Bringing up Baby: three style icons at the top of their game
Showing posts with label The lovely Mrs Willis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The lovely Mrs Willis. Show all posts
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Paternity suits
The arrival of Bumwad Minor has imposed a drastic change on standards of dress in the Bumwad household. Under threat of regurgitation, the look for AW10-11 is 'machine washable'. Out goes the cashmere, silk and worsted, and in comes the lambswool, cotton and corduroy. The Bumwad paternity suit is a pair of baggy and well-worn cords, a fraying shirt and a merino tank-top.
Bringing up Baby: three style icons at the top of their game
Bringing up Baby: three style icons at the top of their game
Friday, 5 November 2010
Shirt-makers: Some thoughts
[Note: This post is based upon the 'shirts' section - now extracted - from the post originally called 'Symmetry'. The post had become too long and unwieldy.]
Bargepole (Michael Bywater) once remarked to the effect that the test of a good shirt-maker is that one should be able to walk into the shop after three large martinis and emerge bearing items that when worn will not make you look like a regional BBC TV presenter. While Ian Masters remains in many respects a model citizen, he offers no suitable guidance for those in need of sartorial advice - except, perhaps, 'go thou and do otherwise' aka 'the Alibhai Brown fallacy.'
Pockets
Much piss and wind is expended in some style blogs about the far-from-crucial issue of whether to have a pocket on a shirt. I have no fixed views on this matter, although I am aware it excites some people to paroxysms. Such shirts are probably not suitable for business attire, but then, in my view, neither are khaki 'slacks' or cardigans, yet those items excite no similar apoplexy.
To be sure, pockets break the symmetry of a business shirt - but that scarcely matters if one keeps one's coat on. And the outbreast pocket of the suit coat is equally asymetric, and the ticket pocket, come to that. The traditional objection - 'What would you keep in it?' - is perhaps more plausible, but that functional criticism applies to so many vestigial details of modern clothing, from the buttons on the back of a morning coat (although not mine, which are of course functional) to the trouser turn-up and the cuff button, so that cannot itself account fully for the violence of the belief.
No, the no-pocket 'rule' is a form of snobbery, thoughtless in the worst possible way, that has its origins in the preservation of distinction between the manual labourer or tradesman and the professional classes. Yet pockets are perfectly acceptable on casual or working shirts - garments in which one might garden or paint watercolours, and where one might need to keep one's cigarette lighter to hand; and if one were to choose to wear a button-down collar, a pocket is de rigeur. Bear that in mind, and, if you fear being mistaken for a carpenter or wish by your appearance to communicate your professional status or aspiration, then act accordingly. I will neither condemn nor applaud your choice.
Incidentally the officers messes of many army regiments consider the pocket issue for some reason to be a major faux pas. The prohibition on pockets is applied with such zeal by many subalterns, particularly in cavalry regiments, that anyone wearing a shirt with a pocket is liable to be man-handled, the pocket forcibly removed. Often the victims of this boorishness are members of the mess attached from the support arms.
The Emelet was wearing a shirt with a pocket!
This seems to me to represent the sort of dogmatism that is born of ignorance, and quite wrong-headed. It would of course be unnecessary were the old practice of dressing for dinner observed, but very few regiments still do this. Now, one ought not to present oneself for dinner clad for the compost heap, but if the regiments in question are content to dine in business attire, it is absurd to isolate a detail of shirting and construct it as a shibboleth.
Apart from the illustrating the occasional brutalities of the pack, this demonstrates the universal human need for boundaries, and the crisis of authority that results when they are absent. When traditions are relaxed, eroded or wilfully abandoned - in this case, the requirement that all officers dress for dinner in black tie - man will flounder and resort to creating for himself his own rules ex nihilo, which, divorced from their proper historical and social context, are arbitrary and, under malign influence mutate rapidly into violence.
And, strangely, many young officers see nothing inherently wrong in wearing velvet coats to dinner when guests in other regiment's messes, and would goggle at you in mute, tongue-flapping incomprehension if you pointed out their error.
Bespoke
If you can afford it - it is certainly an expensive luxury - bespoke shirts from a proper English shirtmaker are really the only option.
Evelyn Waugh: a Turnbull & Asser man
Most places require a minimum order - three is typical but some places ask for five - and starting prices are around £175 for a generalist men's outfitter like New & Lingwood, and considerably more for a proper shirtmaker like Turnbull and Asser or Mrs Willis.
A recent but notable arrival is Sean O'Flynn, on Sackville Street, formerly a head cutter at New & Lingwood and apprenticed at Huntsman. I haven't ordered from him, and don't be put off by the big fat tie knot he's wearing on his website: I have heard uniformly excellent things about his work. Incidentally, most tailors will have a pet shirt-maker, if they don't themselves offer (and probably sub-contract) the services, so you should probably seek their advice.
Another more below-the-radar guy is Frank Foster. Appointment only and no retail space to speak of, and consequently slightly cheaper, with starting prices around £150, and a five shirt minimum order.
If you need persuading to part with such sums, you could justify it as a 'sustainable' option, supporting as it does native English craftsmen, and providing a bop on the nose to upstart foreigners like Duchamp and Charvet. And you can easily spend more than £200 in somewhere like the menswear basement of Harvey Nichols on a vastly inferior Indonesian-produced item, every bit as shoddy as a garment selling in Gap for a tenth of the price.
Shirts and suits
On most occasions, button-cuffed shirts work best with single-breasted coats (the rule of odds and evens again). These can be of a single or two-button fastening cuff, the three-button barrel cuff associated with Turnbull & Asser, and the cocktail (or Portofino) cuff, associated commonly with Sean Connery’s James Bond, and almost certainly a Turnbull innovation. The latter is my favourite.Fit
The cocktail cuff in action
Look East? Look like a twot, more like.
In the US there is an entire folklore about shirts - I expect it started as a marketing gimmick by Brooks Brothers - covering business wear, casual wear, button-down collars, polo shirts, pockets etc. If you can find it, it is an interesting insight into the way people are told what to think; but, as with most sets of rules, they are for guidance only.
Here are a few principles:
- Stick to classic cloths, patterns and styles
- Stick to simple muted patterns: plainer shirts are more versatile and have greater longevity than 'fashionable' versions
- Avoid gimmicks like contrasting button-holes or fancy collar and cuff linings. That sort of thing is classic 'Look-at-me Piglet' behaviour
- Don't wear a shirt darker than the cloth of the suit you are wearing...
- ... and don't wear a shirt darker than the tie with which you will wear it
- Stick to good-quality English shirtmakers, and, once you understand the grammar of the well-made shirt, you can make more educated assessments of alternative manufacturers if you want to go off-piste
The 'Jermyn Street' shirt
The traditional shirt will be made from natural fibres - two-fold cotton poplin being the standard and will have:
- a multi-piece collar (usually described as 'two-piece' to distinguish from the 'rollover' collar, but in fact the collars of good shirts will consist of about fifteen separate pieces of cloth)
- Removable collar bones
- A split, two-piece yoke (the panel across the shoulders)
- A turned placket (the bit at the front through which the buttons protrude)
- Mother of pearl buttons
- Two shoulder pleats
- Generous tails (for tucking in, and providing additional cloth of similar age and wear when turning collars and/or cuffs)
- The 'butterfly gusset,' which is more complicated to make and stronger than the alternatives
All patterns will be matched at the seams.
Other smaller details:
- Typically there is an additional lateral line of stitching on the inside of the collar, to maintain the shape
- The parallel rows of stitching on the placket will be set much further in from the edge, running much closer to the button-holes
- The collar stitching will be inset by about 1/4"
A warning
Unlike wine, cheese or meat pies, there is no discernible mystical effect of terroir on the manufacture of shirts. The same is true of bespoke tailoring, of course, but far-sighted tailors have founded the Savile Row Bespoke Association to protect the Savile Row and bespoke terms from the depredations of modern menswear retailers who offer perverted and sub-standard forms of 'bespoke' tailoring that really does violence to the concept. All Savile Row Bespoke members must sign up to the terms of the charter, and one of them is that they must make their stuff 'on the row'.
Sadly, in spite of the odd outburst of enthusiasm, there is no trades guild that protects the Jermyn Street name or brand. No such rule about location could practically be applied - there is not enough space to carve out workrooms, and commercial rents in St James's would prohibit the necessary expansion for all but the richest firms. As a result, the term 'Jermyn Street' and 'shirtmaker' is open to some serious abuse. To be sure, while the best shirtmakers retain factories in Britain - notably in Kent, Gloucestershire or Aldergrove in Northern Ireland - and all their bespoke work will be done by hand, it is not done 'on the street'. Moreover, many retailers calling themselves 'Jermyn Street shirtmakers' do not make their stuff in the EU, let alone the UK. In fact, if 'Jermyn Street shirtmaker' has no fixed definition, the term 'made in England' is an equally elastic concept, and could easily refer to a shirt made almost entirely in Indonesia, with only the buttons added in England.
Now, there is nothing wrong with cutting manufacturing costs and passing them on to the customer (or consumer). But it is one thing to seek economies, and another to insult the intelligence of prospective clients. As a rule, for all the waffle about 'highest standards' and 'traditional craftmanship,' unless the shirtmaker specifically states that their work is done in the UK, it almost certainly won't be. So these 'traditional English shirtmakers' are exhibiting at best a tangential relationship with the truth, and should more accurately be described simply as 'shirt shops in England'.
It is now acceptable for retailers to sell 'bespoke' shirts that really strain at the boundaries of the meaning of the term. These will, in a low light, with the sun behind them, to the untutored eye appear to resemble a traditional Jermyn Street shirt. However, these will almost invariably be made in a piss-soaked sweatshop, by a semi-trained worker, finished to low standards and will be prone to disintegrate after even the lightest ironing.
Cost versus value
It is still generally true that you get what you pay for - up to a point: I contend there is a sort of 'zone of value,' and, for basic ready-made shirts you almost certainly have to spend not less that £60 to get a good-quality, English-made example. Anything less (and I'm looking at you, Mr Lewin, Mr Fuckwhitt) will certainly involve compromises, of cloth, craftsmanship, source, finish or longevity. However, if you spend more than £120 on ready-made shirts you are unlikely to get a shirt that is twice as good. If you are getting four shirts for £100, ask yourself what the catch is. (Of course, you might not see it as a 'catch'. But then if you care so little for your accoutrements you are hardly likely to have read this far. Now are you?)
Beyond £100, the relationship between outlay and quality goes haywire; and if you buy from a non-specialist but well-known 'fashion designer' you might pay much more for a vastly inferior item.
This cost-benefit analysis will with time be influenced by matters of personal preference. Hilditch and Key are a proper shirt-maker who make excellent quality shirts in England and they can be bought for £85. However, the fit and the style are not to my taste; so, if I were to buy ready-made shirts, I would rather have three shirts from Turnbull than four from Hilditch.
Most shirtmakers' ready-made stock caters for the ampler figure of the sedentary worker or the never-knowingly-under-victualled habitues of clubland: the body of the ready-made shirt will billow somewhat if, like me, you are of a fairly slim build. If you cannot bear the sight of the folds of cloth gathering at your waistband, your first recourse need not, however, be to engage a bespoke consultation. Several of the better shirtmakers do 'slim fit' shirts, of which Hilditch and Key and Emma Willis are the standouts; and Turnbull and Asser's standard shirts have a slightly more tailored finish than many; and most shirtmakers still offer a 'stock special' option, whereby a narrower, though still standard, body can be achieved.Whatever some French chemisiers might assert, Jermyn Street remains ground zero for bespoke and traditional ready-to-wear shirts. There are other places to buy good-quality shirts, to be sure, but this is the place to start.
Bargepole (Michael Bywater) once remarked to the effect that the test of a good shirt-maker is that one should be able to walk into the shop after three large martinis and emerge bearing items that when worn will not make you look like a regional BBC TV presenter. While Ian Masters remains in many respects a model citizen, he offers no suitable guidance for those in need of sartorial advice - except, perhaps, 'go thou and do otherwise' aka 'the Alibhai Brown fallacy.'
Pockets
Much piss and wind is expended in some style blogs about the far-from-crucial issue of whether to have a pocket on a shirt. I have no fixed views on this matter, although I am aware it excites some people to paroxysms. Such shirts are probably not suitable for business attire, but then, in my view, neither are khaki 'slacks' or cardigans, yet those items excite no similar apoplexy.
To be sure, pockets break the symmetry of a business shirt - but that scarcely matters if one keeps one's coat on. And the outbreast pocket of the suit coat is equally asymetric, and the ticket pocket, come to that. The traditional objection - 'What would you keep in it?' - is perhaps more plausible, but that functional criticism applies to so many vestigial details of modern clothing, from the buttons on the back of a morning coat (although not mine, which are of course functional) to the trouser turn-up and the cuff button, so that cannot itself account fully for the violence of the belief.
No, the no-pocket 'rule' is a form of snobbery, thoughtless in the worst possible way, that has its origins in the preservation of distinction between the manual labourer or tradesman and the professional classes. Yet pockets are perfectly acceptable on casual or working shirts - garments in which one might garden or paint watercolours, and where one might need to keep one's cigarette lighter to hand; and if one were to choose to wear a button-down collar, a pocket is de rigeur. Bear that in mind, and, if you fear being mistaken for a carpenter or wish by your appearance to communicate your professional status or aspiration, then act accordingly. I will neither condemn nor applaud your choice.
Incidentally the officers messes of many army regiments consider the pocket issue for some reason to be a major faux pas. The prohibition on pockets is applied with such zeal by many subalterns, particularly in cavalry regiments, that anyone wearing a shirt with a pocket is liable to be man-handled, the pocket forcibly removed. Often the victims of this boorishness are members of the mess attached from the support arms.
The Emelet was wearing a shirt with a pocket!
This seems to me to represent the sort of dogmatism that is born of ignorance, and quite wrong-headed. It would of course be unnecessary were the old practice of dressing for dinner observed, but very few regiments still do this. Now, one ought not to present oneself for dinner clad for the compost heap, but if the regiments in question are content to dine in business attire, it is absurd to isolate a detail of shirting and construct it as a shibboleth.
Apart from the illustrating the occasional brutalities of the pack, this demonstrates the universal human need for boundaries, and the crisis of authority that results when they are absent. When traditions are relaxed, eroded or wilfully abandoned - in this case, the requirement that all officers dress for dinner in black tie - man will flounder and resort to creating for himself his own rules ex nihilo, which, divorced from their proper historical and social context, are arbitrary and, under malign influence mutate rapidly into violence.
And, strangely, many young officers see nothing inherently wrong in wearing velvet coats to dinner when guests in other regiment's messes, and would goggle at you in mute, tongue-flapping incomprehension if you pointed out their error.
Bespoke
If you can afford it - it is certainly an expensive luxury - bespoke shirts from a proper English shirtmaker are really the only option.
Evelyn Waugh: a Turnbull & Asser man
Most places require a minimum order - three is typical but some places ask for five - and starting prices are around £175 for a generalist men's outfitter like New & Lingwood, and considerably more for a proper shirtmaker like Turnbull and Asser or Mrs Willis.
A recent but notable arrival is Sean O'Flynn, on Sackville Street, formerly a head cutter at New & Lingwood and apprenticed at Huntsman. I haven't ordered from him, and don't be put off by the big fat tie knot he's wearing on his website: I have heard uniformly excellent things about his work. Incidentally, most tailors will have a pet shirt-maker, if they don't themselves offer (and probably sub-contract) the services, so you should probably seek their advice.
Another more below-the-radar guy is Frank Foster. Appointment only and no retail space to speak of, and consequently slightly cheaper, with starting prices around £150, and a five shirt minimum order.
If you need persuading to part with such sums, you could justify it as a 'sustainable' option, supporting as it does native English craftsmen, and providing a bop on the nose to upstart foreigners like Duchamp and Charvet. And you can easily spend more than £200 in somewhere like the menswear basement of Harvey Nichols on a vastly inferior Indonesian-produced item, every bit as shoddy as a garment selling in Gap for a tenth of the price.
Shirts and suits
On most occasions, button-cuffed shirts work best with single-breasted coats (the rule of odds and evens again). These can be of a single or two-button fastening cuff, the three-button barrel cuff associated with Turnbull & Asser, and the cocktail (or Portofino) cuff, associated commonly with Sean Connery’s James Bond, and almost certainly a Turnbull innovation. The latter is my favourite.Fit
The cocktail cuff in action
Similarly, double-breasted coats justify double (or ‘French’) cuffed shirts. Double breasted coats look absurd with single cuffed shirts, and even the cocktail cuff looks a bit odd.
As an aside, a character in Philip Hensher’s witty nineties novel Kitchen venom observes that double cuffs with a single-breasted suit make you look like a pimp. I tend to agree. You might, however, get away with double cuffs if you wear a three-piece suit, particularly if the waistcoat has adornments such as lapels:
Single-breasted, double cuffs: Seymour Goldfarb Jr; heir to the Goldfarb Girdles fortune.
The cocktail cuff is a compromise that is both smart and simple - no cufflinks required - and looks good with two- or three-piece single-breasted suits.
Single cuff, single-breasted. Dashed smart.
'Casual'
The need for coherence and proportion - see 'Symmetry' - applies in all modes of dress, from the high formal to the low domestic comfort-wear.
A particular bugbear of mine is the wearing of double-cuffed shirts with casual trousers – especially jeans. It is a violation of logic. The degree of effort required to fasten cuffs with a silver (or, in some regrettable cases, gold, crested or even jewelled) chain-linked cuff-link jars violently with the casual aesthetic of the jeans. The wearer wants to be thought of as casual - "Hey! I wear jeans! I'm hip. I'm 'with-it'." - but betrays a stunning lack of attention to detail. Frankly it's the sort of rig suitable only for a money-grubbing prime minister vacationing at a Bee Gee's holiday home, and need not concern serious-minded types such as ourselves.
(In fact, a good guide to informal dressing is to search for 'tony blair holiday' on Google Images and do the exact opposite of whatever turns up.)
A similar absurdity is the laboured informality of wearing a suit without a tie - or even without socks. The tieless look is much favoured by the Eton Grocer (H/T James Delingpole) and his alleged Conservative Party, populated exclusively by former PR hucksters and their bespectacled inky swot peers from think-tanks. Presumably they think it sets them apart from their 'stuffy,' 'buttoned-up' oppressed/repressed and oppressive/repressive predecessors, when in fact it makes them look like a gang of IT consultants on an overnight course at an executive conference facility near Newcastle who've just been ejected from a lapdancing club for trying to grope the hapless students being paid to simulate pleasure at the prospects of being leered at by drunken worker drones.
Socklessness is boil-in-the-bag eccentricity which, as well as being tiresomely attention-seeking, is inconsiderate to those for whom the sight of an exposed and hairy male ankle is at best disagreeable. At least there is the possibility that those who indulge this ludicrous affectation might get blisters for their efforts. Often one finds that people practicing this also wear cufflinks. So let me get this straight: you exert yourself to put on cuff-links, but you think socks are oppressively formal. Ri-ight... That is an act of such self-skewering absurdity that they should be ignored if not actively man-handled.
In my experience, practitioners were probably the sort who, at school, wanted everyone to think they were too cool to have made any effort, but actually expended more time and energy trying to look relaxed than if they'd just put their socks on in the first place. We all know the type.
Single-breasted, double cuffs: Seymour Goldfarb Jr; heir to the Goldfarb Girdles fortune.
The cocktail cuff is a compromise that is both smart and simple - no cufflinks required - and looks good with two- or three-piece single-breasted suits.
Single cuff, single-breasted. Dashed smart.
'Casual'
The need for coherence and proportion - see 'Symmetry' - applies in all modes of dress, from the high formal to the low domestic comfort-wear.
A particular bugbear of mine is the wearing of double-cuffed shirts with casual trousers – especially jeans. It is a violation of logic. The degree of effort required to fasten cuffs with a silver (or, in some regrettable cases, gold, crested or even jewelled) chain-linked cuff-link jars violently with the casual aesthetic of the jeans. The wearer wants to be thought of as casual - "Hey! I wear jeans! I'm hip. I'm 'with-it'." - but betrays a stunning lack of attention to detail. Frankly it's the sort of rig suitable only for a money-grubbing prime minister vacationing at a Bee Gee's holiday home, and need not concern serious-minded types such as ourselves.
(In fact, a good guide to informal dressing is to search for 'tony blair holiday' on Google Images and do the exact opposite of whatever turns up.)
A similar absurdity is the laboured informality of wearing a suit without a tie - or even without socks. The tieless look is much favoured by the Eton Grocer (H/T James Delingpole) and his alleged Conservative Party, populated exclusively by former PR hucksters and their bespectacled inky swot peers from think-tanks. Presumably they think it sets them apart from their 'stuffy,' 'buttoned-up' oppressed/repressed and oppressive/repressive predecessors, when in fact it makes them look like a gang of IT consultants on an overnight course at an executive conference facility near Newcastle who've just been ejected from a lapdancing club for trying to grope the hapless students being paid to simulate pleasure at the prospects of being leered at by drunken worker drones.
Socklessness is boil-in-the-bag eccentricity which, as well as being tiresomely attention-seeking, is inconsiderate to those for whom the sight of an exposed and hairy male ankle is at best disagreeable. At least there is the possibility that those who indulge this ludicrous affectation might get blisters for their efforts. Often one finds that people practicing this also wear cufflinks. So let me get this straight: you exert yourself to put on cuff-links, but you think socks are oppressively formal. Ri-ight... That is an act of such self-skewering absurdity that they should be ignored if not actively man-handled.
In my experience, practitioners were probably the sort who, at school, wanted everyone to think they were too cool to have made any effort, but actually expended more time and energy trying to look relaxed than if they'd just put their socks on in the first place. We all know the type.
Look East? Look like a twot, more like.
In the US there is an entire folklore about shirts - I expect it started as a marketing gimmick by Brooks Brothers - covering business wear, casual wear, button-down collars, polo shirts, pockets etc. If you can find it, it is an interesting insight into the way people are told what to think; but, as with most sets of rules, they are for guidance only.
Here are a few principles:
- Stick to classic cloths, patterns and styles
- Stick to simple muted patterns: plainer shirts are more versatile and have greater longevity than 'fashionable' versions
- Avoid gimmicks like contrasting button-holes or fancy collar and cuff linings. That sort of thing is classic 'Look-at-me Piglet' behaviour
- Don't wear a shirt darker than the cloth of the suit you are wearing...
- ... and don't wear a shirt darker than the tie with which you will wear it
- Stick to good-quality English shirtmakers, and, once you understand the grammar of the well-made shirt, you can make more educated assessments of alternative manufacturers if you want to go off-piste
The 'Jermyn Street' shirt
The traditional shirt will be made from natural fibres - two-fold cotton poplin being the standard and will have:
- a multi-piece collar (usually described as 'two-piece' to distinguish from the 'rollover' collar, but in fact the collars of good shirts will consist of about fifteen separate pieces of cloth)
- Removable collar bones
- A split, two-piece yoke (the panel across the shoulders)
- A turned placket (the bit at the front through which the buttons protrude)
- Mother of pearl buttons
- Two shoulder pleats
- Generous tails (for tucking in, and providing additional cloth of similar age and wear when turning collars and/or cuffs)
- The 'butterfly gusset,' which is more complicated to make and stronger than the alternatives
All patterns will be matched at the seams.
Other smaller details:
- Typically there is an additional lateral line of stitching on the inside of the collar, to maintain the shape
- The parallel rows of stitching on the placket will be set much further in from the edge, running much closer to the button-holes
- The collar stitching will be inset by about 1/4"
A warning
Unlike wine, cheese or meat pies, there is no discernible mystical effect of terroir on the manufacture of shirts. The same is true of bespoke tailoring, of course, but far-sighted tailors have founded the Savile Row Bespoke Association to protect the Savile Row and bespoke terms from the depredations of modern menswear retailers who offer perverted and sub-standard forms of 'bespoke' tailoring that really does violence to the concept. All Savile Row Bespoke members must sign up to the terms of the charter, and one of them is that they must make their stuff 'on the row'.
Sadly, in spite of the odd outburst of enthusiasm, there is no trades guild that protects the Jermyn Street name or brand. No such rule about location could practically be applied - there is not enough space to carve out workrooms, and commercial rents in St James's would prohibit the necessary expansion for all but the richest firms. As a result, the term 'Jermyn Street' and 'shirtmaker' is open to some serious abuse. To be sure, while the best shirtmakers retain factories in Britain - notably in Kent, Gloucestershire or Aldergrove in Northern Ireland - and all their bespoke work will be done by hand, it is not done 'on the street'. Moreover, many retailers calling themselves 'Jermyn Street shirtmakers' do not make their stuff in the EU, let alone the UK. In fact, if 'Jermyn Street shirtmaker' has no fixed definition, the term 'made in England' is an equally elastic concept, and could easily refer to a shirt made almost entirely in Indonesia, with only the buttons added in England.
Now, there is nothing wrong with cutting manufacturing costs and passing them on to the customer (or consumer). But it is one thing to seek economies, and another to insult the intelligence of prospective clients. As a rule, for all the waffle about 'highest standards' and 'traditional craftmanship,' unless the shirtmaker specifically states that their work is done in the UK, it almost certainly won't be. So these 'traditional English shirtmakers' are exhibiting at best a tangential relationship with the truth, and should more accurately be described simply as 'shirt shops in England'.
It is now acceptable for retailers to sell 'bespoke' shirts that really strain at the boundaries of the meaning of the term. These will, in a low light, with the sun behind them, to the untutored eye appear to resemble a traditional Jermyn Street shirt. However, these will almost invariably be made in a piss-soaked sweatshop, by a semi-trained worker, finished to low standards and will be prone to disintegrate after even the lightest ironing.
Cost versus value
It is still generally true that you get what you pay for - up to a point: I contend there is a sort of 'zone of value,' and, for basic ready-made shirts you almost certainly have to spend not less that £60 to get a good-quality, English-made example. Anything less (and I'm looking at you, Mr Lewin, Mr Fuckwhitt) will certainly involve compromises, of cloth, craftsmanship, source, finish or longevity. However, if you spend more than £120 on ready-made shirts you are unlikely to get a shirt that is twice as good. If you are getting four shirts for £100, ask yourself what the catch is. (Of course, you might not see it as a 'catch'. But then if you care so little for your accoutrements you are hardly likely to have read this far. Now are you?)
Beyond £100, the relationship between outlay and quality goes haywire; and if you buy from a non-specialist but well-known 'fashion designer' you might pay much more for a vastly inferior item.
This cost-benefit analysis will with time be influenced by matters of personal preference. Hilditch and Key are a proper shirt-maker who make excellent quality shirts in England and they can be bought for £85. However, the fit and the style are not to my taste; so, if I were to buy ready-made shirts, I would rather have three shirts from Turnbull than four from Hilditch.
Most shirtmakers' ready-made stock caters for the ampler figure of the sedentary worker or the never-knowingly-under-victualled habitues of clubland: the body of the ready-made shirt will billow somewhat if, like me, you are of a fairly slim build. If you cannot bear the sight of the folds of cloth gathering at your waistband, your first recourse need not, however, be to engage a bespoke consultation. Several of the better shirtmakers do 'slim fit' shirts, of which Hilditch and Key and Emma Willis are the standouts; and Turnbull and Asser's standard shirts have a slightly more tailored finish than many; and most shirtmakers still offer a 'stock special' option, whereby a narrower, though still standard, body can be achieved.Whatever some French chemisiers might assert, Jermyn Street remains ground zero for bespoke and traditional ready-to-wear shirts. There are other places to buy good-quality shirts, to be sure, but this is the place to start.
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
'Austerity Britain': Turnbull & Asser's online custom shirt
Following my whine yesterday about the exorbitant prices of shirts, I find that Turnbull & Asser now have a 'custom shirt' service on their website:
http://store.turnbullandasser.co.uk/Custom_Shirt
They give cocktail cuffs (which they call the '2 button turnback') as an option, unlike Mrs W's similar online sub-bespoke service. It necessitates some self-measurement - sleeve length, seat, wrist circumferences),- but gives explicit instructions in how to do so. The number of measurements ought - ought - to give a more correct fit than the basic stock special option.
Hello? Mr Asser? I'd like some more shirts.
I have tried both full bespoke and the somewhat cheaper 'stock special' options at Emma Willis. As a person of pretty standard build, I'm not entirely convinced that bespoke is worth the difference in price, and Mrs W's 'semi-bespoke' option is pretty much indistinguishable from the bespoke product.
Bespoke is the right job if one is some kind of Brobdingnagian monster, a stump-legged capering dwarf, or some hideous mis-shapen offence against God - or have the sort of exacting requirements associated with the newly-enriched ('I want ten of them ones. In platinum. But plated in silver. With a mink trim. And a quail's egg pocket, covered in caviar.'). But, for the price-sensitive family man of moderate proportions, 'custom made' is probably the perfect option.
I said I wanted Sea Island! You given me Swiss cotton again, you half-wit!
Both 'custom' and 'semi-bespoke' (and 'baby bespoke', a term that the menswear shop New & Lingwood adopted a couple of years ago) are pissy euphemisms that owe much to the manipulative and deceitful shysters in the style press who insist on saying 'vintage' instead of 'used' and 'dark chocolate' instead of 'plain chocolate', and no doubt refer to their time-share flats in the Algarve as 'luxury apartments' in 'seasonal ownership'. 'Semi-bespoke' makes as much sense as being 'half-pregnant'. And I believe that, in the US, 'custom' is effectively synonymous with bespoke, which further muddies an already deliberately opaque issue.
Anyway, in the interests of research, I intend to order a shirt and let you both know how it turns out.
http://store.turnbullandasser.co.uk/Custom_Shirt
They give cocktail cuffs (which they call the '2 button turnback') as an option, unlike Mrs W's similar online sub-bespoke service. It necessitates some self-measurement - sleeve length, seat, wrist circumferences),- but gives explicit instructions in how to do so. The number of measurements ought - ought - to give a more correct fit than the basic stock special option.
Hello? Mr Asser? I'd like some more shirts.
I have tried both full bespoke and the somewhat cheaper 'stock special' options at Emma Willis. As a person of pretty standard build, I'm not entirely convinced that bespoke is worth the difference in price, and Mrs W's 'semi-bespoke' option is pretty much indistinguishable from the bespoke product.
Bespoke is the right job if one is some kind of Brobdingnagian monster, a stump-legged capering dwarf, or some hideous mis-shapen offence against God - or have the sort of exacting requirements associated with the newly-enriched ('I want ten of them ones. In platinum. But plated in silver. With a mink trim. And a quail's egg pocket, covered in caviar.'). But, for the price-sensitive family man of moderate proportions, 'custom made' is probably the perfect option.
I said I wanted Sea Island! You given me Swiss cotton again, you half-wit!
Both 'custom' and 'semi-bespoke' (and 'baby bespoke', a term that the menswear shop New & Lingwood adopted a couple of years ago) are pissy euphemisms that owe much to the manipulative and deceitful shysters in the style press who insist on saying 'vintage' instead of 'used' and 'dark chocolate' instead of 'plain chocolate', and no doubt refer to their time-share flats in the Algarve as 'luxury apartments' in 'seasonal ownership'. 'Semi-bespoke' makes as much sense as being 'half-pregnant'. And I believe that, in the US, 'custom' is effectively synonymous with bespoke, which further muddies an already deliberately opaque issue.
Anyway, in the interests of research, I intend to order a shirt and let you both know how it turns out.
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Inflation: The shirt on my back
I'm not normally attentive to consumer inflation and can never remember what a loaf of bread costs from one week to the next, let alone in comparison with a year ago. However, of late I have been forced to confront some painful economic realities. Like most commodities, a healthy bubble was forming in cotton prices, which hit an all-time high in 2008, then promptly fell off a cliff like everything else when people started asking 'But who's going to pay for all this shit?' Good news for the sartorially minded, you might think.
But no. Encouraged no doubt by the US government's ZIRP, the endless capacity for Turbo Tim and Black Hawk Ben to sweep it under their inner carpets and keep hitting 'print' like pellet-happy lab-rats, and the desperation among investors to find some kind of asset in which there is more than 0% return, cotton prices exceeded the '08 tops earlier this year and have since just kept going.
This has had a tangible and regrettable impact on the Wonderful World of Bumwad. In about 2004, Turnbull & Asser charged about £80 a pop for their off-the-shelf poplin shirts and £120 for Sea Island. This was at a time when Thomas Pink was around £65, for a distinctly inferior product, made in God-knows-what part of the Warsaw Pact.
Now, following yet another surreptitious price hike, Turnbull are asking £135 for the same shirt and £190 for Sea Island quality - and that is despite what appear to be slight alterations in manufacture (the collar band no longer has a central, lateral line of stitching) that could have been occasioned by costs.
Ditto for the lovely Mrs Willis, who has just raised her prices across the board. Not many years ago, her stock English cotton shirts were about £80; Swiss voile were about £95. When, having moved up in the world a notch or two, I ordered my first batch of bespoke shirts from her in 2007, they were £200 each. Now, her ready to wear shirts are £140; stock specials are around £190-290, and bespoke is £240 plus - and an eye-watering £350 for Sea Island.
Alexandra at the shop tells me it is not related to the recent poor cotton harvest in the US, the Asian subcontinent and Egypt. The resulting price hikes might indeed affect the margins of the lower orders of shirt-makers, but Mrs W's factory uses mostly Swiss and Italian cottons; and apparently much of the shortfall was made up by a bumper crop in Brazil. So the most recent increase was because they hadn't reviewed prices with suppliers for a couple of years, and the retail prices were becoming unsupportable. I can only speculate, but perhaps the continuing weakness of the pound sterling against the Euro plays a further part; and commercial rents in central London have of late been going up. Or perhaps Mervyn King - a man in a seemingly perpetual state of surprise about inflation - does her books.
Now I'm no opponent of austerity, and will happily surrender the absurd benefits granted under the Blair-Brown tyranny that were nothing more than painfully transparent attempts to bribe me with my own money. I'm ready to play my part, and admittedly this is scarcely a hard-luck story guaranteed to stimulate the already hyperactive lachrymal glands of the BBC News home affairs team. (Although, in his role as champion of the squeezed middle, I suppose the Rt Hon Edward Miliband might use my case to make a point at PMQs.) If I'm going to the soup kitchen, I want to look like I don't need to be there. Mrs W can relax for a little while longer: I have no intention of buying my clothes from outlet stores like Thomas Pink, Lewin or Charles Fuckwit. 'We're all in this together,' I suppose - but that should not apply to our shirts.
But I do wonder if Mrs W realises that a significant component of my loyalty to her derives from her fragrant demeanour and the prospect of a sympathetic smile on my occasional visits.
You get further with a kind word, a gun and some well-polished riding boots
than you do with just a kind word
I have no wish to drive her to penury, her children to the workhouse; but frankly, if she doesn't start putting in more time at the shop, I might have to move next door to Turnbull - where many of their floorwalkers appear rather more liberal with their attentions.
But no. Encouraged no doubt by the US government's ZIRP, the endless capacity for Turbo Tim and Black Hawk Ben to sweep it under their inner carpets and keep hitting 'print' like pellet-happy lab-rats, and the desperation among investors to find some kind of asset in which there is more than 0% return, cotton prices exceeded the '08 tops earlier this year and have since just kept going.
This has had a tangible and regrettable impact on the Wonderful World of Bumwad. In about 2004, Turnbull & Asser charged about £80 a pop for their off-the-shelf poplin shirts and £120 for Sea Island. This was at a time when Thomas Pink was around £65, for a distinctly inferior product, made in God-knows-what part of the Warsaw Pact.
Now, following yet another surreptitious price hike, Turnbull are asking £135 for the same shirt and £190 for Sea Island quality - and that is despite what appear to be slight alterations in manufacture (the collar band no longer has a central, lateral line of stitching) that could have been occasioned by costs.
Ditto for the lovely Mrs Willis, who has just raised her prices across the board. Not many years ago, her stock English cotton shirts were about £80; Swiss voile were about £95. When, having moved up in the world a notch or two, I ordered my first batch of bespoke shirts from her in 2007, they were £200 each. Now, her ready to wear shirts are £140; stock specials are around £190-290, and bespoke is £240 plus - and an eye-watering £350 for Sea Island.
Alexandra at the shop tells me it is not related to the recent poor cotton harvest in the US, the Asian subcontinent and Egypt. The resulting price hikes might indeed affect the margins of the lower orders of shirt-makers, but Mrs W's factory uses mostly Swiss and Italian cottons; and apparently much of the shortfall was made up by a bumper crop in Brazil. So the most recent increase was because they hadn't reviewed prices with suppliers for a couple of years, and the retail prices were becoming unsupportable. I can only speculate, but perhaps the continuing weakness of the pound sterling against the Euro plays a further part; and commercial rents in central London have of late been going up. Or perhaps Mervyn King - a man in a seemingly perpetual state of surprise about inflation - does her books.
Now I'm no opponent of austerity, and will happily surrender the absurd benefits granted under the Blair-Brown tyranny that were nothing more than painfully transparent attempts to bribe me with my own money. I'm ready to play my part, and admittedly this is scarcely a hard-luck story guaranteed to stimulate the already hyperactive lachrymal glands of the BBC News home affairs team. (Although, in his role as champion of the squeezed middle, I suppose the Rt Hon Edward Miliband might use my case to make a point at PMQs.) If I'm going to the soup kitchen, I want to look like I don't need to be there. Mrs W can relax for a little while longer: I have no intention of buying my clothes from outlet stores like Thomas Pink, Lewin or Charles Fuckwit. 'We're all in this together,' I suppose - but that should not apply to our shirts.
But I do wonder if Mrs W realises that a significant component of my loyalty to her derives from her fragrant demeanour and the prospect of a sympathetic smile on my occasional visits.
You get further with a kind word, a gun and some well-polished riding boots
than you do with just a kind word
I have no wish to drive her to penury, her children to the workhouse; but frankly, if she doesn't start putting in more time at the shop, I might have to move next door to Turnbull - where many of their floorwalkers appear rather more liberal with their attentions.
Friday, 24 September 2010
Symmetry - First baste
The following post forms the basis of what to me constitutes a coherent order of dress. It is a 'living document', and I will add to it in due course. It deals first with my thoughts on formal clothes - 'business' or 'lounge' suits and evening dress. I have avoided any forays into the more complex questions of cloth, cut, fit or details: I am content here to outline the shape of my thoughts but leave them at first baste.
As the second post illustrated, I favour very conservative styles. These days, it is not difficult to find even in high street ‘fashion’ retailers suits that are very much more adventurous than the standard two-piece offerings on the high street of my youth. However, as someone once pointed out, fashion is that which goes out of fashion, whereas style, although it contains its own internal cycles, is more enduring. Dressing conservatively need not be synonymous with dressing boringly; it is all a question of detail.
"This post lacks theology and geometry."
Without wanting to sound like Ignatius J Reilly, there has to be some kind of symmetry, coherence and logic. To that end, my thoughts run thusly:
General principles
- There should be a coherence between the degree of formality in the constituent garments of your outfit
- Avoid excessive mixing of textures and materials. The shine of calf leather shoes look strange with the softer pile of corduroy and moleskin. Suede looks unusual worn with harder, shinier cloths
- Be discreet: let the quality of the clothes speak for themselves
- Avoid overt gimmicks
Picking up that last point, I really dislike the crassness of showing off 'bespoke' features - leaving functional cuff buttons open, having a contrast lining or button-holes, or turning up their collar to show a contrast felt. For a start, all of these features are now pretty standard on ready-to-wear, and is no intrinsic indication of craftsmanship: you can probably find such features on garments at George at Asda. Multi-coloured embellishments will look bloody stupid in five years' time when everyone's forgotten that purplewas very fashion-forward in A/W2009. More importantly, why broadcast the fact that you're wearing bespoke? Who are you trying to impress? And why? Those who care about such things can tell and don't need it shouted at them; those who can't tell probably don't care.
"Shit. That must have been a long lunch."
Suits
I like single-breasted suits, and have a mix of two- and three-piece, mostly in plain or discretely patterned dark blue or dark grey. The only 'rules' I observe are:
- My coats have two or three button fastenings
- Four cuff buttons is the standard. The two closest to the cuff are functional, but should not be opened. Three looks a bit Hepworths; two looks provincial charity shop; one is OK on hacking jackets
- Two in-breast pockets (wallet and notebook)
- Single welted out-breast pocket
- Skirt and ticket pockets should be flapped and jetted
- Black or otherwise plain lining: contrast linings are immature
- I have turn-back cuffs on my two-piece suits; these look better with lighter-weight plain cloths
- Waistcoats should be single-breasted, and have six buttons; for reasons of comfort when seated, the bottom button remains unfastened. My waistcoats have lapels: those without lapels look strangely unfinished...
- The trousers have four forward pleats on the trousers
- The depth of turn-ups should be proportionate to the length of your leg; and if you are a stump-legged capering dwarf, I'd avoid them altogether
- Button fly (zip flies create the 'pants tent' when seated)
- Fishtail back if cut for braces; buttoned side adjusters ('Daks tops') if not
- No belt loops (if the trousers are made properly, they don't need them)
A rule of odds and evens
The number of buttons, vents and 'pieces' are proportionate: odd numbers work with other odds (ones and threes); evens with evens
Single-breasted coats can be three-, two- or single-button fastening
A two button fastening really limits you to a two-piece. The two-button suit originated as a less formal alternative to the three-button suit. As a result, it looks odd with a waistcoat.
Three piece, three buttons - and a peak to the rear would reveal a single centre vent
If you must wear one, a double-breasted coat should be in the classic button two-show four arrangement. Anything else is a pointless deviation. (The boating jackets of some Foot Guards regiments are excepted, as they obey laws determined by military tradition rather than any internal logic or coherence.)
A centre vent is appropriate on a three-button coat; side vents on a two-button or double-breasted suit coat; I favour a single vent on my odd jackets. A single fastening button looks a bit too wilfully ‘different’, and, especially with a peaked lapel, is strongly redolent of the sort of silvery, rayon-rich sub-morning coat offering seen for hire on the premises of Moss Bros and the Savoy Tailors Guild. If you're going to wear one, at least make it as unobtrusive as possible. Or get it made by Huntsman, where it's part of the house style.
Cloth
This is a bewildering subject. I will confine myself to a couple of very basic points:(As an aside, Thomas Mahon’s English Cut blog has an excellent guide to spotting true bespoke at a glance. In fact, Mr Mahon – once head cutter at Anderson and Sheppard - is an altogether more knowledgeable guide to bespoke tailoring and in effect renders much of this blog superfluous.)
As the second post illustrated, I favour very conservative styles. These days, it is not difficult to find even in high street ‘fashion’ retailers suits that are very much more adventurous than the standard two-piece offerings on the high street of my youth. However, as someone once pointed out, fashion is that which goes out of fashion, whereas style, although it contains its own internal cycles, is more enduring. Dressing conservatively need not be synonymous with dressing boringly; it is all a question of detail.
"This post lacks theology and geometry."
Without wanting to sound like Ignatius J Reilly, there has to be some kind of symmetry, coherence and logic. To that end, my thoughts run thusly:
General principles
- There should be a coherence between the degree of formality in the constituent garments of your outfit
- Avoid excessive mixing of textures and materials. The shine of calf leather shoes look strange with the softer pile of corduroy and moleskin. Suede looks unusual worn with harder, shinier cloths
- Be discreet: let the quality of the clothes speak for themselves
- Avoid overt gimmicks
Picking up that last point, I really dislike the crassness of showing off 'bespoke' features - leaving functional cuff buttons open, having a contrast lining or button-holes, or turning up their collar to show a contrast felt. For a start, all of these features are now pretty standard on ready-to-wear, and is no intrinsic indication of craftsmanship: you can probably find such features on garments at George at Asda. Multi-coloured embellishments will look bloody stupid in five years' time when everyone's forgotten that purplewas very fashion-forward in A/W2009. More importantly, why broadcast the fact that you're wearing bespoke? Who are you trying to impress? And why? Those who care about such things can tell and don't need it shouted at them; those who can't tell probably don't care.
"Shit. That must have been a long lunch."
Suits
I like single-breasted suits, and have a mix of two- and three-piece, mostly in plain or discretely patterned dark blue or dark grey. The only 'rules' I observe are:
- My coats have two or three button fastenings
- Four cuff buttons is the standard. The two closest to the cuff are functional, but should not be opened. Three looks a bit Hepworths; two looks provincial charity shop; one is OK on hacking jackets
- Two in-breast pockets (wallet and notebook)
- Single welted out-breast pocket
- Skirt and ticket pockets should be flapped and jetted
- Black or otherwise plain lining: contrast linings are immature
- I have turn-back cuffs on my two-piece suits; these look better with lighter-weight plain cloths
- Waistcoats should be single-breasted, and have six buttons; for reasons of comfort when seated, the bottom button remains unfastened. My waistcoats have lapels: those without lapels look strangely unfinished...
- The trousers have four forward pleats on the trousers
- The depth of turn-ups should be proportionate to the length of your leg; and if you are a stump-legged capering dwarf, I'd avoid them altogether
- Button fly (zip flies create the 'pants tent' when seated)
- Fishtail back if cut for braces; buttoned side adjusters ('Daks tops') if not
- No belt loops (if the trousers are made properly, they don't need them)
A rule of odds and evens
The number of buttons, vents and 'pieces' are proportionate: odd numbers work with other odds (ones and threes); evens with evens
Single-breasted coats can be three-, two- or single-button fastening
A two button fastening really limits you to a two-piece. The two-button suit originated as a less formal alternative to the three-button suit. As a result, it looks odd with a waistcoat.
Three piece, three buttons - and a peak to the rear would reveal a single centre vent
If you must wear one, a double-breasted coat should be in the classic button two-show four arrangement. Anything else is a pointless deviation. (The boating jackets of some Foot Guards regiments are excepted, as they obey laws determined by military tradition rather than any internal logic or coherence.)
A centre vent is appropriate on a three-button coat; side vents on a two-button or double-breasted suit coat; I favour a single vent on my odd jackets. A single fastening button looks a bit too wilfully ‘different’, and, especially with a peaked lapel, is strongly redolent of the sort of silvery, rayon-rich sub-morning coat offering seen for hire on the premises of Moss Bros and the Savoy Tailors Guild. If you're going to wear one, at least make it as unobtrusive as possible. Or get it made by Huntsman, where it's part of the house style.
Cloth
This is a bewildering subject. I will confine myself to a couple of very basic points:(As an aside, Thomas Mahon’s English Cut blog has an excellent guide to spotting true bespoke at a glance. In fact, Mr Mahon – once head cutter at Anderson and Sheppard - is an altogether more knowledgeable guide to bespoke tailoring and in effect renders much of this blog superfluous.)
- Don't buy cheap cloth: it'll go shiny, bag at the knee and elbow and round the arse and won't survive contact with your dry cleaner
- Always consider what you're likely to be doing in your suit and pick a weight accordingly.
- Beware expensive 'luxury' cloths like cashmere blends or anything silk-heavy: you'll put the arse out of them in no time.
Colour
For 'lounge' suits, there are really only two colours: dark blues and simple greys. Patterns are OK, but I'm not a big fan. My favourite suit is a lightweight light grey Glen Urquhart (Prince of Wales) check - frankly that's as racy as I would ever entertain. Blues can be a bit of a minefield, and in general the darker the better. Pete Campbell in Mad men and Nick Clegg in government illustrate the pitfalls. Perhaps it's a pushy WASP thing.
The Deputy Prime MInister
There's nothing wrong with the overt colourfulness of, say, Ozwald Boateng's suits - nothing wrong, that is, if you're starring in a rock opera or are part of the look-at-me-piglet world of media, fashion and the other 'creative' 'industries'. He's a craftsman and in his bespoke work I'm sure almost as good as the likes of Huntsman. It's just you'll look like a twat if you wear them to the office, in the street, to meet your banker, in front of friends, or before your God.
My bank manager couldn't wear that.
- Always consider what you're likely to be doing in your suit and pick a weight accordingly.
- Beware expensive 'luxury' cloths like cashmere blends or anything silk-heavy: you'll put the arse out of them in no time.
Colour
For 'lounge' suits, there are really only two colours: dark blues and simple greys. Patterns are OK, but I'm not a big fan. My favourite suit is a lightweight light grey Glen Urquhart (Prince of Wales) check - frankly that's as racy as I would ever entertain. Blues can be a bit of a minefield, and in general the darker the better. Pete Campbell in Mad men and Nick Clegg in government illustrate the pitfalls. Perhaps it's a pushy WASP thing.
The Deputy Prime MInister
There's nothing wrong with the overt colourfulness of, say, Ozwald Boateng's suits - nothing wrong, that is, if you're starring in a rock opera or are part of the look-at-me-piglet world of media, fashion and the other 'creative' 'industries'. He's a craftsman and in his bespoke work I'm sure almost as good as the likes of Huntsman. It's just you'll look like a twat if you wear them to the office, in the street, to meet your banker, in front of friends, or before your God.
My bank manager couldn't wear that.
Blazers
A short word about blazers: 'No.'
A longer word about blazers: Suitable attire for watching company rugby at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, but otherwise best avoided. Increasingly the term is used interchangeably with a 'sports jacket' (or to Etonians 'half-change'); that is, a single-breasted coat. In which case, fair enough: but stick to sensible colours and patterns.
Half-change.
Evening dress
A short word about blazers: 'No.'
A longer word about blazers: Suitable attire for watching company rugby at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, but otherwise best avoided. Increasingly the term is used interchangeably with a 'sports jacket' (or to Etonians 'half-change'); that is, a single-breasted coat. In which case, fair enough: but stick to sensible colours and patterns.
Half-change.
Evening dress
The above guidance applies for evening dress. It is a shame that the collapse in public manners has rendered white tie to all practical effect extinct; and to acquire it is cripplingly expensive. It is now worn only by royalty, diplomats, magicians, cinematic vampires, pretentious undergraduate debates convenors, toast-masters at provincial municipal events and corpulent tenors. (And if The Twilight saga is an accurate portrayal of their life, it is clear that standards among vampires have deteriorated substantially in recent years, further winnowing the ranks of professional white tie wearers.) In the unlikely event that you are required to wear i, the appropriate guidance is available from the royal household. I'm sure the Magic Circle can furnish similar advice if you are admitted to membership. I will not expound at any length.
"Laydeez and gennelmen, please charge your glasses and be upstanding..."
I have, however, always wanted an opera cloak, lined in midnight blue.
Dinner jackets should be of a black cloth, such as barathea. If single-breasted, they should have a single button fastening coat with peaked lapels - or possibly a shawl (rounded) collar. Double-breasted coats will typically have a button-one, show-three arrangement, that is two buttons fewer than on a business suit. It is usual for dinner jackets to omit flaps on the skirt pockets. Thomas Mahon suggests omitting pockets entirely, to ensure a cleaner look. In the contemporary era, when so few people smoke and have no need to carry the necessary accoutrements on their person, this is practical advice. And you really shouldn't need to answer your iPhone at such a time.
Avoid notched lapels. Such garments have a mass-produced look, and they almost invariably prove to be so: the notched lapel is almost certainly the result of the manufacturer’s use of his standard suit pattern in an effort to cut production costs. For evening dress shirts, pique (waffle) or pleated bib fronts are standard; a heavy-weight silk shirt is a distinctive but low-key alternative. It would be highly eccentric to wear a dress shirt that did not require cuff-links. This conforms to the relationship noted above between double cuffs and the peaked lapel.
A stiff shirt with detachable wing collar is perfectly acceptable, but should be worn with a waistcoat. The cuffs of these shirts require cuff-links but are typically not full French cuffs i.e. they do not have a turn-back.
A fused wing collar with a dinner jacket is very King's College June Event 1992. As, it must be said, are cummerbunds - at least if worn in a temperate climate.
Bow ties should be black silk or, possibly, satin. Try to avoid anything too narrow - the sort of thing the lead singer of Modern Romance might have worn to the 1981 WEA Christmas party - too fat - think Lennie Bennett in The comedians - or too velvet - a bit 'extra in an early Scorsese film'. It need hardly be said that they should not be pre-tied.
A golden age - of racist comedy if not of evening dress
Velvet is appropriate when at home. As there has already been a substantial and regrettable relaxation of the rules of evening dress to permit lazy and impudent young men to wear dinner jackets where white tie was once the rule, we must draw the line at wearing smoking jackets in public. They are an admirable item of clothing, but are not suitable public attire for a serious-minded gentleman. (See 'The public and the private'.) Dressing gowns are fine if you're Hugh Hefner, but even he wears them only at home.
So-called 'Hollywood black tie' - perhaps more accurately termed 'Hollyoaks black tie' - performs a useful social function in as much as it is an excellent indicator of the impressionable and easily led, but the habit should be eschewed unless you wish to resemble a runner-up in the Northern Ireland regional finals of Grazia's 'Eligible bachelor of the year', or are attending a regional Round Table dinner in aid of Esther Rantzen's Hearts of Gold. I am perfectly prepared to accept that some young men might think such an effect is desirable, but they are not serious individuals, and it is fortunate that they announce their presence so clearly so that evasive action may be taken.
Grazia: North Antrim's Eligible bachelor of the year 2004 (nominated)
"Laydeez and gennelmen, please charge your glasses and be upstanding..."
I have, however, always wanted an opera cloak, lined in midnight blue.
Dinner jackets should be of a black cloth, such as barathea. If single-breasted, they should have a single button fastening coat with peaked lapels - or possibly a shawl (rounded) collar. Double-breasted coats will typically have a button-one, show-three arrangement, that is two buttons fewer than on a business suit. It is usual for dinner jackets to omit flaps on the skirt pockets. Thomas Mahon suggests omitting pockets entirely, to ensure a cleaner look. In the contemporary era, when so few people smoke and have no need to carry the necessary accoutrements on their person, this is practical advice. And you really shouldn't need to answer your iPhone at such a time.
Avoid notched lapels. Such garments have a mass-produced look, and they almost invariably prove to be so: the notched lapel is almost certainly the result of the manufacturer’s use of his standard suit pattern in an effort to cut production costs. For evening dress shirts, pique (waffle) or pleated bib fronts are standard; a heavy-weight silk shirt is a distinctive but low-key alternative. It would be highly eccentric to wear a dress shirt that did not require cuff-links. This conforms to the relationship noted above between double cuffs and the peaked lapel.
A stiff shirt with detachable wing collar is perfectly acceptable, but should be worn with a waistcoat. The cuffs of these shirts require cuff-links but are typically not full French cuffs i.e. they do not have a turn-back.
A fused wing collar with a dinner jacket is very King's College June Event 1992. As, it must be said, are cummerbunds - at least if worn in a temperate climate.
Bow ties should be black silk or, possibly, satin. Try to avoid anything too narrow - the sort of thing the lead singer of Modern Romance might have worn to the 1981 WEA Christmas party - too fat - think Lennie Bennett in The comedians - or too velvet - a bit 'extra in an early Scorsese film'. It need hardly be said that they should not be pre-tied.
A golden age - of racist comedy if not of evening dress
Velvet is appropriate when at home. As there has already been a substantial and regrettable relaxation of the rules of evening dress to permit lazy and impudent young men to wear dinner jackets where white tie was once the rule, we must draw the line at wearing smoking jackets in public. They are an admirable item of clothing, but are not suitable public attire for a serious-minded gentleman. (See 'The public and the private'.) Dressing gowns are fine if you're Hugh Hefner, but even he wears them only at home.
So-called 'Hollywood black tie' - perhaps more accurately termed 'Hollyoaks black tie' - performs a useful social function in as much as it is an excellent indicator of the impressionable and easily led, but the habit should be eschewed unless you wish to resemble a runner-up in the Northern Ireland regional finals of Grazia's 'Eligible bachelor of the year', or are attending a regional Round Table dinner in aid of Esther Rantzen's Hearts of Gold. I am perfectly prepared to accept that some young men might think such an effect is desirable, but they are not serious individuals, and it is fortunate that they announce their presence so clearly so that evasive action may be taken.
Grazia: North Antrim's Eligible bachelor of the year 2004 (nominated)
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