The Agony Of Choice

I’m going to have a suit made soon. Naturally I’m considering what I’d like to have. Not suffering the burden of excessive wealth this is a rare happening, so some care must be taken with the selection of style and cloth.

Now, there are two schools of thought on this issue. These can be defined as my school, and everybody else’s.

Everybody else, probably wisely, argue that if you’re going to invest in bespoke or made to measure tailoring then get the basics sorted first. Those keystones of your wardrobe, the blue and the grey suit in classic styles, are by far the most versatile options, and you can always build in more interesting elements later. Sound fatherly advice.

My theory goes something like this; working one to one with a tailor opens up a world of possibility that the high street just can’t match. Why not have something a bit special, a bit different, something you’ve always wanted but which the high street isn’t offering. Keystone suits will be worn regularly and wear out, unless supplemented with high street offerings. In which case what’s the point?

So, here are my contenders…

First up, a suit I wrote about some posts ago. Referred to as the Kent style it wasn’t popular judging by the comments. But I’ve seen one or two more and I really like them. But as the previous article made clear, you can’t afford to buy this off the peg.

The single breasted peak lapel suit with a double breasted waistcoat. The fact that I couldn’t find an exact picture of what I want is the reason I’m considering getting one made. The pictures give a rough idea of the aesthetic I’m searching for, the lovely sharp lines and series of V’s. One to be done in a navy worsted cloth I think.

A large box check, ever so slightly reminiscent of Victorian dandies. Popular with the Duke of Windsor, here in the UK it went through a bit of a revival 10 years ago and was done to death. An ideal candidate for revival.

A subject I have written about ad nauseum, I continue my love affair with patch pockets.  I’m toying with both the single breasted and a double breasted option. Interesting scoop by fellow columnist Simon Crompton here, shows I’m not alone in my thinking. I have it mind to go for Navy needle cord or grey flannel for the double breasted option.  Alternatively, something similar to this.  But I want to see the cloth books.

The agony of choice.

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Be A Rogue Like The Big Bad Wolf

My two-year-old daughter has a book called Cinderella and Other Stories, by Stephen Tucker and Nick Sharratt. Reading it to her yesterday, I noticed that Sharratt (the illustrator) dresses the Big Bad Wolf in a purple suit with yellow windowpane check, yellow bowtie and tan-and-cream spectator shoes. The implication, whether conscious or not on Sharratt’s part, is that this is a figure of ill repute. Only the roguish dress in such an ostentatious way.

That feeling about loud clothes can be seen throughout the development of menswear. The Duke of Windsor, when Prince of Wales, favoured checks more than his contemporaries (hence his popularisation of a variation on the glen plaid) and took to wearing spectator shoes. The latter were deemed by his father, George V, to be the footwear of a bounder and a cad.

His father, Edward VII, also pioneered clothing that was stronger as well as more comfortable. He favoured tweed suits for the races, rather than formal daywear, and took to wearing velvet jackets as well. Interestingly, though, Edward VII quickly dropped the latter when they were popularised by Oscar Wilde and became associated with homosexuality. The Duke of Windsor, by contrast, continued to wear suede shoes despite their associations with homosexuality.

Bounders, cads, rakes and rogues are often those that have stepped outside society’s ideas on respectability. This is communicated through clothes as much as through their actions or the company they keep. Indeed the nickname for suede shoes used to be brothel creepers, suggesting one place these men liked to hang out. And the American term for spectators is co-respondents, after a figure in an infamous divorce case.

So there has always been this association between loud clothes and roguish characters. (Golf clothes and the ‘go-to-hell’ leisure wear of American upper castes might be seen as a deliberate casting off of respectability for a certain period.)

One thing I find interesting is that throughout this history of innovation, the trend towards comfort has always been accompanied by one of personal expression. Colours, patterns and contrast are a deliberate step outside the norm in order to become more individual.

What’s depressing about menswear today is that the two trends have become divorced. Comfort has lost its twin, expression. Jeans, chinos and trainers are not the result of any individuality. A suit is more individual in most parts of the US or UK.

Perhaps not a purple checked suit. But men need to be a little more rakish now and again.

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Fishy And Polo: A Picture Update

I haven’t been good at posting pictures recently, so here’s an attempt to make up for it. Here we have images of the polo coat that has been documented in detail over the past few months, but of which I never posted a final image, and of the ‘fishy’ suit I commissioned most recently from Graham Browne. This was my first suit with braces (so with a fish-tail back) as well as featuring a fish-mouth lapel.

The fish-mouth lapel has a narrower gorge (the gap between lapel and collar), with the lapel angling upwards like a peak model but at neither the same angle nor to the same length. It is seen as a nice compromise between a notch and peak, though glancing around the various off-the-peg suits out there you will notice there are many variations on the notch, both in size and angle.

There are essentially two variables – the angle of the seam between lapel and collar, and the size of the gorge. If the seam is more horizontal, the lapel is flatter and sticks out more, achieving some of the broadening effects of a peak. Many modern suits give the impression of a higher gorge simply by changing the angle of the seam. If the size of the gorge is bigger, both collar and lapel are pushed apart. This dates a suit from the 1980s as much as the height of the gorge.

Of course, the notch lapel is defined by the angle of the seam continuing in a straight line along the lapel. A peak and fish-mouth lapel both angle upwards, to a greater or lesser extent.

I like the braces – the trousers certainly hang better at the front and the waist is larger and more comfortable. However, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to having something around my shoulders. The next commission (Minnis mid-grey flannel with patch pockets) will switch back to normal trousers. And this may even be altered to that style eventually.

I couldn’t be happier with the polo coat, though I am reconsidering the choice not to have turn-back cuffs. The style probably suits it better, but the camelhair is so heavy that I feel tired just at the thought of it.

The back of the coat, which featured so heavily in the pieces on its design and construction, is shown here in two different settings – mid and tight. As I am wearing a suit and cardigan underneath, the tight setting (close-up shot) is a little too tight for easy movement here. It would be used if I were just wearing a sweater.

Thanks to Dan ‘the trews’ for photography

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A World Of Imagination Adjusted

One of my joyous memories of childhood is the extent to which I exercised, and was encouraged to employ, my imagination. Imagination was always my friend in solitude, a make-believe sunshine on a rainy day. Unfortunately, my rebellious teenage years corrupted the fantasy and my early twenties were years void of invention. Now, in my 27th year, my innocence entirely expunged, I feel a pang for the days on which I was left with my playthings, a view of the sky and my own impossible dreams.

My imagination, which at one point in my younger years my mother commented, was so vivid that I would often replace the reality with the fantasy entirely and would vociferously reject any tired pleadings for my return to life, is not what it was. Years of the disappointing realities of life have broken the imaginative spirit. Mores the pity, for I have long thought that a good imagination is one of the most underrated qualities in any human; child or adult. Imagination is the glory of man, his triumph over the beast; the first intelligence in man was measured by his ability not only to observe but also imagine. All art, from cave paintings to cathedrals, shows a mind capable of soaring through the heavens.

When I wander the heavy laden racks of high and side street stores, glancing through price tags that rarely touch triple figures, I look around and see a disconsolate group of people doing the same. Rarely do they ‘see’ anything; they merely ‘look.’ Whether their unsettled state is due to their resentment at having to purchase in such establishments or whether they are bored by clothing I cannot say but I detect a lack of enthusiasm and, more importantly, a want of imagination that I find a trifle upsetting, for one of the few activities in which I consistently and happily employ what remains of my imagination is shopping in such environments.

I once asked a cynical friend, a designer label addict, to go shopping with me. I was determined to show him that though some places do not pre-package your perfect aesthetic onto mannequins, play you soft-and-crackly early Dean Martin and offer you an environment more akin to a boutique hotel than a shopping establishment, they can offer you garments which, imagination permitting, could be so much more than a sad little piece of cloth in a strip-lit thrift store. The key is not to buy into the aesthetic of any store but simply to create and maintain your own. If, for example, I had bought into the GAP aesthetic, I would never have altered the buttons on my £20 blazer, nor would I have paired it with a vintage waistcoat, French collar shirt, tie and punch-cap Oxfords.

If you like a particular style, say for example Hackett – who do produce some of the most arrestingly handsome window displays – don’t believe that only Hackett can offer you that look. It might take a little longer but you can find your own Hackett look without stepping into a single store. A lonely linen double breasted blazer in a cheaper establishment might not be sold as effectively as the Gatsby-esque displays at Ralph Lauren, but evaluate the product for what it is, imagine wearing it and, most importantly, imagine the way in which you will wear it.

“To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.”

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Where The Brace Buttons Should Be

I recently received my first braced suit. That is, one designed to be worn with braces, featuring a high waist and fish-tail back.

When I first wore the suit it seemed that the front two pairs of buttons were a little too far round to the side. They were more on my hip than under my stomach, with the consequence that the braces felt like they would fall off my shoulder constantly. But then I’ve never worn braces before, so I didn’t know whether that was normal.

After a day viewing collections, and so trying on quite a few suits, I decided something had to be wrong. Every time I took off my jacket one or the other of the braces would slip off and have to be re-hung. Not exactly elegant.

Returning to my tailor, he explained that there were two standard settings for the buttons position. One, most often used in the military, is to have the rear of the two buttons sitting on the side seam of the trousers. This ensures that seam, often decorated on military dress trousers and so a point of focus, stays taut and straight.

The second is to have the foremost of the two buttons sitting on the crease in the front of the trousers, keeping that taut at the slight expense of the side seam. This is required on pleated trousers, where the way that the pleats hang is key. On flat-fronted trousers it matters less, especially as few men these days bother to maintain the crease.

On both options the distance between the buttons in a pair is the same. And as it is the rear button that sits on the side seam in one option and the front button that secures the pleat in the other, the difference between the two positions is not great. But it is noticeable.

The other advantage of the first position is that the braces cannot be seen when a man’s jacket is open. Unless he has his hands in his pockets and pushes the foreparts way back, the braces remain hidden. It was for this reason that my tailor went with the first position, as I had never worn braces before and seemed a little self-conscious about it.

He forgot to ask me what I preferred, though, or to take into account my sloping shoulders. The latter means my braces need a little more purchase than the average man.

So the buttons were moved. And now I know the next time I order a braced suit.

[Pictured, the braces in question, from Drake’s.]

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