A Pleasant Visit To Huntsman

There’s a festive reindeer in the window of Savile Row tailors Huntsman. There is some dispute among the staff as to whether it is, in fact, a reindeer, or a mere stag. But it is definitely dressed in a spotty red silk scarf. And its name is Brian.

Chatting to some of the cutters and tailors there last week, it was interesting to hear that the back part of the ground floor was only opened up four years ago. As this back section houses all the cutting, with five full-time cutters on board now, it seems natural to have it on view. A feeling of involvement with your clothes is a key benefit of bespoke, and without this open plan the connection would be lost.

It’s also a wonderfully bright room, the ceiling being almost entirely skylight. But that does make it noisy when it rains.

Talking of the cutters, it was noteworthy that one is now dedicated to women’s tailoring. Having a woman in this role makes a vast difference, as I have seen with my own eyes when men’s tailors take the measurements, and discuss style preferences, of women. No matter how discreet the tailors are, it is not easy for many a woman to discuss her shape. And even harder to communicate how she’d like something to be cut.

Far easier if the cutter is a woman trained in womenswear and coming fresh to Savile Row tailoring, rather than the other way around.

It was good to chat to some of the other staff as well, who demonstrate an impressive range in ages. The first-floor room is more youthful than any other I have visited in Savile Row, with three young tailors. Looks can be deceiving though – coatmaker David Hayes started as an apprentice at Huntsman 12 years ago and has now trained the other two. One of them showed off a gorgeous tweed shawl-collar jacket of his own design (after some jeering from his colleagues). Down in the basement, a rather older generation is led by finisher Sybil Dance, who has served Huntsman for 57 years. She claims to have started when she was two.

Sybil also loves the reindeer, but maintains it should be called Rudolph.

The pattern room is fascinating to browse – full of both client patterns and works in progress. I was struck by one coat in particular, a wool coat in a large herringbone pattern, alternating grey and bright blue. Lovely.

Being Huntsman, tweeds stand out as well. After a relatively muted range last year, this year’s offerings are far brighter and – in that way – more typical of Huntsman. The Bridgend and Ellen are deceptive, a conservative ground allowing pink, mauve, orange and turquoise to play in the checks. And the Finlaggen and Charlotte, with their stronger vertical lines, have been much photographed in recent magazine shoots. All are exclusive to Huntsman, the collection rounded off with the Bowmore.

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The Coat Project 5

We’re almost there with the camel polo coat. Since I covered it last we’ve had a second basted fitting, where it was ripped apart again and re-cut. Then it went away to be made-up and today I had the final fitting – all complete save buttons and cuffs.

A coat is not usually cut to fit snugly over just a shirt, so at every stage we have taken in the waist a little. At this stage we took in an inch more, but I think that is enough – any more and it would look too shaped, rather effeminate. In the picture you see here I am wearing just a shirt underneath, and it fits quite snugly on the waist now (with the pleat in the back at its smallest setting). Obviously that means the shoulders are a tiny bit big, but nothing you can do about that – you can’t alter the shoulders every time you take your jacket off.

The pleat that we planned all the way up the back has been altered slightly (search this site for Coat Project to see all the history). Rather than starting at the neck, it now starts three inches above the waist. We decided that a full-length pleat sacrificed too much control over the fit of the back. This way there is still a lot of room to alter the lower back, waist and hips but the top of the coat will retain a consistent shape.

At the initial design stage I was afraid the raised seam, double breast and patch pockets would look too busy. But the raised seam is very subtle, neat, possibly even smart. (I asked that the raised seam be added to the welt of the patch pocket on the final coat as well.)

I am also particularly pleased with how the split sleeve worked out – lining up the shoulder seam with this is not easy, but looks very sharp (see below).

And I lowered the button stance slightly – the three buttons can be seen marked on here in chalk. This was to balance with the length of the coat. You can also see a chalk mark where I have requested the sleeves to be shortened slightly. Coat sleeves should completely cover jacket sleeves and shirtsleeves, but then I like my jacket sleeves short anyway.

In the picture you can also see that the overlap of the coat partly covers one of the patch pockets. This is because we extended the overlap as part of the extra waisting; that pocket will be moved further round.

Finally, you will notice from the below pic that the patch pocket is sloped outwards towards the bottom. I assumed this was a sporting detail to accommodate gun shells etc, but apparently it is so that the two edges of the pocket are parallel to the front edge of the coat and the side seam. As the coat is gently flared, so too are the pockets… Apparently all flaps on suit jackets should be sloped in a similar manner, they are just too short to notice.

Hopefully final coat next Tuesday!

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Sharp Facts

Every time I read a book on men’s style, I underline facts I don’t know. Over the past few years, the number of underlinings in my books (and magazines) has got mercifully less. Fewer defaced volumes on the shelf.

But with Eric Musgrave’s Sharp Suits, the number of facts multiplied. I gave up 50-pages in, so criminal did it seem to write all over the book. The problem is, this is a history of menswear rather than a guide. And a history not only contains more facts, those facts come with quotes, anecdotes and supporting evidence.

I’d heard most of the stories about Edward VII, for example, but I didn’t know this quote from German Chancellor, Prince von Bulow: “In the country in which unquestionably the gentlemen dressed best, he was the best-dressed gentlemen.”

Equally, I knew Edward’s innovations included the dinner jacket, wearing tweeds at the races and leaving open the button of a waistcoat. But I didn’t know he was also responsible for the black Homburg hat, shorter tails on evening wear and turn-ups on trousers (to protect the bottoms from muddy ground).

I shall endeavour to scatter some facts from Sharp Suits throughout future posts. But for the moment here’s a few to be getting on with:

• A 1960 inventory of the Duke of Windsor’s wardrobe listed 15 evening suits, 55 lounge suits and three formal suits (all with two pairs of trousers).

• By 1849 Brooks Brothers had 1,500 people making its clothes, and could put a claim to being the first company to offer ready-made clothing.

• After the Second World War there were approximately 100,000 tailors working in Italy, dressing around 85% of the adult population. And yet it was the Italians that became the leading manufacturers of ready-made suits in the modern era.

• Hickey Freeman’s greatest innovation was to bring the various parts of suit production into a single factory. Up until then different tailors worked on different parts of a suit in different locations, often at home.

• The innovation of Hart Schaffner & Marx (which bought Hickey) was to offer proportioned suits with basic body types – tall, short, stout and thin.

• “Pierre Cardin was arguably the most influential menswear designer of the twentieth century…he changed attitudes to dress in men who had relatively little interest in their appearance” Colin McDowell. Cardin ruined this reputation with astonishingly promiscuous licensing.

• The hottest trend of 1962 was the suit silhouette worn by a group of public school boys that gathered around Le Drugstoe, a café on the Champs Elysées in Paris. They went to Marina, an old tailor on Rue Vernier in the seventeenth arondissement, who was the first to cut flat-fronted, wide-bottomed trousers with small cuffs known as marinettes.

I’m done. More reading to do now.

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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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