Dressing well becomes a matter of habit, over the years. You get used to wearing long socks, or high trousers, or being draped in slightly heavier cloth.
But these habits have to be instilled.
One I find most powerful to instil, through conscious repetition, is wearing a jacket - inside ideally, but at least outside.
A jacket has the capacity to sculpt and flatter you, to create an idealised silhouette (whatever that ideal might be) by shaping the shoulder and slimming the waist.
It will always look better than just a shirt, which comfort requires to be a little loose; and whose lack of structure means it will always be rumpled, never sharp or clean.
Wearing a jacket just makes you look better. Yet how many fail to put one on when popping out to get lunch?
It is laziness or forgetfulness: unthinking actions that can really only be fixed by establishment of habit.
Even if it’s freezing outside, you will often see people scampering out of their offices and across the road in just a shirt.
It might be raining, but they’ll gladly get wet rather than put on a jacket and take an umbrella.
What hope, then, of suggesting someone should wear a jacket inside? Perhaps not when sitting at the desk for hours on end, but when walking around the office, or going to a meeting.
People buy better, smarter clothes when they want to give the impression of seriousness and often seniority.
There’s no more powerful way to do that than to wear a jacket, and no point in owning one if it’s never put on.
A jacket doesn’t need to mean formality, either. Wear a Boglioli cotton jacket with jeans and an open-necked shirt - it’s still better than just a shirt.
Better still, of course, is to wear a tailored (even bespoke) jacket in a cotton, cotton/linen/silk mix, or perhaps cashmere. Over denim, chinos, or flannels. With a good-looking shoe.
All will raise you up - make you look put together.
As in the opposite of random.
Force yourself to always wear a jacket when going outside. Have it hanging conveniently nearby, if not worn already. Make that tiny effort to put it on, even if you’re late.
Patrick Johnson sent me this response yesterday, in reaction to the review last week and comments that followed.
I make no comment on it, and I don't think it's worth going into the questions or issues all over again.
But I do think it's worth having this statement, as readers noted last week.
"As a business, we have never knowingly mislead anyone. We have, since the very beginning, worked with a range of different partners around the world and have been very open about this across both our P Johnson and Suit Shop brands.
As the business grew, we decided to move P Johnson to produce wholly made-in-Italy tailoring, with the Suit Shop brand to be made in China. So for us what we see in this made-to-measure suiting market as the best of Italy and the best of China. We focused on working with a number of workshops in Italy (including our current Carrara workshop which was then called Sartoria Toscana).
In time we made the decision that we needed to ensure greater control of this Italian supply chain. At this point we entered into a joint venture, Sartoria Carrara, where our P Johnson tailored garments continue to be made today.
We do still offer a P Johnson Roma line through one of our legacy workshops based in Lazio but by far the large majority of P Johnson tailoring is still made in Sartoria Carrara. This legacy workshop is still a great value product but not as artisanal in its make as the Carrara garments and we always make it clear to clients which workshop their garment is being made in.
In response to some of the other points raised in the comments regarding the size and capacity of Sartoria Carrara: Sartoria Carrara is not a small workshop, actually after D’Avenza (now Cucinelli) we are the second largest maker in our local area, something we are proud of in a time when our industry in shrinking locally. At Sartoria Carrara, we have a team of over 60 full time staff. The workshop is artisanal, but it’s not small, being over 10,000 square metres in size.
In regard to the comments on hand work, we employ handwork where we feel it makes the biggest difference. We do cut everything by hand and most of our stitch work is done by hand. However, we do not attach the chest canvas by hand, as we feel for this type of made-to-measure product it is not essential.
We are able to produce a garment fully hand made in our workshop, and we do this for some clients, but our goal is to produce a beautiful garment made by artisans, that has a significant amount of handwork, but at the best possible value at the price point we sell at. We are not trying and have never claimed to be bespoke or fully handmade across our business.
Suit Shop suits are machine made with some hand elements. Here the goal is to make the best of what we feel China can offer, the best factory-made suit with hand finishing. We use all Italian ingredients, cloth, canvass, lining buttons etc. in Suit Shop but construction is in China. This information is all available on our web in the FAQ section and in our Craft section.
In regards to turn around times, P Johnson suits take around 6 weeks (but closer to 10 weeks over the August break) and Suit Shop garments take around 5 weeks with a week's delay over the Chinese new year period.
Suit Shop & P Johnson tailored garments are not made in the same workshop. We will happily produce for our clients a Suit Shop garment made in China, through our P Johnson showrooms, if that is their desire and vice versa. However, we are always transparent about this.
We do make shirts for P Johnson in both China and Poland, we make knitwear in China, casual wear (what we call leisurewear - drawstring trousers and shirt jackets) in China and ties and accessories in Italy.
In regards to house style/fit, we can accommodate the client’s design preferences e.g. length of jacket, lapel size (we offer 14 standard lapel shapes but can make any desired style or size for a surcharge) etc. We don’t do 1 block, but rather can accommodate both softer or more constructed garments. If we had a house style, it would be a deconstructed/soft garment as we feel it works well for a large number of our clients and stylistically we are attracted to it, particularly for our Australian climate.
Regarding training, we train our teams in all the technical aspects of fitting and construction thoroughly using the classical system taught by our head tailor based in London (ex Savile Row Academy-trained) and in the past have only used the term 'tailor' to indicate their skills in fitting a suit and their intimate understanding of how it works. We prefer the term 'fitter' and promulgate it's use now throughout the business.
I am and very proud of the product and service we offer."
As mentioned on my ‘What I pack’ post, I’ve been travelling a lot in high heat recently.
There was Pitti in Florence, where the temperature topped out at 37 degrees. Naples in July was very similar. And Puglia at the end of that month was hotter, if anything.
So what do you wear in such heat, if you want to remain elegant?
Here are my recommendations, based on trial and (sometimes painful) error. They are of course subjective, but I’m sure readers will find them useful.
1 Keep the ankles bare
There’s a reason splashing cold water on your wrists makes you feel cooler. Veins run close to the surface here, and it is an effective way to cool the blood as a result.
Ankles are similar. Keep them uncovered, to breathe and benefit from the occasional breeze, and it makes a disproportionate difference to how cool you feel.
Most of the time, therefore, I wore loafers or Sagans with only ‘hidden’ socks inside the shoes.
The only limitation to this is formality.
I wouldn’t go sockless with a formal worsted suit, and if one was required I’d wear calf-length socks (albeit a very fine cotton, or linen).
2 Avoid a tie
This one might be controversial, but I rarely wore a tie.
The two times I did - once in Florence, once in Naples - it was in order to wear a particular suit (and I pretty much never wear a suit without a tie). But I regretted it.
A closed shirt around the neck, further covered by a band of silk, proved to be the biggest heat-inducer after socks.
The neck gains almost as much from exposure as the ankles, and an open shirt allows some circulation of air down the chest.
Again, the only restriction was formality.
3 Don’t stress about materials
During those trips I wore cotton shirts, linen shirts and cotton/linen shirts in a variety of weaves and weights. I didn’t notice much difference between them.
It's still worth avoiding the heaviest cotton twills, and brushed cottons obviously, but don’t worry too much about having just linen shirts, for example.
This is almost as true of suitings. I wore linen, cotton and lightweight worsteds, and didn’t notice much difference.
All the worsteds were 9oz or so, and although I do particularly like the comfort of cotton in the heat, the differences between materials were small compared to points 1 and 2 above.
4 Carry a hat
Hats are a pain.
Unless you have a rolling model (which I don’t generally like the style of), a panama has to be carried onto the plane, and ideally kept in the lap rather than putting elsewhere, where it could get knocked and bent.
It’s also a pain to put down, in a restaurant for example, and then remember to pick up later.
But covering the head does make you cooler if you’re in the direct sun. It’s the same reason traditional Middle Eastern outfits all involve long, body-covering robes. Exposure heats the skin.
Also, hats look great. If you think you don’t have a head that suits a hat, you’re wrong. Everyone used to wear a hat, and they all looked great.
5 Shorts and untucked shirts for off days
Most of the time on these trips I wanted to remain smart and sartorial; because I considered the appointments important, and because I was meeting craftsmen - tailors, shirtmakers and so on.
I was on duty, in other words.
When I was travelling or relaxing I occasionally wore shorts - still a well-made, precisely tailored short (from Bardelli, Milan) - which was cooler still.
And untucked shirts. Only casual styles, such as polos or camp-collar shirts, and only ones with a length designed to be untucked. But that again was a touch cooler.
The example pictured here is the Fedeli polo offered by Drake’s this summer (pictured, in blue), which is cut away nicely at the hips to suit being worn untucked.
I find a piece like this is separated from very casual clothing (such as a T-shirt) by virtue of having a collar, by being long-sleeved (even if the sleeves are pushed back) and by its cut - in that order.
Number 5, however, should be considered something of a side point.
The rest are what would now constitute a summer uniform, and are what I would pack by default for similar high heat: Jackets, open-necked shirts, trousers, sockless loafers and a hat.
And the good news is that even though I may have to do away with some much-loved items of dress - such as a tie - I know I will be perfectly comfortable walking around and working all day in 38 or 40 degrees.
Rather a contrast this to Wednesday's post on dressing for hot weather.
But it's good to look ahead to Autumn (God I'm looking forward to it - the coats, the knitwear, the hats!). And it's nice to be able to write about something that's actually in the shops, rather than sold out everywhere.
The big, chunky cardigan is from Ralph Lauren Purple Label - still my biggest weakness when it comes to designer brands, and the one that has appealed to me consistently over my adult life.
In fact, I would say RL is the only brand that achieves the core thing we want from menswear, season after season: new temptations, but always within the same ethos. And with an awareness of menswear traditions at their core.
I've wanted a cardigan like this - loose and long, with a belt - for quite a while.
The belt means I have the ability to wear it undone and slouchy (as above), or done up and fitted (top).
I also love shawl collars on knitwear because it is the one design that can be worn perfectly with both a T-shirt and a collared shirt.
This is hand knitted, in 90% cashmere and 10% wool (the wool giving it a little more body and stability) and, as I now expect from all Ralph Lauren shawl pieces, buttons all the way up to the neck. (Yet one more way to wear it.)
In some ways more interesting than the knitwear, however, is the denim, as it is the first piece from Anglo-Italian to be reviewed here on Permanent Style.
Jake and Alex have had their denim made in Japan, and focused on one style in three washes. More washes are to come.
I haven't had washed denim in years, mostly wearing Albam and then Levi's-bespoke raw denim, which of course starts off very dark and then lightens over time, reaching a mid-blue that varies in cast depending on the indigo.
I deliberately chose the shade from Anglo-Italian pictured because it is just too light for my raw denim to ever really fade to.
The other two colours, shown below, are much more of a traditional mid-blue (right) and a very pale summery blue (left).
I do like the colour I chose - it looks great with navy above the waist, and is for me a rather nostalgic shade: one I wore a lot when I was a teenager (although from Gap - not at the same level).
I won't go into the quality of the denim or make, firstly because it's not a specialist area for me, and secondly because there just isn't that much to quality in the make of jeans. Certainly compared to tailoring or shoes.
Denim's quality shows in how it wears and lasts over time. And that's something I can't begin to comment on yet.
The cut of Anglo-Italian jeans is mildly carrot-shaped, fitting fairly close in the thigh and then tapering noticeably towards the bottom.
They have a mid-rise and are made to end well above the shoe, with a small turn-up.
I would have thought the leg shape wouldn't work on me, given I have relatively big thighs and a big seat. But actually the thighs have given just enough after three or four wears, and now fit perfectly.
They were made to order, as most Anglo-Italian product is, in a 34-inch model with about an inch and a half taken out of the waist. So the legs and seat of a 34, waist of 32.5.
Interestingly, Jake and Alex designed the jeans to go with their jackets, yet the cut is different to most others produced by brands with tailoring in mind (such as the Armoury or Drake's) which are usually high-waisted and cut straight in the leg, in a style more similar to formal trousers.
I have to say I really like the jeans, and they're something I'm really looking forward to wearing again as the weather cools. But denim is more subject to fashion than most other things we cover, and it may well be these appeal so much because they are simply different to all the raw, dark denim that's been everywhere for the past 5 years.
There is no such thing as masculine perfume, or feminine perfume.
Men used to wear rose scents; women wore cologne. The idea that fragrance can be divided into male and female is purely a product of 50 years of marketing.
This was brought home during a curator’s tour of the new Perfume exhibition at Somerset House in London - which myself and a handful of beauty writers were invited on recently.
The exhibition aims to tell the story of 21st century perfume (so far), using 10 scents released in that period that demonstrate different ways the industry is heading.
The twist is don’t know what any of the scents are. Each has a room to itself, with some visual cues as to its inspiration and an interview with the perfumer playing on loudspeaker.
But there is no text, no packaging, no marketing. Only at the halfway and end points of the exhibition are you told what the scents are, and why they are significant.
So there is Comme des Garcons 2, which was the first to change perceptions of what perfume could be: it didn’t have to be pretty, or aspirational; it could be dirty, even (for some) unpleasant.
There was Molecule 01, the first perfume to consist of one single (artificial) ingredient. El Cosmico by DS & Durga, one of the first scents by a self-taught perfumer.
And Dark Ride, the most modern of the lot: a fragrance that smells of a theme park, all chlorine, sunscreen and fog machines. This is part of a trend that has seen perfume reference more urban and (certainly to a younger audience) more familiar smells - asphalt, for example.
It was fascinating for me, because although I love my perfume, I’ve never been very aware of women’s scents. Which most of these are, to most people. (Though arguably they shouldn’t be.)
After the tour we had a small session mixing our own perfumes, run by the Experimental Perfume Club, and it was interesting trying to correct ourselves every time we described a scent as being ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.
Labels are powerful things, and it can be hard to pull yourself away from them, using more descriptive terms instead.
(Though of course all perfume language is necessarily limited - as I discussed here on PS with Frederic Malle a while ago. We know what it is for a scent to be flat, or large, or dry, but only after it has been explained; when we have a signified for our signifier.)
The first room also has a tour of 20th century perfume, with one scent per decade, which is equally fascinating. ‘Chypre’ may have been the first scent we would consider masculine, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that something (Eau Sauvage) was actively marketed as a male scent.
The exhibition is on until September 23rd. If you are at all interested in perfume, I highly recommend it.
Barbarulo in its modern incarnation is closely associated with menswear. It is best known for cufflinks, and its Italian site is actually called Gemellidapolso.it - the Italian for cufflinks.
In that guise it has made links for many famous people, most recently Michael Caine in the film Youth, Geoffrey Rush in The Best Offer and to accompany the Attolini tailoring in The Great Beauty.
But historically, Barbarulo men have taken the company in different directions:
It was founded by Rafaele Barbarulo in 1894, who was a goldsmith and sold his own work
His son, Amadeo, was a trader in precious stones
His son, another Rafaele, moved the shop to Capri and sold vintage jewellery
And the current owner, Cristiano (pictured top), moved back to Naples in 2012 to concentrate on manufacturing again.
In recent years, Cristiano has also been trying to move production back into the shop itself, which was what got us interested in the first place.
Today about half of the production is outside Naples and half in the shop.
In the shop the precious metals are cut down, polished, and have the stones inlaid. Enamel work and stone cutting are done outside.
Interestingly, very few men wear cufflinks in Naples. More do in the north of Italy, although even then it’s fewer than England.
But cufflinks are considered a very particular gift – something precious that it’s possible to give a man, and probably only rarely worn.
Cristiano would like to encourage people to wear them every day, and it is this reason he gives for having designs or stones on only one side of the cuff – as they are easier to put on that way.
I would always prefer something on both sides, and as with the simple links I designed, they can still be easy to take on and off. But it is not what most people are used to.
I rather liked the lapel chains that Cristiano started offering last year (above) – which clients can customise, picking the lapel stone, the chain, and the pendant.
There are gold buttons, cabochon stones and silver figures; attached to gold, silver or stone-bead chains; and with sections of coral or similar decorations on the other end.
A lapel chain is not the subtlest of jewellery, and I certainly wouldn’t endorse wearing one regularly. But on a special occasion it can be nice; I have a pink-gold version from The Armoury that I occasionally wear.
Elsewhere, Cristiano has plenty of ‘fun’ cufflinks, as is always going to be popular with a certain customer. There are propellers, winches and aphorisms.
But the majority are quite simple and refined – amber or lapis lazuli, onyx or mother-of-pearl, all inlaid in silver or gold.
“The real Neapolitan style in jewellery is for small, subtle pieces,” says Cristiano. “Nothing showy, not really. This is what we have always done and what we try to produce today.”
The design Barbarulo is best known for is the coral design pictured below, mounted on gold with a single diamond.
Cristiano keeps a selection of his father’s antique pieces on display in the shop, for inspiration (example above).
There is also the certificate of marriage for his great-grandfather, the founder. And on four walls of the front room are four shots of different shops in the past – in 1920, 1940, 1950 and 1980 incarnations.
Cristiano’s personal collection includes a lot of vintage buttons (below), which he collects on trips around Italy and elsewhere, to consider turning into cufflink designs.
The Gemellidapolso.it website doesn’t sell internationally, but a new site, Barbarulo1894.com, will launch later this year and offer a small number of pieces.
Meanwhile, if you’re ever in Naples then the store is worth a visit – in a little sunken arcade just off Piazza Amedeo. You can see the antiques, the full range, and some work being done on location.
Prices:
Cufflinks from €120 in silver, €650 in 9k gold. With precious stone and 18k gold, around €1400 and up
Lapel chains anywhere from €90 for silver, €140 for gold. More with coral or precious stones
Gigi doesn’t normally talk much. The master cutter at Neapolitan tailors Dalcuore, he normally stands back, silently, as Damiano and Cristina do the talking.
This is both his character and a result of speaking little English.
It was nice to have a translator on hand, therefore, when we visited in Naples, and a good 20 minutes of picking Gigi’s brain.
Dalcuore have grown hugely in recent years. They travel for bespoke appointments around most of the world (although not always as regularly as other tailors - in London, for example) and both ready-to-wear and made-to-measure have grown even faster.
“We now make around 800-1000 bespoke suits every year, where it was 600-700 a few years ago,” says Gigi. “RTW and MTM, on the other hand, have grown from 200-300 to perhaps 700 today.”
“We’re very keen to not accept more work than we can deliver at the right quality, though,” he adds. “The biggest issue there is people - investing in trainees for the long term.”
Dalcuore’s atelier used to be on Piazza Vittoria until a few years ago. It’s now in a bigger space at the other end of the long city park that runs along the sea front - which is a bit of a walk from the centre (particularly in the summer) but gives them much more space.
There’s a big high-ceilinged room in which to see new models (such a new double-breasted for Brio in Beijing, which was particularly striking), to have some decent stock of cloth, and to still have cutting on site (shown above).
Across the street there are then a couple of rooms containing tailors and apprentices - which will soon move to a space out of town.
“We have some good people in that workroom, but there is a constant issue that young people don’t want to learn,” says Gigi.
This is a refrain that I here everywhere, across a range of crafts.
But it is striking that while there are more applicants than places for Savile Row apprenticeships, and a flood of young people going into bespoke in Japan, there are very few in Italy. Why is craft not fashionable here?
“I think it’s the culture. It’s much more consumerist in Italy - everyone wants everything now, they’re not willing to train or learn,” says Gigi.
That’s a global trend and a generational one, of course, but it does seem to be stronger in Italy than elsewhere.
One Italian factor is that, particularly in the south, young people often have parents or other relations that are craftsmen - and have not had an easy life out of it.
For example, when we interviewed Marco Cerrato the same day, he was passionate about his craft, his product, and about his extended family that all worked together.
But he would never want his son to become a tailor.
“It wasn’t a good life. My parents worked very long hours - they still do - and I would often sleep under the cutting table. It’s a real struggle,” he said. “I want my son to go to university, to be a professional.”
Gigi agrees this is an issue: “It’s hard for young people to see the attraction of the work, of the heritage. They see it as something mandatory that friends had to do after school, or leave school at 13 for.”
“It’s not considered a safe job today, given how quickly the industry changes. Let alone an aspirational one.”
Nonetheless, in those rooms across the road there are five young people working alongside the old tailors.
Three came from the Kiton tailoring school (which I covered years ago - back in 2011) and two have been hired fresh into the workroom at Dalcuore.
“Schools like Kiton can be useful starting points, because they give young people rules and a rigour to the work,” says Damiano, showing us round (and pictured above in cream suit).
“Because Kiton does small amounts of hand finishing, such as hand-sewn buttonholes, they make sure the trainees do enough of it to get their accuracy and their hand-speed up,” he adds.
This is an interesting contrast to the course at Newham College in London, which is sometimes criticised by bespoke tailors for trying to teach everything in a single year, and as a result turning out graduates that can’t do anything to a level that makes them immediately useful.
Walking back across the road (via the local mozzarella dealer), we reflected on the challenges of growing a tailoring business.
Bespoke and ready-to-wear have very different drivers - and there are only so many specialist shops like Brio and Bryceland’s, or highly engaged Japanese buyers, that really appreciate traditional quality points.
As the number of these shops grows, and makers such as Dalcuore grow with them, it will be interesting to see how big they can get.
Bespoke double-breasted modelThe Brio DB model. A size too big for me, but love the roped shouldersA new RTW trouser modelThe mozzarella manA child's bespoke trousers!
Although we’ve covered several mills over the years on Permanent Style (such as Pennine, Loro Piana, Robert Noble and VBC), I’ve never visited a shirting mill.
The fact that our first one was Albini was pure coincidence, but it worked out well.
Albini is by far the biggest high-end shirting mill in Europe, and the most vertically integrated, which meant we could see every stage of the process from spinning to finishing.
As I outlined in the post ‘Shirting mills and brands explained’, most shirting brands we know do their own design and weaving - but work with spinners, dyers and finishers for the other stages of the process.
Albini bought a spinner in 2016, setting up an R&D division there to create and design new yarns, as well as check the quality of yarn coming in from other suppliers.
The spun cotton from both arrives in the main mill on cones, and is then dyed in vats of various sizes.
Another trend at Albini in recent years has been an attempt to cater to smaller customers, and a reflection of this is the smaller vats that were installed recently, enabling Albini to offer much smaller minimums on single colours.
It is these vats that are pictured below.
Once the yarn has been dyed and then dried, samples are taken to the in-house laboratory for inspection.
The key here is ensuring that the dyed yarn doesn’t vary too much from one batch to the next. If it does, it can’t be used to weave cloth sold as the same design and colour.
Below you can see five samples from different batches, kept as a record in the lab.
The cones of dyed yarn are kept in a large storage room, where an operator uses a robot to run up and along the shelves and fetch different colours or samples.
This isn’t quite on the scale of Loro Piana, which I can still vividly remember seeing for the first time - its scale makes it feel like something out of Star Wars.
But the Albini storage is still large, and certainly the biggest of any shirting mill.
As with weaving for suits, the next stage is to create the warp - a roll of the yarn on a beam which will go onto the loom and run down the length of the finished cloth, with the weft running across it.
This is all done in the large central hall, which contains just over 100 looms. Albini owns another 300 in other locations.
The weaving varies in speed depending on how delicate the yarn is, or how complicated the desired pattern.
The four or five looms working on denim cloth are deliberately kept a couple of metres away from all the others, to prevent contamination from the indigo dye.
The resulting cloth is inspected, repaired if necessary, and then sent off for finishing at a facility in Brebbia.
As with suitings, again, the difference between raw cloth and finished product is astounding. It feels almost like a rough canvas until it has been washed and smoothed.
The final area we looked at - although arguably the first and most important - was the design department, and in particular the archive.
Albini has bought several other brands over the years, including the English weaver Thomas Mason, and that makes up the majority of the archive.
Albiate, the more casual shirting line, also has some interesting old designs.
With suiting archives the striking thing is often how complex the cloths are - quite dull charcoals and browns overall, but with intricate little patterns and brighter colours woven in.
At Albini, the sheer abundance of colour and pattern was surprising. So many big checks, bright colours and textures, such as brushed cottons or satins.
Easy to forget how much TV and photography means we imagine the past in black and white.
Read how Albini sits within the shirting industry, and its various brands, here.
Last summer, a reader responded to a post by reminding me that in Slim Aarons's photography of Italian aristocracy, most wore cream or tobacco-linen suits, a white shirt, white hank and black knitted-silk tie.
The dress of Italy's traditional elite in Aarons's photography was even simpler, if anything. But also a lot starker.
They have no discernible pattern in suit, shirt or tie. Accessories too, are simple.
But the white shirt and black tie makes for high contrast, particularly against tobacco and cream.
It is this high contrast which makes such an outfit difficult to wear for most people. Skin that is even moderately fair (as mine is most of the year) cannot cope.
I apologise, by the way, to readers that point out I don't cover the interaction between skin tone and clothing very much. It's a complicated area, and one whose importance I think is often exaggerated.
But high-contrast outfits such as this are a good example of its importance. And just as much, of light.
The outfit I am wearing here - the same as those Italian aristos, with tobacco linen, white shirt and black tie - would be too strong in contrast for me until I have a tan in the summer (I tan quite easily).
And it would be too strong on any but the highest of high-summer days in England. The sun is simply not bright enough.
Here, I am wearing it in Naples. On a scorching day, with deep, sharp shadows.
It fits the environment, as well as me, and that is just as important in your clothing as whether it fits the company and the event.
The suit is my wonderful bespoke linen from Dege & Skinner - linked to below. And the hat the sisol straw from Anderson & Sheppard that I seemed to take everywhere with me this summer.
There are precious few dry cleaners out there that understand bespoke tailoring.
They are likely to clean suits in bulk, with everything going into the vat together and no attention to delicate materials.
The biggest issue is pressing though: they don't appreciate the 3D nature of a bespoke collar, shoulder and lapel, and will often press everything flat, ruining the glorious roll of that front edge.
This was my experience with Jeeves of Belgravia (despite being cleaners to the Royal family), and I hear it hasn't improved since they were acquired by Timpson's.
I have highlighted a few specialists over the years on Permanent Style, that do understand bespoke. One is Stephen Haughton of Burford Valet, the majority of whose work is valeting and who also does a lot of shoe polish and repair work.
And another, who I know has received a lot of work from Permanent Style readers over the years, is Michael Norman.
Michael used to run a dry cleaners called Press2Dress in south London.
Last year, he left the business and set out on his own, moving off the high street and putting his equipment in a new facility.
From here, he is now offering collection and appointment services.
Michael and Betty (pictured) deal only in high-end and luxury pieces such as bespoke tailoring for men, military dress, and designer pieces for women like Chanel. They also do bridal wear and upholstery.
As regards tailoring, Michael offers dry cleaning, which is all done individually and as lightly as possible, and a sponge and press service.
The latter is rarely offered by dry cleaners today, as it requires so much individual attention to the garment - examining it minutely and cleaning off light dirt, before pressing the item again.
Dry cleaning will always shorten the life of a garment, and is therefore worth avoiding wherever possible. I'm happy to leave this decision up to Michael on a piece-by-piece basis, but you can make your own requests.
In general I'd recommend dry cleaning a suit once a year (before it is put away for storage, if that is something you do).
Of course this depends on how and how frequently the suit is worn. Given the size of my wardrobe, a simple sponge and press might be all that is required each year, and at most one such treatment on top of the yearly clean.
Michael's prices are below. He is currently offering free collection and delivery within London.
There is no standard delivery service outside of London, but it is worth contacting him if you're interested.
I particularly like recommending good service people here on Permanent Style, so if anyone else has someone they'd recommend in any area, please let me know.
Others I have recommended (with links to relevant posts) are:
When it comes to tailored jackets, however, I want to stick to tailors who can render a fit similar to bespoke suits.
I have done so with Cifonelli, which produced superb results (details at that link), and others such as Camps de Luca also work in leather.
But the number of tailors that do so is small, and as a result there aren't many styles to choose from.
This is why I was excited to see Sartoria Melina when I was in Naples over the summer.
Melina is a small one-family bespoke leather operation, based in Sarno (about an hour’s drive from Naples).
Jolanda Caruso and her mother Carmela (pictured above) set up the operation last year, when Carmela left the larger and better-known leather house Rifugio.
Rifugio also makes bespoke, hand-sewn leather garments, but had expanded into some machine-made pieces, and the Caruso family wanted to focus solely on bespoke.
Now, when I say bespoke, this is very different to the product offered by the likes of Cifonelli.
Most importantly:
It has no canvas in the chest, let alone a hand-padded canvas, and is therefore not shaped like traditional bespoke.
It emphasises hand finishing on the outside, with pick stitching around all seams, hand-sewn buttons and buttonholes. This is something Cifonelli, for example, could do but generally doesn’t.
The pattern is drawn from scratch and hand cut, but is based off standard patterns and sizes, and is therefore closer to some made-to-measure in fit.
Given all this, I could understand if someone said it was best described as made to measure.
But given how much MTM leather outerwear there is, all machine sewn and based on small alterations to existing jackets (length, sleeve etc), I think perhaps bespoke is a more useful term.
Sartoria Melina offers a wide range of styles.
Their classic and most popular is a single-breasted, two or three-button jacket. But they also do blousons, reversible coats (above), trench coats, and double-breasted jackets.
I have included photos of some of them here.
They work in a few different leathers and suedes, but the most popular is a baby calf with a nubuck-like finish - a lightweight and very soft leather that is also nice and matte.
Not only does this feel lovely, but the texture is very subtle - a world away from the shininess we might associate with tailoring-style jackets.
Most other leathers they use are exotics such as alligator and ostrich, which of course are more showy.
They’re experimenting with washed leathers (below). And there are linings in both cashmere and furs, such as mink.
The central attraction of the product, however, is that pick stitching.
This is beautiful stitching to watch, as we did with Caruso senior as she worked on a navy jacket.
“It’s a very difficult process, because you can’t afford any errors,” says Carmela. “Once you’ve made the hole, that’s it - you’ve left a mark.
“This makes it particularly hard to train up young people, because it takes them a long time to be good enough to work on a real garment.”
With hand craft generally, there is a delicate balance between something that looks handmade, but is not sloppy; that approaches the precision of a machine, but doesn’t lose the character of craft rendered by an individual. This stitching gets that just right.
Interestingly, a three-sided needle with sharpened edges has to be used to cut through the leather.
Cutting on such leather is a challenge, because it moves and stretches easily.
And before the cutting begins, a good hour needs to be spent working out how the pattern can fit on the skin.
This is rather like a jigsaw puzzle - as the colour varies slightly across the skin, and pieces that will be next to each other (eg along the side seams) need to be of a similar shade.
In other construction points, the only thing used apart from the leather is a lightweight fusing that is ironed to the inside of the fronts, and taping around the bottom edge and vents (below).
This is fairly common in ready-made jackets that use very soft materials like suede.
The back of the tailored jackets is made out of two pieces of leather, rather than four, which makes them look more like tailoring than most ready-made leather.
The buttonholes are also cut with a hammer and chisel, before being hand-sewn, which is nice.
A single-breasted jacket in baby calf costs €2900, much of which is of course the cost of the leather itself.
Prices rise from there for bigger pieces such as coats, and there are small additional costs (€150 or so) if a customer wants them to copy an existing jacket.
I’m having a three-button jacket made in dark-brown leather, with patch hip pockets and a welted outbreast pocket.
There will be a fitting in canvas first, before the final piece is done.
I will report back on both, but if the result is good enough I hope to encourage Jolanda and her mother to come to London for a trunk show.
Jolanda’s English is not perfect, but her brother works in London and is fluent, so hopefully he can help out.
Good trunk shows pick good locations. Not necessarily fancy, but convenient and in a space that shows the product in a good light.
This is particularly true with ready-made or made-to-measure brands, where customers are more likely to compare them to a physical shop.
And it’s something even tailors should try to remember - rather than assuming their reputation is sufficient to pull people to any old room in any old hotel.
When Saman Amel visited London for the first time last month, they had clearly thought about the space.
The rack of jackets and suits was carefully hung; the sweaters and polos were all precisely folded and presented.
It was a nice set up, with light streaming in from both sides of the second-floor space.
And in many ways it was a neat metaphor for Saman Amel itself.
Set up in 2010 by friends Saman Amel and Dag Granath in Stockholm, the brand has developed an enthusiastic local following for its made-to-measure tailoring, ties and knitwear.
The aesthetic is simple, muted and refined.
You could call it Scandinavian, but that would be to pigeonhole something that, in a digital age, can never be so restricted.
Rather, it feels modern. Dressed-up tailoring that isn’t corporate; fine knitwear that isn’t fancy or fussy. Cuts that are pretty traditional (particularly jacket length) but still contemporary in their styling.
It isn’t a unique look. But it does seem to be one that is being well-executed - and as of last month, is now available in London for the first time.
When I arranged to meet Saman and Dag, I was planning to try the made-to-measure knitwear.
I’ve tried a few MTM services for knitwear over the years, and it usually hasn’t worked well (Loro Piana, Simone Abbarchi).
I was hoping, therefore, to find somewhere I could regularly order knitwear from, in a tweaked fit. I also liked the styles - such as the tennis sweater (pictured at the bottom of this post).
But I became interested in the tailoring too when I realised the top line, ‘Napoli’, has a hand-padded lapel (from £2200, pictured on me above).
There are several other points of handwork, but it is the hand padding that sets this Saman Amel line apart from most of the rest of the MTM market.
I do not pretend to cover made-to-measure comprehensively, unlike bespoke, but I’m always interested in things that can incorporate aspects of bespoke - such as individual patterns, hand cutting, or hand padding.
And if the fit of this Napoli jacket I’m being measured for is good, it is of course a partial recommendation for their cheaper line, ‘Toscana’ (from £1400), which is not hand-padded but has everything good RTW should have (eg hand-attached collar) and hand finishing (eg buttonholes).
Dag is wearing the Toscana line, below.
When I was fitted, Saman’s approach was impressive. Of course, this doesn’t necessitate a well-fitting garment, but it’s a good start.
Saman (below) took about half an hour to measure my body, looking carefully at the slope and pitch of the shoulders, the collarbone, the back shape and posture.
And he then took similar measurements on a ready-made garment, with Dag taking notes on his laptop the whole time.
This was by some way the most involved measuring session I’ve had for a made-to-measure garment.
Saman studied for three years in Sweden in an institute called Tillskärarakademin, which translates as Academy of Cutting.
Like many such courses, fashion and design was a big part of it, but there was some extended study of fit and cutting techniques, which Saman initially used to develop dresses that gained him some attention.
In his second year he started making his own shirts and tailoring, staying away from high fashion. And in his third year started the project that became Saman Amel.
Saman then worked for J.Lindeberg, becoming their head of MTM for Europe. So he has quite a bit of experience with tailoring - but neither he nor the brand refer to themselves as tailors.
I opted for a brown three-button single-breasted jacket, in Loro Piana Prince-of-Wales-check cashmere, with patch pockets and a welt outbreast pocket.
In the knitwear, I went for a half-zip sweater in brown cashmere (above).
The Saman Amel ready-to-wear fit is actually pretty good for me in the knitwear, being a little slimmer and a little shorter than most. But we still slimmed it a touch more.
You can get an idea of the range of Saman Amel designs on the website, by the way, which sells ready-made knitwear and ties.
As with everything else, it’s simple and muted colours: cream, taupe and brown, alongside the classic grey, navy and black. With minimal patterns.
I’ll be very interested to see how the jacket and knitwear turn out (Saman and Dag are back in London from November 1-2).
I know readers are always keen to have lower-priced tailoring options reviewed; and I know many are equally excited about brands that combine classic ideas of fit with modern, younger styling.
It is that style that separates Saman and Dag from the cheaper bespoke tailors, by the way. And as I’ve said so frequently, style is something bespoke tailors underestimate at their peril.
Pricing list for London:
Napoli suiting from £2200
Jackets from £1800
Trousers from £550
Toscana suiting from £1400 (which makes up the majority of their business)
Jackets from £1100
Trousers from £350
Shirts from £280
Overcoats from £1300
Business suiting from £1200 (same as Toscana but with very limited, stock cloths)
The following feature was commissioned by an international fashion magazine, but later cancelled. I have reproduced it here as I think it rounds out some of our discussion of bespoke eyewear - bringing in makers like Lindberg and discussing future disruption
My bespoke glasses from General EyewearPerhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, given the vogue for everything ‘bespoke’ in recent years, that there has been an increase in men’s bespoke and customised glasses.
But the breadth of the trend is still striking.
Small ateliers that have always offered a bespoke service are reporting a doubling or even tripling of orders; individual designers are popping up offering one-on-one services; and bigger brands are investing in large-scale customisation programmes.
The attraction is two-fold: glasses that fit perfectly, and that are unique to the wearer.
“It’s amazing how many men wear glasses that just don’t fit, that are constantly falling down their nose and have to be pushed up,” says Sheel Davison-Lungley of Mayfair boutique EB Meyrowitz.
Frames at Meyrowitz in LondonMost men are sufficiently average for ready-made glasses to be adjusted to fit them correctly. A bridge shape must just be found that fits around the nose, and then the arms adjusted to curve neatly around the ears.
But there are many outliers - and particularly with men.
“Men’s noses vary a lot, particularly in the width,” says Davison-Lungley. “Some are quite broad, and men suffer end up with bridges that pinch and sit too high. We’re increasingly seeing these men going for bespoke.”
Meyrowitz, located in London’s Royal Arcade, has seen demand for bespoke more than double in recent years, and predicts that it will eventually be half of the business.
Close up on the General Eyewear bespoke, in rare acetateGeneral Eyewear, meanwhile, is opening a second shop in Soho this winter partly to capitalise on its growth in bespoke.
“We see a lot of men going the bespoke route in order to create unique, personal pieces,” says creative coordinator Elliot Barnes.
General Eyewear has an archive of over 50,000 frames, and is often called on to supply or design frames for the film industry.
It made the white, bulbous glasses worn in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) - at one extreme of the design spectrum - and the simple but period-perfect frames worn by Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014).
In the Camden store there are around 4,000 frames to inspire customers, and that leads to a similar range of commissions. “Some are fairly wacky,” says Barnes, citing a customer who recently commissioned a pair with one round lens and one square one.
But many others are more refined: a pair was recently completed that recreated a square 1940s frame, with wide, straight arms (known as ‘paddle’ arms).
Tom Davies hornIt is this subtle personalisation that has driven much of the bespoke growth at Tom Davies, a British eyewear company which was founded 10 years ago and now has five stores in London, four of which opened in the past two years - in Knightsbridge, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf and the City.
“In the Canary Wharf store many of the customers are senior bankers who don’t want to be wearing the same designer frame as their juniors,” says Davies. “They want something that is personal and unique.”
That might be an acetate frame with a slightly accentuated shape, such as sharpened corners and paddle arms, or an unusual material such as water-buffalo horn.
(Tom Davies also offers a horn frame with a carbon-fibre layer, which took three years of development to perfect - shown above.)
Picking horn with Guillaume Clerc - who has now re-opened in Paris with Ateliers BaudinHorn is often popular for bespoke because it involves the customer picking out his own, distinct plate. “It’s a natural material, so every piece is subtly different,” says Charlie Ingham of Soho Bespoke.
“Even with the same horn plate, the dashes of different colour mean that you can completely change the look depending on where you cut. You might have a small cream flash just on the top corner, or have it running horizontally across the whole frame.”
Ingham is an eyewear designer who set up her own bespoke business two years ago, having previously worked with larger brands and in-house at Cutler & Gross.
“Today more and more people want to understand what they’re buying, to see behind the product and be more engaged with what they’re wearing,” she says.
Tom Broughton of Cubitts being interviewedIngham makes use of a small pool of eyewear craftsman in the UK that largely work freelance. Many bespoke houses share the same makers, although some such as Cubitts and Tom Davies are also setting up their own workshops.
Tom Broughton, the founder of Cubitts (above), has been learning to make glasses himself as well as setting up training schemes in the company’s King’s Cross workshop.
For him, part of the beauty of bespoke is the little touches that show a frame has been made by hand, not machine.
“Although with any frame most of the work will be done by manipulating a machine, there are always tell-tale signs of handwork,” he says. “The rounded edge of a bridge, for example, that is too small and delicate to be done by machine and must be filed down manually.”
Bespoke at Maison Bourgeat - Guillaume Clerc's old Paris atelierThe bespoke process usually involves an initial consultation, where measurements are taken, and materials and design discussed.
There is then at least one ‘fitting’, either in the final material or (often with more precious or unstable materials, like horn) in a cheaper substitute. And the final frames are then delivered, anywhere from 4-10 weeks later.
“For me, it is this process and the interaction with the customer that is the core value with bespoke,” says Ingham.
“It is about understanding their needs and desires, even when they can’t always express them themselves. And then the relationship that builds up over the years.”
Tom Davies storeThis is the point at which bespoke starts to differ from narrower, often bigger-scale customisation programmes.
For example, Tom Davies glasses are stocked in many opticians around the country, all of which can offer a bespoke service on their frames - individual measurements, a range of materials, small changes to the shape.
But in the company’s own branches (above), Tom himself offers a bespoke service that involves starting from scratch. No set models, no restrictions, just a plain piece of paper and the customer’s imagination. More similar to the traditions of couture.
How customisation options are offered by Oliver PeoplesAt the opposite end of the spectrum is customisation being offered by larger eyewear brands, such as Oliver Peoples (above).
The American brand offers a bespoke service that allows customers to pick from three of its classic frames, with 19 material options for the fronts and 18 for the arms.
Names or messages can be added, and even the company’s logo personalised.
Lindberg framesThe biggest name for such customisation is Lindberg, which has been offering it for the past 25 years.
“In many ways, we saw this growth of bespoke and personalisation coming,” says sales and marketing director Peter Warrer. “We believed a perfect fit was important, and you couldn’t get that with ready-made frames; and we thought men would respond to the ability to have a frame unique to them.”
Over half of Lindberg’s business is customised frames - a proportion it too has seen growing recently.
Customers order through its partner opticians in over 120 countries around the world, and usually receive their glasses within four weeks. The range of options is huge: there are eight collections, each with 30-40 frames, with three lengths of arms and five bridge shapes.
Lindberg's take on horn“We find that customers go for customisation because they want a unique look,” says Warrer. “But they stay for the service and the perfect fit.”
Particularly popular at the moment is Lindberg’s high-tech version of buffalo horn, which uses a thin plate of the horn backed by its trademark titanium, and then arms and nose pads that can be adjusted to fit in the same way as the rest of the range.
Lindberg’s Rim collection - which makes entire frames out of lightweight titanium wire - has also seen increasing demand this year.
Warrer puts this down to a desire for subtle style, something he sees as very Danish. “We find men want something personal but also not showy or extravagant,” he says. “Finding that balance is key.”
Tom DaviesThe combination of customer service and subtle, high-end design is the key reason most brands are not worried about the next big trend in bespoke: 3D printing.
“I think it will largely affect the cheaper, mass-production side of the industry,” says Tom Davies (above).
“There will eventually be fun, easy ways to design your own glasses, to pop them out of a dispenser and try them immediately. But it’s hard to think of anything more divorced from the bespoke experience.”
Brands are already using 3D printing as part of the design process, and to make bespoke prototypes. But the need for handwork in many bespoke frames, as well as the use of precious materials such as horn, makes it unlikely that the process will ever take over this intensely personal industry.
“People understand what ‘bespoke’ means now, when they walk in the store,” comments Elliot Barnes (below). “They’re not surprised when they learn we make anything for them, in any combination of materials. This is the future. The revolution is just beginning.”
Elliot Barnes of General EyewearPhotography: Pictures one, three, five and final, from Jamie Ferguson @jkf_man
Caccioppoli, the Italian cloth merchant, was Jamie’s favourite place to photograph when we visited Naples over the summer.
The aesthetic appeal is not immediately obvious.
The Caccioppoli building is big, taking up most of the city block and covering two floors. If you’ve never visited a cloth merchant HQ before, it’s great to see the stacks of bolts, on shelves ranged up towards the ceiling, and the pattern and colour that thus surrounds you.
But it feels like something that has been pulled out of the 1960s or 1970s.
It is not the pre-War appeal of most old tailors, for example - enhanced by their 1920s fashion plates and preference for antique furniture.
The appeal of Caccioppoli, rather, is of storied, hard-working functionality.
Of a place that has been shifting volumes of heavy goods up and down, in and out, for almost 100 years - and gathered tiny remembrances here and there.
Caccioppoli is a merchant, not a mill. So its primary role is buying cloth from mills, stocking it in volume, and then selling cut lengths to tailors and other customers.
In this traditional role, the prime things valued by its customers are availability, speed of supply, and customer service.
(You can see a breakdown of English and Italian mills and merchants in old posts.)
That traditional business model has become disrupted in recent years as more mills sell their own cut lengths, and both mills and merchants seek to become ‘brands’ that are valued for their design more than anything else.
“Fifty years ago, this whole area of Naples was filled with cloth merchants,” says Cosimo Caccioppoli (pictured), the fourth generation of the family.
“We would be full of tailors all day long, coming in to buy lengths for customers.
"There were over a 1000 bespoke tailors in Naples. Now there are more like 200, and we’re the last merchant left.”
You can see that when there were tailors coming in all day, the merchant’s role made sense. The mills up in Biella needed someone local to show off the new cloth, and to supply it.
That is less the case today, and Caccioppoli have become increasingly international as a result - to find those 1000 tailors around the rest of the world instead - and, as mentioned, more design focused.
“Around half of our cloths are exclusive to us,” says Cosimo. “Not the standard grey and navy worsteds, but most of the jacketings, the patterns and the fibre mixes.”
Those exclusive designs made a big impact about eight years ago, when I saw a Caccioppoli bunch for the first time.
I think it was in Thom Sweeney, and I loved the subtle colours of the wool/linen/silk summer jacketings - browns, greens and blues you never saw in English bunches, with very wearable patterns and colour mixes.
Ironically, English mills have tended to be brighter and starker in their summer jacketing colours than the likes of Caccioppoli: perhaps the English idea of Italian style, but too strong really to wear anywhere.
Caccioppoli bunches have become increasingly popular since - initially appearing in the smaller and more contemporary tailors, and now on Savile Row too.
“It has been lovely to see how much business has grown in the UK in the past 10 years,” says Cosimo. “It’s always been a country where we wanted to be strong - as many Italians do.”
Caccioppoli have continued to push on with new design, embracing casentino and boucle cloth in particular (below).
Both are less to my taste, and are generally less wearable, but it’s good to have someone always pushing innovation.
As we tour the rest of the building, it’s striking how manual everything still is.
In one room on the first floor, several friends of the family are helping to create bunches - putting all the little white stickers on hundreds of swatches.
As with Scabal (see factory visit here) Caccioppoli like doing these kind of things in-house to maintain control. It is, after all, their key form of marketing.)
Of the 20 people that work in the building, 10 are from the Caccioppoli family. They range in age from 32 to 83.
It’s also interesting to see how the company has grown and shrunk over the decades. An old sign on the wall declares that they have shirt and pullover departments.
Caccioppoli haven’t sold knitwear for a long time, but they did start offering shirting material about 20 years ago, and have a room dedicated to it today.
There is also a shop front to the building that offers ready-to-wear suiting, and even some made-to-measure on the first floor. But this isn’t something they are actively trying to grow.
Perhaps most importantly, a casual visitor to Caccioppoli can buy cloth themselves - something we did.
There isn’t much vintage around (a merchant is judged, in some ways, by how accurate their stock and sell-through is every season) but you can see the current collections all set out in bolts, which is a very different experience to trying to compare swatches in a bunch.
I bought a brown jacketing - wool/linen/silk with a subtle blue glen check. And some pale-grey cotton for trousers.
A couple of weeks ago, readers expressed interest in seeing me interviewed, with suggested questions including 'where do you store everything', 'is a blog sustainable' and 'do you have any regrets about reviews'.
I thought about this, and I think readers would actually make the best interviewers.
Many people have interviewed me over the years and the questions are pretty similar - how I started, what my first suit was, what I think of the future of tailoring etc.
Readers know me better than any interviewer, and have more interesting questions.
So, if you don't mind, I'd like you to submit questions to be answered. I'll pick what seem like the most interesting 15, and answer them.
Please leave your questions in the comments at the end of this piece.
Or, if you'd rather leave a private comment or explanation for your question, email me at simon@simoncrompton.co.uk.
I'll publish the replies in a couple of weeks.
Thank you, you beautiful nerds.*
(*Maybe favourite books/music/media is another interesting question?)
Long, muted-green and with classic style in the lapel and collar, it has become a foundation of my wardrobe since I started wearing a prototype in February.
The removable lining, high collar and taped seams make it very practical, but it also has real swagger: a stylish update of a traditional model.
Only nine pieces are available in this batch, across four sizes (small, medium, large and extra-large). It costs £1125 (ex-VAT), with free worldwide shipping.
So what's special about it? First, let's talk about the material.
Cotton Ventile is perfect for a coat like this. It doesn’t have rustle of synthetic waterproofs, but is entirely waterproof once the seams are taped, and ages well - softening and fading slowly at the seams.
I picked dark olive in order to be an effective bridge between formal and casual wear. As shown in the imagery, it is smart enough to be worn with a suit and tie, yet relaxed enough for knitwear.
Private White VC’s distinctive copper hardware also comes up nicely against the olive. It too is uncoated, and will gain a patina over time.
The project started with a discussion with Private White VC of a coat they already make - the Despatch Motor Trench - but we wanted to tweak in several ways.
The most important point was length.
Trench coats have been cut shorter and shorter in recent years, which not only denies them the swish and swagger of a great, long coat, but is highly impractical.
In the rain, water simply streams off the bottom and onto the knees as you walk.
So I added four inches to the length, meaning it sits definitively below the knee. There is also a small, hidden flap at the bottom of the coat, which allows it to be fully closed across the knees if required.
Other design changes included a wider, more pointed lapel that gives the coat a touch more flair; a squaring off of the gun flaps so they mirror that collar and the lapel; and an additional jigger button on the inside of the lining.
That lining is removable and a wool/cashmere mix.
I’ve had so many waterproof coats over the years that could only be worn one or two seasons because they didn’t have a removable lining.
I wasn’t going to make that mistake this time. So we made a lining in the Private White VC grey-and-green colours.
Throughout the design process, the guiding philosophy was not to skimp on any detail. Details, after all, are what a good trench coat is all about.
So it has:
Big hip pockets, with wool/cashmere lining in the front
An angled despatch chest pocket (perfect for a phone)
A great throat latch on the collar (which now fastens with a stud on one side)
D-rings on the belt
In-set sleeves on the front of the coat, to give a cleaner appearance, but raglan sleeves on the back, to aid movement
Gun flaps on the shoulders at the front, and a saddle piece across the back
Dark-brown horn buttons, fastening that double-breasted front all the way up
A separate word should also be said about the belt, which is distinctive of these Private White VC coats.
It is sewn into the side seam on the left hand side, runs around the back, and then attaches with a buckle in the front.
This means that most of the front of the coat is kept clean and un-hampered by the belt, but you still get that attractive cinching in the back that is characteristic of a trench coat.
When not using the belt, the buckle fastens inside the front with a stud, while the strap can be looped through itself on the back. It can happily be worn either way.
All this super-spec means the trench is fairly expensive at £1125 (ex-VAT).
But it is a waterproof coat that can be worn for most of the year, with given the flexibility of the lining.
It is also made entirely in the UK, in the Private White VC factory in Manchester (see factory visit article here).
I do hope you like it. It feels like a long time since we started designing this - over a year ago. But wonderful to have it out in the world.
Orders are placed through Permanent Style - on the Shop here.
Delivery and sizing
Delivery is from the Private White VC factory, and is being offered for free worldwide.
Sizing is outlined below. I am wearing a small, but could wear a small or a medium - the medium would be a slightly better fit with the liner over a suit, but the small best without the liner over knitwear.
The raglan sleeve construction means that there is a lot more flexibility with fit than with a normal in-set sleeve, however, and as the waist is usually cinched, the fit can be as slim in the waist as you want.
It's largely a question of style - some will want a closer fit, others a touch looser, but most people could wear two of the below.
Measurements in cm
S/38 chest
M/40
L/42
XL/44
Chest
109
116
123
130
Shoulder to Shoulder
44
45.5
47
49
Centre Back Length
119
120
121
122
Sleeve Length
68
69
70
71
Waist Circumference
105
112
119
126
Also worn in the shoot:
Suit:
Single-breasted pick-and-pick grey suit from Camps de Luca (full post here)
Blue spread-collar shirt from Luca Avitabile
Orange tie from Mattabisch via The Armoury
Dark-brown Asquith shoes from Edward Green
Charcoal-grey fedora from Anderson & Sheppard
Knitwear
Rust-brown ribbed cashmere sweater from Private White VC
Denim button-down shirt from Luca Avitabile
Grey single-pleat and cuffed flannel trousers from Ambrosi
Now sold out: Small and XXL. All other sizes available
So, I've been on the phone to the factory...
One of the great things about working with a brand with its factory - like Private White VC - is that it can be more responsive and flexible.
And when they saw the response on Permanent Style to our new trench coat - which sold out in its first day - they were keen to help support with extra stock and sizes.
So I'm pleased to say that next week we will have more stock - at least as much as this first run - and we will also be able to offer XS and XXL.
The measurements for those new sizes are below.
Please go ahead and places orders as before - for all six sizes - on the Permanent Style Shop. These will be fulfilled at the end of next week.
I think there is a tendency to view my reviews of artisans as binary - either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Perhaps because there are just so few bad reviews of luxury products.
But the reality is no view is straightforward.
Some tailors produce a great product, but need a little direction on style. Others have style nailed, but are just difficult to deal with.
My review of Salva Ambrosi’s trousers back in February 2016 is one that will probably be remembered as ‘bad’ by most people.
But it is probably best summarised as: great fit, great style, with some silly mistakes.
The two pairs of trousers he made fitted very well (despite fairly light measuring) and his suggestions on style and cloth were bang on.
The issue was that some style points were wrong (eg leg width) and communication wasn’t great on getting those right.
That could easily be enough to deter potential customers, but it’s worth saying again that other tailors do struggle with both fit and style - and that arguably on style and handwork, Salva set the bar that other aspiring trouser-makers now look to.
With that in mind, we visited Salva’s workshop in Naples over the summer, with a view to covering the craft and style side.
The workshop is on the first floor of a building on Via Chiaia, right in the middle of town. Big windows look out onto the courtyard (pictured top) and busy tourist-stuffed street below.
The bright-white rooms and high ceilings make for a nice working environment - as well as showing every loose thread and scrap of flannel on the floor.
Salva's father (above) is constant, watchful presence. He takes little notice of Salva, who flits from office to product to worktable, but watches carefully over his glasses at the five employees.
The bespoke product is mostly done here, but 12 people work in a separate workshop in the suburbs, producing largely ready-to-wear.
That ready-to-wear and made-to-measure product (some pictured in the header of this post) has expanded a lot in the past three years, and is hoped to do so more as Ambrosi works with Tommaso Melani and the Sartoria Vestrucci product - in which Salva is an investor.
Salva would like to see a future where a series of showrooms around the world offered made-to-measure trousers and suiting. Ready-to-wear is for shops that buy stock. Bespoke should be the ultimate product, always handled by the cutter/tailor.
On that point, it was nice to see Salva working on a few pairs of trousers - largely doing the tack stitches around the tops of the pockets.
One of the biggest things that Salva brought to the market when he became big a few years ago was this handwork: tack stitches, pick stitching down the outside seams, touches like the buttons inside turn-ups.
He wasn't the first to offer it of course, but it stood out compared to the basic (if very neat) finishing of English tailors.
Other design touches that Salva is offering include belt buckles in precious metals that fasten the extended waistband.
These are supplied by Ranfagni, a jeweller in Florence, in silver or gold-plated silver.
There are some issues at the moment with the position of the prong, and in any case the style is too showy for me, but the shape of the buckle is lovely and it's always interesting to see new ideas.
Many thanks to everyone that bought our trench coat last week.
The response was wonderful, and as you will have been able to see, we have sold out.
We are now putting together a waiting list, which readers can be added to my emailing us on info@permanentstyle.co.uk.
There is no need to pre-pay to be on this list, but it gives us a good indication of sizes required, and those on the list will be given priority when that new run is ready. We should have more information on the timing of the run in the next week or so.
Separately, I've also clarified a few things about alterations.
I know that I am above average height, and that therefore the coat might be a little too long for some people. This is easy to alter, as the coat is unlined (and the removable lining considerably shorter than the full coat).
At least 10cm can be taken off the length of the coat without causing any issues.
Private White VC offer a great service in their store for this, or it can be done by a local alterations tailor.
The sleeves can also be shortened, but only by about 1.5cm.
More than this and the end of the sleeve gets too close to the cuff flap and will look odd. But 1.5cm will make a noticeable difference.
Both could be options considered by those 38 people that have bought coats so far. Everyone should receive them this week.
Lastly, Private White VC do offer both MTM and bespoke services - the former at 20% above retail price, and the latter at 70% above. With MTM you can change most sizing, widths, lengths etc. With bespoke you can basically redesign it, with different materials, pockets and so on. Contact them through their website for details.
The number of variety of questions was staggering, and I will try to answer as many as I can over the coming weeks.
It may take time, but I would rather do it properly than fob off the questions with quick answers, or leave out any interesting topics.
Some of those topics - such as storage and capsule wardrobes - came up so often that I will endeavour to do a separate, in-depth post on them.
Today I will answer the questions around bespoke commissions.
Dominic: What do you consider has been your best value item?
It would have to be a pair of shoes. Because shoes last so long and because they can be worn with so many different things. They also reward good maintenance and can get better with age, unlike most pieces of clothing.
I would say my Edward Green Walcots have been the best value. Being a mid-brown, they go with everything from casual suits to sports jackets - I could easily wear them twice a week for the rest of my life.
And I’ve always liked the adelaide style: you have that long stretch of leather down the side, like a wholecut, but without the bareness of a wholecut design.
Tristan: What is the item you have ordered and love but get the least wear from?
Probably my Liverano purple jacket. I adore it: the broad-lapel, extended-shoulder cut; the beautiful fit; the unusual yet surprisingly subtle colour.
But it’s a bit too unusual to wear. It’s certainly too strong for the office, and even at special events it’s the kind of jacket you can’t wear with the same company too often - it will be ‘oh, he’s wearing that again’.
And my Huntsman shooting suit, obviously. I still love that (aside from the pattern-matching issues).
The colours in the tweed are amazing and the make is wonderful. But even the jacket on its own I struggle to wear (see comment below on English sports jackets).
Matthew: Are there any items that you wish you hadn’t commissioned, either because you get practically no use from them or simply don’t like them anymore?
Others I don’t get much use from include my cream-gabardine trousers and double-breasted waistcoat from Anderson & Sheppard and my cream linen suit from Kent Haste & Lachter.
There are very few bespoke pieces I don’t like any more, but they include that waistcoat (it never really worked as a separate with a suit) and sports jackets from the more structured English tailors (eg Graham Browne) - the structure just means they’re not casual enough.
Other interesting pieces have been the gilet from Davide Taub, which I liked the idea of but (as I mentioned in the review) just never quite hit the spot.
And in general tailored cotton trousers. Without the garment-wash of chinos, they often look too old-fashioned for me, too countrified. That’s why I increasingly prefer cavalry twills.
Zubair: when you first started getting acquainted with dressing better, did you ever go overboard into full peacock?
I wouldn’t say I ever went ‘full peacock’, but there is an undeniable tendency when you start to want to have striking things made.
Often these are pieces that are traditional foundations of a gentleman’s wardrobe, but are a bit too unusual.
For example my first-ever bespoke was a double-breasted suit. Lovely piece, but a double breasted is unusual in most offices and it wasn’t worn as much as I hoped.
The second was a navy single-breasted suit… but with braces and a fishtail back. I didn’t like the braces and back, and eventually had to have them remade.
And my first overcoat was very long, very heavy, in tan camelhair.
All three of those things are great to have made bespoke, as you can’t get them easily ready-made. And they are classics. But they shouldn’t be your first bespoke commissions.
Anonymous: Is there anything that you secretly want but haven’t been able to bring yourself to commission (due to it being too flamboyant, expensive, wouldn’t get any use, you don’t have the je ne sais quoi to pull off etc)??
As a continuation to the answer above, there are several things I would love to have made, but know I would never use.
One of them is white tie. It would be beautiful, but have zero wear. I’d also love a double-breasted velvet jacket - but I already have one velvet jacket and a tux, and get little enough wear out of those.
If you end up having these kind of things made, and then arranging events (or even just seeking them out) as an excuse to wear them, then it’s tantamount to costume.
Jon: Which bespoke item (with hindsight) do you consider you paid too much for?
Probably my Rubinacci sports jacket.
It’s a lovely piece, and I still wear it fairly regularly, but at the time I wanted to try Neapolitan tailoring so badly I would have tried anything - and Rubinacci was all you could access in London that I knew of.
It was expensive six years ago - £3800 I believe - and a huge amount of money for me then. Today I would start with something cheaper, like Solito.
David: Which items in each major category (suits, sportcoats, ties, shirts, trousers, shoes, knitwear, outerwear) bring you the most pleasure to wear? This is somewhat the opposite of the “which one item is most versatile” question
Interesting twist.
Suit: Instinctively, my Anderson & Sheppard double-breasteds. I have three. I just love the size and bulk that the drape gives.
Sports coat: My Elia Caliendo Harris tweed (pictured top). Lovely cut and make, but it’s mostly about the cloth (a lesson in there as well). There’s so many goddamned colours in there it’s like a crayon box.
Ties: Navy big-knot grenadine (boring but true) because it feels like the most conservative thing in the world, yet you rarely see someone wearing one. And an old burnt-orange tie from Church’s.
Shoes: Probably my old Edward Green Oundles. Because they are the oldest and the most bashed up, yet looked after. Which is how shoes should be.
Knitwear: Anderson & Sheppard shawl-collar shetland. Such a unique design, so useful.
Outerwear: Cifonelli navy overcoat. Beautiful yet wearable. (Interesting that, even though this question is about pleasure, not versatility, so many pieces combine both... Perhaps much of the pleasure is in wearing something wonderful that is also not ostentatious.)
Anonymous: It’s easy to understand logical next steps of commissions, how a beautiful tweed catches your eye and you succumb etc. But what would be really interesting would be how and where you set your limits / parameters (if you do at all!)
I try to commission things that fill a hole in my wardrobe. Obviously those holes get smaller and smaller, but I try to work from that - from my needs outwards - rather than from seeing something and just liking it.
That helps set limits - you need to be able to wear it with other things you wear. And you need to know where and when you could wear it (office, home, day, evening out etc).
I have also written a few times about clothing being a social construct. It’s relative; it’s effect depends on other people, their experiences and expectations. So if you stick out like a sore thumb you are not well dressed.
The Cifonelli suede jacket (pictured above) certainly filled a gap - something obviously casual but made to the highest bespoke standards.
