The Tetbury Tailor

Call me a London snob, but I am rarely optimistic about shopping in the shires. It’s not that the shopping establishments outside the capital are poor, it’s just that I never seem to find anything. Shopping in large county towns is bad enough, but when it comes to country villages and tiny market towns, I lose any hope of seeing something worth my while. Though shopping is never the reason for my visits to these places, I feel slightly dismayed by the sight of a quiet, near-shopless village street.

You can imagine my delight then on encountering The Tetbury Tailor in the Gloucestershire village of the same name. A tiny market town near Cirencester, Tetbury is in the heart of the Cotswolds. Like many other places in this vicinity, it is a smart and well-kept place. There is, like many Cotswolds towns, a chocolate box character to it, although I mean that as a compliment and not pejoratively; after all, it’s fair to say considering property prices and the demographic of the area, ‘chocolate box’ is pretty desirable.

I stayed for a wedding held nearby, but I wanted to have a wander around to ensure I got my weekend’s worth. A Highgrove shop dominates one of the main streets (Prince Charles’ country retreat is not far from here), catering for the tourism in the area, though not distastefully. Antique shops are also here too, good ones, and there is an excellent cheesemonger (with a royal warrant), not to mention a splendid rug merchants with Indian artefacts and antiquaries from the sub-continent and elsewhere.

Plenty of the smarter stores here have photographs of HRH wandering around on a previous visit. There is a sense of quiet grandeur in this place, which is palpable when the shopowners holler friendly greetings in tweed three-piece suits; miles better dressed than their ‘sophisticated’ metropolitan counterparts. The Tetbury Tailor is no different. In a covered arcade, the Burlington of the Cotswolds, Keith Leaver – formerly of Gieves & Hawkes - runs an extremely smart shop.

Greeting with a smile and a handshake, Keith took us to the menswear side of the arcade (the other is dedicated to womenswear). As should be the case, the shop was filled with the sort of garb essential to country living – exceptionally smart country living. A rainbow of shirts, moleskin trousers, luxurious cords, glorious Bladen tweed jackets and paisley ties. There were Cheaney shoes, D.R. Harris toiletries and Corgi socks. This wasn’t an outfitter for country bumpkins; this was a store to rival most in the centre of London.

Offering ready to wear and made-to-measure suiting, you cannot quite believe you are still in the tinyness that is Tetbury as you flick through the swatches, admire the displays and chat to the affable Keith, who was keen to test his guest’s knowledge of style. “Who made your jacket?” he asked of my tweed check. “Well, it’s Ede & Ravenscroft…” I began. “It’s too short” he cut in confidently. Like all good tailors, he did acknowledge when I told him I was warned of the cut by the tailor but wanted it to be that length; “I understand. If that’s the way you wanted it.” In my experience, tailors all have opinions (and sometimes, they are very similar) but the best recognise when a customer won’t listen to their aesthetic edicts, despite the tailor’s superior experience.

Keith is not only a man with an eye for cloth, he is building a brand. Some of the merchandise is branded, tastefully, with two dolphins; the town crest of Tetbury. When I asked him about his business, his success with building custom, he seemed a man content but also showing great ambition. He knows tailoring, and he certainly lets you know how much he knows; anyone who was in the shop with me would have witnessed his keenness to impart knowledge, explain terms and offer advice. As the website states, The Tetbury Tailor “brings a taste of Savile Row and a flavour of Jermyn Street to the Cotswolds.” If there was one emporium to encourage my view of bucolic living, I think this is it.

The Pocket Watch Chain

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a fine antique pocket watch is in want of a fine antique chain. Readers of my blog will note that I was very fortunate to receive the former as a Christmas present last year; a happy event that has initiated a search for the latter. I own a perfectly good chain – an eBay bought modern knock off – which is certainly functional and not entirely unsatisfactory, but is simply not in the same league of beauty as the timepiece.

What I have discovered on my search for the perfect chain – which is, after all, the most consistently visible part of the pocket watch accessory – is not only that antique watch chains are highly valuable and desirable pieces of jewellery, but also that there is an incredible variety of styles for a great range of budgets. This shouldn’t be particularly surprising considering that, at one stage, a pocket watch was an essential accessory for gentlemen of all incomes.

Before it became the eccentric bauble for formal dress that it is today, before the wristwatch became the timepiece of choice, the world was full of chains and fobs, swinging from woollen waistcoats; there were solid gold and silver chains for men of state, shipping tycoons and oil barons; plated versions for ambitious clerks, junior barristers and bond salesmen. There were round links, square links, mixed links; large fobs, small fobs and funny fobs.

As with any incident of extraordinary variety, I have found selection difficult. Not being an astute collector, my eye is drawn to what I perceive to be the most attractive, not the most unusual or most valuable; I have passed over solid silver Victorian chains of unappealing bulk but been enraptured with mid-20th century plated knock offs. The greasiest and least appealing part of any transaction for precious metal for me is the weight/cost ratio; a heavy solid silver or gold chain will always command a premium, no matter how indelicate or basic the design.

Link design is one of the most important points of consideration. The vast majority of watch chains use graduated curb links which interlock with each other when laid flat. However, I consider the most appealing design to be one described, nebulously, as a ‘fancy’ chain; long rectangular links alternating with twisted knots. Although a good number of these chains are Art Deco, some are incorrectly labelled as being of early twentieth century design; this type of chain was actually very popular in the late 19th century.

Fortunately, many of these chains are plated and therefore considerably cheaper than the standard curb chains which, when a solid silver ‘Double Albert’, can often be nearing $1000. Adding a fob to the chain is an option, although for some the chain is enough of a decoration.

Reader Question Part II: Specifics of Business Casual Wardrobe

This post follows directly from the last in which we discussed how one could be classically dressed while being comfortable and unstuffy in a workplace with a casual dress code. Our reader is a recent graduate so cost is a factor. The wardrobe also needed to accommodate a large variety of social and work based scenarios.

In this part I will outline a core wardrobe of clothes that should achieve all of the above. It’s also important to bear in mind those general principles outlined last week: don’t get hung up on one mode of ‘classic’ dressing; the three F’s (Fit, Fit and Fit); don’t be too proud and the devil is in the detail.

Core Wardrobe Theory

If you’re on a budget then this is something you must practice. Abide by its general principles and you’ll have only those clothes you absolutely need, thereby getting the most out of your money.

At its most rudimentary the core wardrobe concept is about ensuring that all of the clothes in your wardrobe go with one another. It means that no one item stands out but together they form a harmonious aesthetic. The acid test is if you can get dressed in the dark and no matter what you put on it looks good.

To achieve this feat the items you choose must be classics which last season after season and above all fit perfectly. You also need to keep your colour pallet simple.  Simple clothes and colours always look more sophisticated even if the clothes you’re wearing aren’t in themselves terribly sophisticated. Simplicity imparts an air of quiet ease. To steal the Balliol college motto, ‘the conscious tranquillity of effortless superiority’ is our aim.

So here would be my core wardrobe, based on our reader’s criteria. Bear in mind I’m 35 years old and not a recent graduate, so this is a guide based on my tastes with general notions that should work.

1x Navy Suit

1x Brown Suede shoes

1x indigo jeans

1x Ecru Chino

5x Button down collar shirts assorted colours (2x white, 1x blue, 1x blue Bengal stripe, 1x pink)

1 x navy silk knit tie

Navy Suit

This probably seems an odd choice but think about it logically. The chances are you’ll need a suit on at least one occasion, whether that’s for a wedding, funeral, job interview or important business occasion. So it’s always useful to have one in the wardrobe. Beyond that, in terms of marginal cost, a suit is little more expensive than a navy blazer -that being the most versatile of jackets. However, if you split the component parts of the suit up you can wear the jacket with jeans or chinos and the trousers separately with one of your button down shirts. The one item effectively gives you a number of alternative looks and combinations suitable for a relaxed workplace environment. Provided you follow the rule about having your kit altered to fit, you’ll achieve a look which is sharp, classic, relaxed but smart. Navy will go with just about any colour of shirt, and if you change the navy buttons for brown, as a blazer a navy suit jacket works all the better.  Combined with the other items mentioned you’ll be covered for weddings, job interviews, semi-formal  evening occasions, business lunches, garden parties, meetings at the office with senior managers and those days when you just want to be a cut above and ditch the jeans in favour of trousers.

However, if you decide to go down this road you don’t need to spend a fortune. Consider opting for either a vintage or second hand suit; alternatively try one of the high street labels in your locality. You don’t need to spend a fortune just make it look like you did, so take your time and try all the retailers in your price range and pick the suit that fits best. Then take it to an alterations tailor to make it perfect. Finally, avoid shiny fabrics or overtly fashionable cuts and styles. A simple single breasted jacket with notch lapels should do. For those living in warmer climates –like our reader- I’d recommend cotton suit if you can source one.

Source: An Affordable Wardrobe.

So, a navy suit is not quite as odd a recommendation as it might at first appear, provided you also follow my next recommendation, brown shoes.

Brown Suede Shoes

If your colleagues are wearing trainers and deck shoes, as I suspect they will be, then you should wear shoes, and that being the case they should be brown.

In my view shoes set the tone for any ensemble. Your footwear choice will be critical for balancing that casual yet sophisticated look. Brown shoes are intrinsically more casual than black, and brown suede even more so. My own preference would be for dark brown tassel loafers. Loafers have a rakish, relaxed air whilst retaining enough formality that you can wear them for formal occasions. In this way they lower the formality of a suit and make a simple pairing of jeans and a shirt more formal.  On hot summer days you can even go sockless.

The reasons for recommending suede are two fold. Firstly, suede is less formal than leather but adds contrast and luxuriance. This works wonders for dressing up the most casual and simple of outfits while dressing down more formal attire. It will enable you to pitch your look more closely to that of your work colleagues while still looking a cut above. Secondly, suede ages more rapidly than leather. Some people get a bit prissy about this, but personally the more beaten up my suede loafers get the more I love them and the more useful they become with regards altering the pitch of an ensemble.

You may decide that brown suede loafers aren’t for you. That’s fine. Go with whatever best suits your own personal style. As long as they’re brown suede the above advice holds true.

Source: Herring Shoes (Classic, Graduate and Sale ranges)

When shopping on a budget the shoes should be the most expensive items in your wardrobe. As a rule the more you spend on shoes the better the value for money. Cheap shoes will always look cheap and they’ll cheapen your look. Well made quality footwear has the opposite effect even in relation to our next items.

Indigo Jeans and Ecru Chinos

This really is first principles stuff. I can think of few items of clothing more relaxed and yet more classic than jeans and chinos. Provided they are well tailored, clean and in good nic you can look both smart and casual. For example, jeans combined with a crisp white shirt, nicely tailored jacket and suede tassel loafers is a look which is both relaxed and done right looks smarter than most men manage even in a suit.

Ecru or off white chinos come right out of the Steve McQueen playbook. One of his favourite and most effective tricks was to wear tops which were darker than his trousers and then combine those with dark brown suede footwear (playboy chukka boots mostly).

Now, the reader that posed the question lives in a sunny environment year round, hence I went for Ecru chinos. However, for those of us who have both a summer and proper winter I’d simply use ecru for summer and switch to Tan chinos in winter.  But in either case the suit jacket, the shirts and the brown loafers will go with our chinos. Just be sure to avoid extreme fashion cuts.

Sources: Gap (slimfit), Levis

Five Button Down Shirts (2x white, 1x blue, 1x blue Bengal stripe, 1x pink)

I don’t think I need to say too much here. I’ve discussed shirt colours in a previous article. The reason for choosing button down shirts over a regular collar is simply that they’re less formal. If you stick to the colours suggested then each will go with all the other items so far covered. In my view few looks are quite so simple or quite so effective as blue jeans and a white button down shirt. The loafers (worn with or without socks) will add the finishing touch.  In fact even the white shirt and ecru chinos works for the hottest days of high summer -add in the dark brown shoes and we have yet another classic McQueenism.

Sources: This is tricky because I don’t know what’s available to our questioner out there in Silicon Valley. But as I said in part one, take the time to find a source that provides what you need, to an acceptable standard and at the price you can afford –don’t be too proud.

Navy Knit Tie

Accessories are where you really make a look, particularly when the core items in your wardrobe are pretty simple. I’ve chosen a silk knit tie because that suits my own personal style and fits with the other items in our core wardrobe. Ties are in vogue at the moment and a silk knit tie worn with navy jeans a button down shirt won’t look the least bit out of place. To make the look more relaxed simply loosen the tie, unbutton the top button of the shirt and role the sleeve cuffs up two turns.

Now, this is just one option, and going back to our first rule in part one, the accessories you choose must reflect your own style influences. You could, for example, decide that your style cue is patterned and brightly coloured socks, or braces with your chinos, wrist bands, scarves or even a waistcoat. The options are nearly limitless.

Conclusion

While views may differ on the kit chosen the basic principles and pairings behind them are sound. They are there to be applied in a way that suits your own style and tastes. The aim was not to provide the definitive list or clothes. The casual work environment is a tricky one to master but over the course of these two posts I hope I’ve shown it’s not impossible to look sharp whilst remaining comfortable and casual.

Photos: Obsessed with Tweed, Getty Images, The Sartorialist, Preppystyle, Randomitus, How to Talk To Girls At Parties.

The Washable Boiled Front Shirt from Darcy Clothing

Anyone who owns a traditional starched dress shirt with a ‘boiled front’ will be familiar with the frustrations that it causes. The discomfort when wearing it is bearable, as is the inconvenience of attaching a collar – although dancefloor exertions have led to many a broken shirt stud – but the real disappointment comes the morning after when the discarded pile of clothing is sorted and you realise the shirt needs a good dry clean. As you make your way to the local cleaners in the chilly morning, you envy your soft-shirted colleagues who lie warm in their beds, sleeping off the stupor as their washing machines whirr.

It gets worse when you arrive at the dry cleaners and they inform you that they cannot dry clean the shirt without damaging the product. “You need” they say “to go to a specialist dry cleaner, one who cleans for the movie and costume people.” You head to Jeeves of Belgravia for advice who inform you, calmly, that they do not do it themselves but they can send it away, for a fee, to be cleaned professionally. “It takes about two weeks” they inform you as you reel from the quoted price. A little research then leads you to the Barker Group – to whom most of the world’s dry cleaners send their boiled-front shirts – and you realise that your shirt needs to be posted off to Bournemouth.

Even for a man accustomed to fuss, this process is irritating and scarcely economical. The days when such shirts could be dropped off at street corner launderers are long gone. This is a specialist product requiring specialist cleaners; cleaning the starched front evening shirt is a dying art. If only there was a boiled front shirt which could be cleaned by any old dry cleaning company. Or, better still, if there was a stiff evening shirt that could be thrown in the washing machine as you return to slumber. “Yeah right” you think “that’ll never happen.” And just like that, Darcy Clothing (formerly the Vintage Shirt Company & Co) provide the answer to your prayers; the washable stiff-front evening shirt.

After the success of their washable collars, they have finally produced the tunic to match; no longer will Barker’s excellent but inconvenient services be required. Although not as authentically stiff as the original boiled front shirt, the washable version is all the better for it in terms of comfort. If you are of a nostalgic bent, or simply prefer the aesthetic of the stiff fronted evening shirt but have been frustrated by its inconvenience, this is the thing for you. You can tuck into your consommé in comfort, glide across the floor with gratification, catch a wink in the cab on the way home and toss the thing into the washing machine as you down a raw egg and a Bloody Mary.

A Rather Useful Yule

When someone asked me whether I was going to encourage the classic Yule purchase of small stocking fillers like mother of pearl shirt stiffeners or recommend instead something more serious and thoughtful, I realised how I had neglected the season; this is unusual, as I am anything but a humbug. I also realised how important it was to provide ideas which are not easy wins, as they are plentiful and receive recommendations far and wide, but rather ideas which require a more considerable financial outlay and thought for the needs of the recipient.

These suggestions reflect my thoughts on the sometimes neglected needs of those with advanced sartorial interests.

The Cufflink Box

When browsing the excellent collection of links on offer at Selfridges, it occurred to me that it is all very well to purchase these cuff-baubles of silver and gold, onyx, enamel and pearl but what will they do for a home? Are they to sit in their boxes, piled in a drawer? Are they to be kept inside a large container, causing unnecessary frustration when only one of the damned things can be found? Or are they, as I believe, to be given a plush, red velvet bed inside a substantial black lacquered box, kept under lock and key? If your thoughts align with mine, you may wish to consider the Ercolano Italian-made cufflink box sold by Penhaligon’s. With twelve layers of lacquer, the boxes are incredibly smart; if your cufflinks could talk, they would thank you.

The Umbrella Stand

I do not know how many homes I have been to where the wet umbrellas of the household are left lying on the floor or squashed into a cupboard. The really great shame of this is that many of these poor umbrellas are of fine manufacture and therefore deserve a decent place to rest after the exertions of protecting you from the downpour. An umbrella stand with a drip tray is the ideal place to store umbrellas for drying without soaking the floor or causing unpleasant damp smells in the canopy and the cupboard into which they are stuffed. Those of an exotic bent may wish to take a look at Linley’s umbrella stands in embossed leather with brass interiors.

The Magnified Shaving Mirror

When I once saw a friend shaving in the reflection of a glass shower door, I informed him he was simply asking for a face covered in cuts. Speaking as someone who has been forced to shave without actually being able to see my face, and the horror show that resulted from it, I know the importance of having a clear view of the process of dragging a blade across your skin. There is nothing better for this than an adjustable shaving mirror with magnification from Samuel Heath. The close-up image of your mug may be rather unsettling, but there is no superior way to achieve a closer shave in the comfort of your own home; tilt it to see under your chin, magnify it to trim your facial hair.