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).

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.

The Wonders Of Bicester Village

I am a sucker for a good deal. Indeed, if one were being unkind it could be said that sometimes being a bargain gets in the way of my actually wanting something. Anywhere north of 80% off and I start to feel giddy.

For a long time I’ve been a fan of the Designer Outlet just outside York. That’s where my in-laws live and it’s a nice excursion when I’m up there for a few days. But recently I discovered Bicester Village; York has rather paled by comparison.

I went to Oxford University yet I think I only went to Bicester once (the outlet is a just a few minutes outside Oxford, around an hour from London). It was a bit of a disappointment - small, damp and not particularly large discounts. How that has changed in the intervening 10 years.

Most outlets offer few options for men. Perhaps a Hugo Boss and a Hackett; Paul Smith if you’re lucky. Most men spend their time wandering around the luxury labels - Gucci, Armani, Prada - looking at the relatively small selection catering to them rather than their other halves.

Bicester has a great Dunhill outlet. Plus Ferragamo, Zegna and Pal Zileri. And Aquascutum, Brooks Brothers and Church’s, Burberry, Tod’s and Gieves & Hawkes (a sad endictment of Gieves that). It’s got everyone. Even Ralph Lauren, a regular in this kind of shopping outlet, has an oversized store here with extreme discounts. There was a Purple Label cable-knit sweater that still haunts me - £695 reduced to £89.

But my favourite discovery was Loro Piana. A extremely luxurious Italian cashmere label, I didn’t realise they had a discount outlet anywhere - indeed, I’m not sure that management is keen for people to know about this one. I picked up a true investment piece: a three-button leather jacket lined with cashmere, soft yet hardy, already imbued with the feeling of 100 winter walks. It was 80% off. I staggered to the till, a little light-headed.

I think the scale of the discounts at the moment is unusual and driven by the economy. According to a regular visitor, increasing numbers of shoppers has meant that the standard discount is not as large as it used to be. The Village is also dominated by Asia women chasing branded handbags and boutique designers, but it’s big enough for everyone to get around - just don’t go the Saturday before Christmas.

The train from London Marylebone to Bicester North takes 50 minutes and costs £23 return. Then there’s a mini-bus shuttle that costs a further £4.40 return and takes about five minutes.

How A Three Rolls To Two

Fans of traditional clothing are fairly united in their dislike of ‘true’ three-button suits – where the jacket is designed to button all the way up and leaves an awkward angle in the cloth if it is not. This fastening design is a hangover from the sleek Italian style of the late fifties and early sixties, where the long silhouette was accentuated by a high fastening and three or four buttons. It inspired the Continental look in the US in the late fifties and the British Mods in the early sixties.

The more elegant alternative for a three-button jacket is to have a lapel that easily rolls over when only the centre button is fastened – so-called ‘three rolls to two’. That way the lapel line is longer and sleeker, but you retain the option of buttoning all the way up if it gets cold, windy or both.

I was chatting to my tailors at Graham Browne the other day and it seems there are two ways to achieve this roll. The first, more English way is to put a loose, sparse row of stitches down the back of the lapel that leads to the centre button. This creates some permanent structure to the roll and ensures that, while it remains soft, it always looks the same. The position of the canvas in the chest also helps contribute to this effect.

The alternative, more American option is to put no structure in the lapels. Without an edge to the canvas or a separate row of stitches, the lapel is happy to roll wherever it wants. It will roll to the centre button if that is the one that is fastened. Or it will roll, though not quite as naturally, to the top or bottom button.

The way to tell the difference is to hang up both jackets and leave them unfastened. The latter construction will roll open very easily, and perhaps even roll over all the way down if there is little canvas in the chest. The former will always roll to the same place – where the stitches were sewn.

Most English tailors prefer more structure to their jackets – with famous and notable exceptions. They feel a jacket without it is more likely to lose its shape over time.

My mid-blue chalkstripe suit I have just commissioned from Graham Browne will be three-rolls-to-two the English way. Controversially, the waistcoat will also roll to its second button. Russell at Graham Browne hates this. But I think it adds a nice, casual tone to the waistcoat – more like a cardigan. And you’ve got to have some individuality, right?

A Short Talk With Andrea Perrone

I’ve been a fan of Brioni co-CEO Andrea Perrone’s personal style ever since issue 2 of The Rake. Perrone was the cover star, part of a feature on Brioni and wearing a checked sportscoat with a dark cardigan, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck. Ever since I’ve loved wearing a dark cardigan under an odd jacket. Something about the shadow it creates, the quiet sophistication that echoes the waistcoat of a three-piece suit.

The photo shoot was in black and white so I didn’t know the colour of the cardigan. But mine is a deep, bottle green. Dark enough so that the colour isn’t really apparent from a distance; different without being showy.

I met Perrone last week at the launch of Brioni’s first fragrance in the London store. (He was wearing a suit in a tight Prince-of-Wales check, grey with a red line through it.) The fragrance is inspired by one first produced in the 1950s, called Good Luck. Although there is no record of the scent itself, the discovery of an old bottle was apparently inspiration enough.

Perrone agreed with me that perfumes are hard things to write about. No matter how much you list the various ingredients, the top notes and the base notes, it’s hard for the reader to really get an impression of what it smells like.

And his view is that it is very much a question of personal taste, of associations and memory. I’ve always liked musky scents, probably because my father wears them. Most light and classic male scents I associate with the cheap Calvin Klein and Hugo Boss fragrances that my friends used to wear when I was a teenager. Somehow, they all seemed to smell the same.

As to craft and quality, you can talk about the proportion of ground elements in a scent, and how much they are diluted by ethanol. But that is pretty much given away by the name of the substance – eau de cologne, eau de toilette, eau de parfum. Each has a range of concentrations, with some overlap.

For Perrone, the only thing worth going into in detail is the ingredients – in this case bergamot from Calabria and lemon from Sicily amongst others, which are all naturally sourced and produced. And everyone was given an oversized book to explain what the elements were and where they came from.

But most important of all, there was a sampler of the scent. So that people could try it for several days afterwards, and decide if they liked it. That’s pretty much all there is to perfume.