Buy Handmade When It’s Worth It

The fascination with things being made by hand is odd. If I sew a button on by hand, chances are it will be done worse and not last as long as the best machine doing it. This is firstly because I am not very good at sewing on buttons; but secondly and more importantly, it is because a machine will sew more stitches to the inch, so it will be stronger.

Purchasers of fine clothes should ask themselves, when presented with something made by hand, whether that is necessarily an advantage. Seams that come under a lot of strain usually need to be strong above all else. The advantages of handmade construction are flexibility, movement and life; it adds stretch to the shoulder seam of a jacket and personality to the padding of its chest. But it is not always and necessarily better.

Equally, ask yourself whether the marginal difference made by hand construction is worth the money. I know that my tailor, for example, uses pre-made shoulder pads. Some of the Savile Row tailors make their own, by hand. Personally it’s something I am quite willing to save on. But I want to pay to have the chest made by hand.

I have also never understood people that want something to be flawed to prove that it is handmade – fluctuation in the hand-stitched lapel or a slight skew in the welt. To them imperfection is honesty. To me it is a fault. I want my individuality in the fit, the design and the wear. I don’t want to see evidence of the craft; I just want to benefit from it.

It’s true that no two items made by hand will ever be identical. As a bespoke shoemaker told me once “if I ever punched two medallions exactly the same I wouldn’t be a craftsman, I’d be a robot.” But, contrary to him, I don’t see a virtue in the slight looseness of one seam on a shoe’s counter. It bugs me and I want it changed.

The fact that he has lasted the shoe by hand is not something that can be seen. Its virtue is that he was able to adapt the natural leather and its personality when stretching it over the last. The attention to detail means it will wear better. That’s the kind of hand construction I want.

Buy handmade intelligently.

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Buying Buttons For Bespoke

Buttons are a subtle way to add personality to a suit, odd jacket or even overcoat. But it pays to keep them subtle.

It’s easy enough to sew on a suit button, though I recommend experimenting with something inexpensive first. Just make sure you secure the thread firmly – I normally sew twice in one direction on the same spot, then once at a right angle – and leave some slack so you can create a decent stalk. And tip the button to one side to pierce the cloth underneath without going all the way through. (The only time you really need to go right through is with the jigger button on a double-breasted, or with very heavy materials.)

The first time I sewed on my own buttons was with a navy overcoat from Hackett a couple of years ago. While I liked the cut and the herringbone cloth from Loro Piana, it needed something to give it character. So I replaced the navy buttons with cream horn ones – plenty of texture, lots of punch for the coat.

Now I am having more things made bespoke, I am selecting buttons rather than replacing them. With my past two suits and overcoat from Graham Browne, I have gone with plain navy or brown horn from the stock selection. With the latest commission (the ‘fishy’ suit) I decided to source my own.

For this I went to the excellent Duttons for Buttons in York, where I had also bought the cream ones for my Hackett overcoat. I am up there every couple of months visiting my in-laws so it is pretty convenient, and the selection is impressive.

The suit is a smart, single-button navy with jetted pockets and high-waisted trousers. The buttons therefore had to be smart as well without being showy. And as I needed two precise sizes for the waist button and the cuffs (30 and 24 line, or 15 and 19 millimetres in diameter) the choice came down to about eight or nine sets.

After a good hour of indecision, I went with black iridescent buttons that looked rather like dark mother-of-pearl. That was a mistake. Over Christmas I tried the buttons against several navy suits and decided they were too shiny, too silvery and too like blazer buttons in natural light.

So on December 28th, when Duttons opened again after Christmas, I went back and spent another 30 minutes examining dark, matte buttons, eventually picking some made from Mussel shells (pictured above). They are deeper and less shiny than my first choice, but actually have more surface interest and subtle variation between them.

So my (probably rather obvious) lessons from this experience are:

- Go for natural materials, shell or horn, where you can. Manmade textures are rarely as attractive and they’ll last better.

- Take the cloth or jacket with you. I thought I could picture the buttons easily against it in my head. I couldn’t.

- Be subtle, particularly on a suit. Or, as an alternative guideline, be as subtle as the item and its pattern. Overcoats and sports jackets, checks and tweeds can take more adventurous buttons.

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Sebastian & Jules Cufflinks

I spend most of my working day sitting at a desk, typing. The comfort of shirts and size of armholes are therefore important. But I also need silent cufflinks.

Most of the time I wear French (or double) cuffs on my shirts, so they need to be fastened with something. That used to be variations on bar or chain cufflinks, always metal and usually quite loose. They clinked against the desktop. Even with a jacket on, they would often peek beyond the sleeve and clink.

So I switched to silk knots. Easy, cheap and available in an array of colours, they allowed me to experiment with colour combinations and clashes. Add cufflinks to tie, handkerchief, socks and shirt and the permutations are dizzying. Most importantly, they didn’t clink.

I do own three pairs of metal cufflinks. One, in silver, was given to me by friends on my 21st birthday. A second in mother-of-pearl was an engagement present. And the third pair, from Etro, has an unusually short bar and so does not clink.

But I occasionally get bored of silk knots and occasional metal links, usually worn on special occasions.

So I was glad to receive a birthday present this year from my friend Katherine: an unusual pair of homemade cufflinks. Essentially two buttons joined with silk thread, they look like oversize shirt buttons when worn on the cuff; but they’re more decorative than knots and if anything offer even more colour combinations. And of course, they don’t clink.

The company is called Sebastian & Jules and can be found at sebastianandjules.co.uk. Katherine makes the cufflinks (and rather nifty iPhone cases from tweeds and worsted suitings) in her spare time. It’s a cottage industry; except that she lives in a flat in East Dulwich.

I have the paint-fleck effect shell ones on page two of the site, the ones joined by hot fuschia silk. They look particularly effective on a white shirt under a navy suit. I also hanker after the pine and tortoiseshell.

I have a growing fascination with buttons (expect a piece soon on using mussel-shell buttons for my fishy suit), so these links are very much on-trend. I also think £15 is pretty reasonable for unique items that were entirely and painstakingly made by hand.

Nice to support a (for me, very) local producer.

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Building A Shoe Collection – The Pleasures!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Value For Money In Cashmere

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

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

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

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

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

There are definitely differences in quality between cashmeres, though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the journalism, Intelligent Life.

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