One to Watch: Private White VC

To call Private White V.C. a new British brand would overlook the fact that the company behind it have been manufacturing clothes in England for over a century.

Better known to those in the clothing trade as Cooper & Stollbrand, this Manchester based company already has an enviable reputation for manufacturing hand crafted clothing for the likes of Dubarry and Paul Smith as well as new comers like Albam. With this pedigree on their side the company has embarked in an interesting new direction launching their own clothing label Private White VC.

Designed by the former head of Dunhill menswear, Nick Ashley, and inspired by the everyday wardrobe of Jack White, who not only won a Victoria Cross in the First World War but was the founding father of the factory, it’s an interesting concept with some wonderful pieces -the stylistic simplicity of which belies some clever technical innovations.

I have to say that the back story to Private Jack White V.C. also adds to the charm of the concept, as does the fact that the factory remains in the family’s ownership, currently being run by Jack’s Great-Grandson.

I recently had an opportunity to see the collection at the Cube pop-up shop on Lambs Conduit Street, and I really liked what I saw. Kit that caught my eye included the Tea-Shirt, which features a woven oxford cloth front, with the back and sleeves made up of a soft 100% cotton jersey. The waxed wool Squaddie Jacket pictured below was another stand out garment for me. And yes you did read that right, it’s the waxed wool cloth that provides that wonderful aged look. This cloth is also incorporated into the Combat Blazer, another garment I wouldn’t mind adding to my wardrobe –although in truth there were very few items I wouldn’t like to add to my wardrobe.

Another factor which cannot be discounted is the quality of the manufacture. Cooper & Stollbrand are the UK’s largest independent clothing manufacturer with a reputation for hand crafted clothing and locally sourced materials.

It would be foolish to deny that elements of the collection are very familiar, particularly to followers of labels like Albam, a favourite of mine. But this is hardly surprising when you look at whom Cooper & Stollbrand manufacture for. However, factor in that many of those same clients have for years taken inspiration from Cooper & Stollbrand’s considerable archive, not to mention the definite militaristic accents inspired by the legend of Jack White, and I really do think this label stands up on its own merits.

Private White V.C., I salute you.

A New Look To No 1 Savile Row

No 1. Savile Row is of course the home of illustrious tailors Gieves & Hawks. I happened to be invited to the recently refurbished shop and preview of the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection. While said collection has some lovely pieces, not least a number of beautiful windowpane check suits and jackets, I spent the majority of my evening in the charming company of the two distinguished gentlemen below.

On the left is Mr Peter Tilley the Gieves and Hawkes Archivist and on the right Mr Andrew Brett Director and head of the military tailoring division. As both a historian and clothing enthusiast, archivist to a tailoring house as distinguished as Gieves & Hawkes would be pretty close to my dream job. Mr Tilley was also Archivist to Dunhill before taking up his post at G&H.

One of the many improvements to the shop being show cased, along with the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection, was the opening up of the balcony above the shop floor which now houses a permanent exhibition of old ledgers and military uniforms. Previously stored away and viewable only by a select few anyone can now visit the collection, something I highly recommend. Unless you have a love of history it would be difficult to explain the joy I get from simply seeing the ledger headed Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. But not everything is behind glass, as these pictures show.

Never having been a customer of Gieves & Hawkes bespoke service –a bit beyond my pay grade- I’m largely ignorant of the history of this most royally and militarily connected tailoring House. For instance, I hadn’t realised, until Peter Tilley explained it to me, that as late as 1974 Gieves Ltd and Hawkes & Co were separate businesses. While the two companies were discussing a merger an IRA bomb obliterated Gieves’ shop on Bond Street; the choice to base the new firm in Hawkes & Co No1. Savile Row store was thus an obvious one.

While today G&H is synonymous with military tailoring for all branches of the British Armed Forces, originally Gieves Ltd was the Royal Navy’s tailor and Hawkes & Co. supplied apparel to the Army, and in particular headgear. Indeed, it was the Pith Helmet that made Hawkes & Co a fortune; thanks to a visit one day from a customer who had with him a cork hat bonded by rubber. Hawkes new owner bought the patent improved the design and made a fortune in the process.

Of course there is a lot more to the company than these snippets from my conversation with Mr Tilley and Mr Brett, I’d highly recommend you take a trip to No.1 Savile Row and see for yourself.

Menswear Shopping In Tokyo

If there’s one thing that Tokyo does better than any other city in the world it is the shopping experience. New York, London and Paris are all great, but nowhere will you find the same amount of stores, nor the same variety, as you will in Japan’s largest city.

Of course, like any other big city the majority of fashion retail space is dedicated to women’s clothes, but menswear has a great showing. If you’re in Tokyo for a few days, be it for business or pleasure, and fancy doing a spot of shopping, here’s a brief selection of some of my favourite places. With the exception of 1) you’ll be able to find branches of each in various parts of the city.

1) Isetan Men’s, Shinjuku

Isetan Men’s is probably the largest menswear-only department store in Japan, if not the world. Nine floors’ worth of sartorial goodness await the intrepid shopper. The footwear section is absolutely vast (and usually incredibly busy on weekends), while the suit-and-shirt floors often play host to some of Savile Row’s finest tailors. On the whole, it’s not cheap, but if you’re short on time and want to get a wide range of items, this is the place to go. Rejig, the eighth-floor café, is also a good place to grab lunch. The portions are very generous by Japanese standards.

2) Beams

Beams is one of several high-end clothing chains for which there isn’t really an American or European equivalent. Depending on the store, it caters to casual denim lovers, professional business types or a mixture of both. Displays are immaculately maintained and the sales assistants really know their stuff.

For contemporary business wear Beams is definitely one of my favourite places to shop. Much of their stock is Italian by manufacture, though they have a very good selection of made in Japan, own-brand items. I’m a huge fan of their slim-fit dress shirts, which are just about the best fitting off-the-rack jobs that I’ve managed to get anywhere. They’re also especially good value for money come sale time.

3) United Arrows

Much like Beams, United Arrows is a high-end retailer with Italian leanings (its founder is a former Beams man, so this is no surprise). I’ve found that they’re particularly good at producing summer-weight jackets to beat the stifling Tokyo heat – they’re unlined, lightweight, breathable and very comfortable. With spring in the air they’ve taken to producing a very nice line of suede driving shoes and loafers that retail for half the price of Tod’s or Gucci’s. Will have to check them out further this coming weekend…

4) Lifegear Trading Post

If you’re looking for shoes Lifegear Trading Post is the place to go. They offer a fine selection of reasonably-priced footwear for the discerning gent. My only gripe is with sizing. My (British) size-nine feet may be fairly average by western standards, but in Lifegear – as with many other Japanese footwear stores – they tend to cater to more dainty hoofs.

There are also lots of smaller shops that I’d like to talk about, but a single article really doesn’t afford enough space for me to do them all justice. I’ll bring you more of the best that Tokyo has to offer in future instalments.

Archer Adams: Revisited

The weather here in London has been nothing short of glorious, and for the first time since Christmas 2010 I’ve managed to get a week off from all my various jobs.

Having been deskbound for the last 5 months this was an ideal opportunity to make a few visits.

It just so happens my girlfriend also secured a weeks holiday, something we’ve not managed since said Christmas. And yet by some deft verbal footwork on my part I was slipped for two days. Off the leash I headed first for Marylebone and Archer Adams shop.

If you’re a long time reader of Mensflair, or BespokeMe, you may remember I introduced American born Archer some time back (regardless here is a reminder). Back then he’d only just launched his label and the store was both unfinished and lacked stock.

As you can see from these pictures the shop is looking really good and those dark grey walls really help showcase the clothes. I particularly liked the green check jacket in the foreground and those fabulous velvet coats, a perfect black tie evening coat.

Full credit must go to Archer for pulling this off in a difficult economic climate. It’s now a proper shop and much closer to the vision we had discussed on previous occasions. Although it looks great to me Archer says there are a few more bits to be done, but customers can now visit Archer and see a good range of his clothes from hats and silk ties to cloth books for the Made-to-Measure service.

It takes a lot to get me out from behind the camera, but a nice pair of shoes and one of Archer’s wonderful raincoats will do it. Having highlighted this raincoat on my first visit I’ve been fixated by it ever since. This was my first opportunity to try it on and it didn’t disappoint. Wonderfully light weight and softly tailored with a full silk lining, this coat stands up well as a signature piece in its own right, and deserves to be worn with as little distraction as possible. The wonderfully uncluttered lines, straight cut pockets and slight elongation to the points of the collar give this coat its distinctive look. A definite touch of the 60’s about it.

Thanks to Archer’s generosity, and some unsightly slobbering on my part, Archer is going to have one made up for me. As soon as I’ve settled my tailor’s bill (yes I do pay for the kit I feature) this raincoat will be added to my wardrobe.

All I need now is a little rain!

Made To Measure Suiting at Stephan Shirts: Part 2

Erlend Norby

In the first part I explained why I’d selected Erlend at Stephan Shirts to make my suit, and why I thought it was a cut above normal Made-to-Measure. In this posting I’ll show you what I decided to have made, and explain why.

In some ways selecting a tailor is the easy part. Deciding what to have made is a far more daunting prospect, particularly if your pockets aren’t deep enough to make this a regular occurrence. With so many options it’s difficult to know just what to settle on, and there is always the danger you go overboard. In the art world the saying goes: a painting is never finished, merely abandoned.

To help with the decision process it’s a good idea to have a stock of images to refer to; styles of suit, cloth pattern, pocket shapes, lapel types, size etc. etc. All these things can help you piece together your imagined suit in advance.  To that end I highly recommend Patrick Johnson Tailors Tumblr which has a wonderful archive of pictures. It’s fast become my daily dose of suit porn.

One advantage of this preparation was that I was able to e-mail pictures to Erlend in advance, which helped no end in when it came to describing the stylistic features I wanted.

Having thought about what style of suit to go for I finally settled on a double breasted with patch pockets, something of an obsession of mine. Several years ago I found the picture above. It’s a 4×2 DB jacket with a soft role lapel allowing the option of leaving the top button undone in the Kent Style.

This style of suit has numerous potential pitfalls, as highlighted here in an earlier article. But in sort the key is the button placement, which must be absolutely spot on, and high arm holes to lengthen the torso. To this I added soft sloping shoulders in order to better balance the proportions of my head, shoulders and chest. All quite tricky, but both Erlend and I agreed that we should pick something that really tested his made-to-measure service and showed off what he could do.

Credit: TheSartorialist

There was another reason for picking this style of suit. I thought it would be easier to break the suit up for multiple uses.

If money is in short supply and bespoke or made-to-measure a rare luxury it’s not a bad idea to commission clothes that can serve multiple purposes. The clothes you have made for you will be your best, and looking your best as often as possible should be the aim.

For a while I’ve wanted a DB jacket I could pair with jeans and chinos for weekend and semi-formal use. This is much easier with patch pockets, and the long sweeping lapel will add a louche casual quality. The chap above was the sort of image I had in mind. Of course for this to work successfully the choice of cloth is all important.

Erlend carries a good range of cloth books encompassing heavy country tweeds to lightweight Italian fabrics. But he prefers to deal in heavier English worsteds, and this suits me just fine. Personally, I don’t like lightweight cloths as they don’t tend sit well on my frame. I contemplated a plain navy worsted, but while that might have given the appearance of being a navy blazer I suspected without brass buttons it would have merely look like a suit jacket missing a pair of trousers. Conversely, a cloth that was too bold might not have worked for a suit which was to be worn in a formal office environment. I therefore chose a 13oz Holland & Sherry navy cloth with subtle grey windowpane check. To ensure that the jacket has a degree or harmony as both a suit and separate I opted for black horn buttons with darker grey seams running through them. Erlend offers plenty of other options in horn or mother of pearl, but next to the cloth these seemed the most appropriate choice.

On the issue of trousers, whether you’re buying bespoke, made-to-measure or off-the-peg it’s a good idea to purchase a spare pair. Even if you wear your suit sparingly the trousers will wear out far quicker than the jacket. But here again I’ve tried to give myself stylistic options, opting for two different styles of trouser. The first will be a classic English double pleat with a fish-tail back (for braces) designed to sit on my waist, and the second will be a flat front, narrow leg trouser with belt loops and larger 2inch turn-ups which will sit below the waist and above the hips. This second pair of trousers is Italian inspired, with the option of wearing a belt to add colour and texture to a look.

Minor details which were added included a British Racing Green lining and fully functioning buttonholes, plus a loop behind the lapel for a boutonniere.

Certainly a demanding commission for poor Erlend, but he was typically calm about it all and understood exactly what I was after. In the final part we’ll see just how well everything turns out.