on learning.

I think some people probably find it quite frustrating that they seem to spend all their time trying and never quite get it right.

Well then they need to walk around Savile Row a little and see what everyone else is doing. There should be no shame in just picking up on what other people do. I write it all down – if someone comes in wearing something really unusual that I like, particularly a combination of lots of different colours and patterns, I write it all down – shirt was this, tie this, suit, handkerchief, socks, shoes, everything. There’s nothing wrong with copying other people.

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Second British Bespoke, Part 1

I mentioned a while back that I had commissioned a second suit from Graham Browne in London. And after rather too much travelling lately (Milan, Madrid, Dubai in a month; and Hong Kong next week) I’ve finally got around to watching the first step of it being made.

It’s unlikely I will post quite so many photos of this suit in its construction and fittings, in that much will be similar to the last series. But whenever things are new, I will. Here, the most obvious novelty is the waistcoat.

The suit is in 13-ounce, navy, chalk-striped flannel from Hunt & Winterbotham. The weight of the flannel means the stripe is rather fuzzy, which is how I prefer all stripes in suitings. (The only stripe I like is a bead stripe – anything too precise and without texture seems to look cheap.) The jacket is three-button, rolling to two, and the waistcoat has notched lapels with five buttons, rolling a little at the top as well.

A new waistcoat pattern was cut for this suit, but not a new jacket pattern – my existing DB pattern being simply folded over to cut the SB jacket front panels. The waistcoat has a full, floating linen lining, something tailors rarely do these days. The linen gives structure and a shape that moulds to the chest, while not being too bulky.

Russell and Dan report a lot more waistcoats being ordered these days. (Perhaps people have been reading the Logical Waistcoat Theory.) In fact they say they’ve made more in the past year than the past 10 years together. Problem is, there aren’t many waistcoat makers around any more. Graham Browne uses one lady and she is overworked. Jacket makers can make waistcoats as well but they dislike it, as the work is similar for less pay.

The other issue with waistcoats is that men today wear their trousers a lot lower. The question for the tailor is: does he try and convince the client to have his trousers cut higher for a waistcoat, or make the waistcoat longer? Having a gap is not an option, but some men would resist the former, while the latter can make the body look too long. Russell says he leaves it up to the client to a certain extent, but there are limits.

Also if you plan to wear a separate waistcoat with a suit, buy that or have it made first. One client of Graham Browne’s didn’t tell the tailors that he already had a fancy waistcoat he wanted to wear with this suit, so the trousers were not cut high enough. Always best to bring the waistcoat along, so the trousers can be cut appropriately.

In the images here you can see the folded jacket pattern being placed on the cloth; the sleeve pattern being chalked on; the linen lining that will be used on the waistcoat; and finally the marked-up jacket.

In the last picture those three horizontal lines you can see at the top left are the button placings. The curved line coming up into them (from underneath the middle of the scissors) is the edge of the jacket. Notice how it meets the vertical between the first two buttons, to take account of the roll (you’re looking down the jacket).

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How My Ties Were Made

The men and women at Vanners were kind enough to send me pictures recently of how my bespoke ties were made down in Suffolk. So here they are, with explanatory captions.

The three-piece pattern for the tie is laid out on the woven silk, at exactly 45 degrees, having been made to my specifications in length and width.

The resulting pieces are laid out in bunches, ready to be sewn.

The silk tipping to the tie is then machine-sewn to the front and back blades, forming a one-centimetre edge or ‘mitre’ along the edge. I opted for self-tipping, with the same silk as the body of the tie. (There is much tradition around tipping – some brands, for example, deliberately tip all their ties with black in homage to the black-out curtains that were used for tipping after the Second World War due to a fabric shortage.)

The two blades and the neck are also joined together. And a smaller, hand stitch is used to close the tip of the tie to prevent any pulling at that point. Any excess fabric is also trimmed.

The tie is lightly pressed at the tips and seams.

The lining is then inserted into the tie and the folds carefully placed over the centre line. While this is referred to as a seven-fold tie, there are in fact 10 – here you can see eight of them, with two more tucked underneath.

(Ancillary fact on tie folds: Originally all printed ties were seven-folds as the silk came in lengths one-metre wide, and it had to be folded seven times to get the width of the tie. All woven silk came 28-inches wide, as that was the width of the hand looms, and so they were always made into four-fold ties. This was before the use of linings or ties that were made in three pieces. Thanks to the guys at Peckham Rye for that fact.)

When the folds are in place, the tie is pinned along its length to hold its shape prior to sewing.

The self-loop (a loop to hold the rear blade that is the same material as the tie) is then inserted.

Before a single thread is used to sew the entire length of the tie.

The tie is then gently steamed by hand and all its dimensions and measurements are checked.

The self loop and any labels are sewn on by hand before the final inspection.

Which is done by machine as well as eye, before the tie is packaged ready for delivery.

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