Spring Things

For the northern hemisphere, this winter has been a singularly long and cold one; snowstorms, biting winds, city shutdowns and days off school. The Bing Crosby fantasy of the ‘magic’ of snowfall wore rather thin in the December blizzards and there were certainly no punters in Starbucks, as they cupped their lattes between their frozen hands, singing along with Ella to the pollyanna winter classic ‘Let it Snow!’

Dark and bleak, with only the light of the festive season to warm hearts, this winter’s end cannot come soon enough.

Spring is around the corner. Soon the heavy overcoats, scarves, woolly hats and gloves will be locked away until the year end. The flowers will appear and the cold grip will cease. I like to begin each spring with a few new purchases, so thrilled will I be that I can rise each morning without fear of frostbite. After the monotony of wrapping up merely to chill the bones, the novelty will rejuvenate my somewhat jaded interest in composition.

Spring Tie

My choice of spring tie would have to be a Liberty print cotton paisley. Unlike my winter ties, all of a somewhat sombre style, my new tie purchase for spring will shout sunshine and songbirds. It’s rather flowery but this is hardly an inappropriate fashion for the coming season. Worn with a blue peaked lapel suit, a cornflower blue shirt and some brown wholecuts it will convey a sense of floral fun.

Spring Shirt

My choice of spring shirt would have to be the yolky yellow that has recently caught my eye in Lewin’s on Jermyn Street. Although about as subtle as a stretch pink Hummer, it can be pared down to a respectable level with clever choices of tie and suit. Darker is dignified in this case – a dark suit and dark tie (but not black) will calm the effect that such a strong and noticeable shirt will have on the populace. It will also look wonderful later on in the year with a summer tan, blue blazer and white trousers.

Spring Shoes

Loafers are perfect for spring. I have been rather taken by the idea of a pair of classic Gucci loafers with the classic metal bar decoration. I saw the promotional and on-set photography of the upcoming Oliver Stone film ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ and noticed that Shia LaBeouf, rather stylishly attired, sported a pair. I had long doubted their versatility and their aesthetic but the photographs of Mr LaBeouf wearing them with suits and casual outfits, with equal flair, convinced me. Somewhat retro, with the right look – and the right cut of trouser – they convey a cool chic.

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Reader Question: The Differences In Bespoke Tailors

CS, Los Angeles: I have been reading PS for the last few months in an effort to educate myself on various matters of style. First and foremost, I want to thank you for the time and effort you put into your work in this area. I suspect that you have a day job (and I believe you mentioned having at least one daughter in a post), so, from the perspective of another young father-professional, your work is all the more impressive.

Please forgive the bluntness, but I was hoping to get your views on why it is you chose the tailors you did for your first few British bespoke items.  Is it simply the price range of the larger names that caused you not to try them out or is it a value calculation?  Did you feel that you had the same options with Graham Browne that you might have had with a ‘bigger name’ shop?

Dear CS, thank you for your question. I cannot afford Savile Row at this point in my life, so that limited my decision. But I have also over time learnt the various ways in which bespoke tailors – all of whom deserve the name – differ from each other. And that informs the value calculation.

The first point to note is that the materials are all the same. Unless you want the exclusivity of Huntsman Opus or some such record cloth, you can find the same wools and linings at any bespoke house. Everyone uses Lesser, Minnis, W Bill etc and the same lining books.

Second, the process is the same. Both GB and one of the more famous Savile Row names will take an equal number of measurements, create a unique paper pattern and cut the cloth by hand, creating a basted suit that will be ripped apart and re-cut, and remade for a forward fitting. Then the final suit will be made, which can be altered again. In this way they are both entirely different to made-to-measure.

Assuming some minor changes are made at the final stage, this means visiting the tailor five times. Many Savile Row tailors will insist on more than this. That’s more expensive as it means more staff, more cutting and more time. But whether that is worth it depends on fit, which will be discussed later.

Third, the style and design options are unrelated to price. Some tailors, such as Anderson & Sheppard or Huntsman, and more known for a particular style and are more likely to stay with it. Others have no particular house style, but dislike experimentation or anything out of the ordinary, as it takes longer.

This is a question of personality rather than price. Russell and Dan at Graham Browne are always surprisingly excited about experiments – as demonstrated by both my and Guy Hills’ (of Dashing Tweeds) commissions. Some Savile Row tailors are equally impressive in that regard.

So those are the similarities. What are the differences? Well, Graham Browne does a few things with a sewing machine rather than by hand. For example, it attaches the layers of chest canvas together by sewing machine. These are still not tight stitches, and the canvas as a whole is secured to the jacket by hand, to ensure movement, but that construction of the canvas would be done by hand at most good Savile Row houses. It takes ages. And so it is expensive.

Personally, I love the way that my Graham Browne suits have adapted to my chest and feel personal. Far better than any expensive off-the-peg suit that had a floating canvas (Ralph Lauren Purple Label, for example). But a Savile Row suit might adapt better there – I don’t know, I’ve never owned one.

Another difference is that Graham Browne does not make its own shoulder pads. They are pre-constructed. Unless you have unusual shoulders, though, I don’t think this makes a substantial difference.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly for the price, Graham Browne offers little after-sales service. They cannot sponge and press suits onsite. With good Savile Row houses, this is included in the price and can be done for years to come. And while GB would be happy to carry out minor alterations after the fact, it will not substantially alter and refurbish a suit several years down the line without some cost. Good Savile Row houses will – it’s part of the service.

These last three points are all part of a value calculation, as you put it. They are all things that GB has opted to do without in order to charge less. And I’m perfectly happy with that – the construction is great and the fit fantastic, which are the priorities with bespoke.

Then there is definitely a premium for a big name (however small) and it costs a lot more to have large premises on or around Savile Row. That’s obvious if you look at the prices of Savile Row-trained cutters that now work somewhere else in the country (like Thomas Mahon) or in smaller premises (like Steven Hitchcock).

But, I think the most important thing you get, or should get with a Savile Row tailor, is consistency and quality of fit. Savile Row head cutters are at the top of their game. It is a prestigious position, and they are very good. You can have confidence that they will make you a very well-fitting suit, where you couldn’t with a smaller less-known name. It’s less risky. Not that the biggest names don’t sometimes get it wrong – but you’re on safer ground.

You can also justifiably be more demanding on Savile Row (back to the idea of service), changing things or requesting more fittings. The tailor is likely to be more demanding on that score as well.

There is a chance that there are tiny points of fit on a Graham Browne suit that would be improved on Savile Row. But I can’t see them and I’ve had suits made for a while now. I think Russell is a good cutter and others think so too.

Would I have a Savile Row suit made if I could afford it? Yes, I would. But given that it would cost three times one from Graham Browne, I would have to be earning at least three times what I do now.

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Ties Facts From Peckham Rye

Following on from the last, rather popular post on Peckham Rye and Hunter’s founders David Walker and Martin Brighty, here are some more insights from the interview:

- When you turn a tie in your hand and it seems to change colour slightly, this is because the light is reflecting off the warp. The warp is one direction of the weaving (the other being weft) of the silk. The warp is subtler and sets the foundation for the tie’s tone. While I have written about warp before (in a piece on Vanner’s) I hadn’t cottoned on to this way of revealing it.

- Woven ties will often fray slightly along the front edge over time. If you run a small flame (from a lighter, say) quickly along that edge, it will burn off the stray threads and not damage the tie. The same can be done with loose threads in the main weave. (This technique is used with manmade fibres in other industries, but only where you want them to melt and so fuse together. Silk will not fuse, just burn off.)

- Hunter’s makes a lot of ties for military units. And so many have been amalgamated recently that new designs are coming though all the time. Usually the designers take the dominant colours of each unit and try to find the best combination of them. There’s only a limited number of colour combinations out there though, plus over time the tone of the colours can change – if units have used cheaper tie companies, often the colour over the years comes to look nothing like the original design. That’s one advantage of a history in the industry – at Holliday & Brown they had swatches going back to the 1920s and earlier. So they could check the original swatch.

- The old hand-worked, shuttle looms could weave greater detail than today’s mechanised ones, though obviously nowhere near the speed. “In that old book we had a swatch of the Bugatti Racing Club, which from memory was a royal-blue ground, with a very thin – like one pixel – stripe of black, four pixels of gold, four of red, back to gold, then the black again. You couldn’t achieve that detail today, those looms don’t exist,” says David.

- Back then England made the bulk of the world’s ties, which explains why Holliday & Brown was making for Bugatti. English salesmen spent their lives travelling the globe – Buster Brown of Holliday & Brown used to spend nine months on the road (six of those in the US), all by train and steamship of course.

- When making bespoke ties, a man’s neck size is as important as his height. A short man with a very thick neck may be more in need of a bespoke tie than one of above-average height. And when tall men do have bespoke made, they need to have a wider blade – usually four inches. Otherwise it will just look too skinny.

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Notes On The Advantages Of Variety

My recent article on my expansive, though scarcely expensive, shoe collection revealed that, in the balance between quantity and quality, I lean more towards the former. Deborah Carre from Carre Ducker made a good point that if I had less greed for variety, I could have purchased maybe one, two or three pairs of some outstanding handmade bespoke shoes of superior quality that would last many more years than the ready-to-wear, predominantly ‘high street’ collection that I possessed.

Whilst this is true, it is indubitably based on how long a shoe lasts for the average person. The average person, as far as I can see, does not have twenty odd pairs of shoes to rotate through, thus maintaining the ‘fitness’ of the shoes through less-than-average use. Average use, from the cursory research I conducted, is wearing a shoe every other day. My black punch cap New & Lingwood Oxfords, purchased in 2003, have lasted seven years and are far from finished; they have only been resoled once and, due to shoe rotation, look a great deal better than many others of the same vintage. Whilst the collection looks gluttonous, it is as much a lesson in longevity as in variety – and if you can have both, for a reasonable price, then what is the issue?

The same goes for suits. A large suit collection, of say 20-30 suits, sounds like gross extravagance but if you wear one everyday, proper circulation should ensure greater wear. No matter how well made a suit is, how thick a fabric, if you plonk yourself down in it, type in it, drink in it and dine in it every damn day, it will soon wear out. There is no doubt that a well-made, tailored suit will last longer than a mass-produced suit, but should you be throwing your entire collection of high street suits on eBay to purchase a single bespoke? Absolutely not. Not only is owning a single suit rather dull, no matter how beautifully it is crafted, it will not outlast you if you subject it to 365 days of wear a year. Holes will appear, fabric will fray; suits, like shoes, need a break if they are expected to last.

This is why I advocate the sustained increase, rather than decrease, in the variety of a gentleman’s suit wardrobe. By all means aspire to greater suits but consider living within your means above lofty expectations of quality. I recently spoke to a gentleman who purchased one Henry Poole suit in his early days as a stockbroker in the 1960s. His elders and betters, similarly attired by equivalent Savile Row tailors, were rather unimpressed, believing that they alone were entitled to march through their Bank offices in bespoke English suits. The lesson came when, his salary frozen, he was unable to purchase any other suit; his savings were gone and his profligacy a point of regret. “I couldn’t afford the suit” he said “and I ended up buying more, of course, at great expense.”

He informed me that it was only a doting father, himself a Savile Row account holder, who backed future purchases. Others, in straitened circumstances, might not be so lucky.

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Two Aspects Of Figuration

I discovered an interesting aspect of figuration today, while being measured for a new suit. (Figuration being the process where a tailor adapts a suit to your particular bodily quirks – the steps beyond just making sure the shoulders are the right width.)

The tailor pointed out that I have a slight stoop forward, slightly prominent shoulder blades, a hollowed lower back (partly due to being slim) and a large seat. If you can imagine that effect down the line of my back, it produces a S-shape – exaggerated curves caused by the shoulder blades and bum, with a hollow in between.

Most other suits I have follow the line of my back, meaning that the rear of the skirt kicks out a little over my bum. To correct this and mitigate the S-shape, a little more fullness will be added in the small of my back with this suit. But a little will be taken out of the front too, so that the waist size remains the same. Effectively, the lower half of the jacket will be swung backwards a touch.

On my previous suit I had also noticed that the collar stood away slightly from the back of my neck. A fairly obvious fault. But it was also pointed out this time that, when I looked at the suit from the front, this standing away was most prominent on the right of my neck.

This, it seems, was because I leant ever-so-slightly to the right, as well as a little forward. That was noticeable both at the neck but also below my right arm, where the cloth collapses a little between the waist and scye. Rebalancing the suit a little, so it is slightly lower on that right side, should correct this.

Both of these are aspects of fit that I have never noticed before, but of course now will not be able to ignore. Like the day after I had my first bespoke shirt fitted, and realised all my shirts had a slightly short left arm.

These are the pleasures of bespoke, such as they are. Every time you improve one facet of fit, you discover another that is wrong.

I admire tailors and shirtmakers for being able to spot these little things. But I do wish they’d stagger pointing them out to me.

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