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Jean Rousseau small leather goods

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In the past few weeks I have spent quite a lot of time with the lovely staff at Jean Rousseau in the Piccadilly Arcade. One of France’s hidden secrets in the leather trade, Jean Rousseau make lovely watch straps, belts and other leather goods with an emphasis on bespoke.

A readymade watch strap is £60 for calf, £155 for alligator. But for £75 or £180, you can pick out your own skin, as well as exactly which pattern of scales you want to run across the strap. Everything is broken down by small increments of price – hand stitching for £35, for example.

I like this philosophy, and it sticks out particularly in the leather industry. Most small leather goods are an add-on to a larger brand, and what you pay for is that brand. Few people think it’s worth spending the time to create bespoke versions of such (relatively) cheap products and have the individual service to match.


I should also mention that there is a good selection of skins on site, while a huge variety can be ordered in by virtue of Rousseau owning its own tannery near Besançon. And all the work can be done by one of the two craftspeople on site – much of it in front of you on the ground floor.

This, for me, is how a leather-goods shop should be.

Full report on having a watch strap made on The Rake


Photography: Luke Carby

How a shirt should fit

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Learning how a shirt should fit you can take surprisingly long - as most fans of bespoke try far fewer shirtmakers than they do tailors. Once learned, however, the lessons are fairly simple. They are becoming particularly clear to me as I complete my shift from Turnbull & Asser to Satriano Cinque. (Updates coming soon on the latest shirt commissions from them.)

1. It's not about the waist

The biggest lesson is not to obsess about how a shirt fits on the waist. To a young man trying to look as sleek and athletic as possible, a closely fitted shirt is an understandable focus. Italians heavily dart their shirts to this purpose; in the past I have darted and redarted my own darts in pursuit of that same, perfect fit.

There are two reasons why this is a mistake. The first is that cotton has no natural stretch, unlike wool, so you cannot fit it as closely to the body. And of course you can't undo a shirt when you sit down. Always try sitting and slumping in a seat when trying on a shirt: if there is any discomfort, the fit will be intolerable after a day sitting in front of a computer.

The second reason is that the fit on the waist is affected by other things. Most particularly length. Men often make the mistake of having their shirts too short, so they pull out of their trousers too easily and bunch unattractively above the waistband. This is also caused by a shirt that is too tight on the hips. If there is no spare room there, the shirt will be forced upwards, creating more bunching.

2. Focus on the collar

The most important thing to focus on is the collar. Here, millimetres make a difference. While the height of the collar should always be in proportion to your neck, most commercial shirts are too low to give the tie any space to arch outwards. Particularly English shirts.

The tie arch can be aided by having a larger tie gap, between the two sides of the collar. And of course the shape of the collar itself is subject to many permutations. Find something consistent and probably conservative, and stick with it. 

Ideally, the shape should work with and without a tie (so not collapsing underneath the jacket’s collar). If that’s not possible with your jackets and neck shape, have just two collar types: one for a tie (perhaps a medium spread) and the other for an open neck (probably a buttondown).

3. Consistent sleeves

Sleeve length is important, but the key thing is consistency. Shirt sleeves can be shortened quite easily, and more cheaply than a jacket. But only double cuffs can be lengthened, and not by very much. A quarter to an eighth of an inch is enough when your hands are at your sides; remember far more will be on display when you extend your arm.

In the end, shirts are pretty simple. If you can find a great ready-to-wear collar, all you need is for the body and sleeves to be long enough. Then buy a lot of them.

OB Approved recommendations

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The latest edition of OB Approved (from Orlebar Brown) includes some personal recommendations from journalists such as myself and Mr Tom Stubbs – both seen in the extract above.

Click to enlarge.

Chittleborough & Morgan suit: Part 2

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This is the second fitting on my navy three-piece suit from Chittleborough & Morgan. As with any tailor I try for the first time, I encouraged Joe (Morgan) to cut and make a suit to his style. It was interesting to see the differences from other tailors.



The first difference is rather large: the lapels. Joe, harking back to Tommy Nutter days, likes a sweeping peaked lapel, and they rather dominate the jacket. The collar is high and tight to the neck as well, partly to balance the lapels.

This extreme style stops it from being a business suit. But it will make it perfect for cocktails in the evening, with a white shirt and white handkerchief. And the waistcoat on its own will be very suitable for the office. I have written many times about the benefits of a waistcoat in the office, and Joe’s cloth back and Milanese buttonhole make this waistcoat look more like a jacket than any other. We will probably have two pairs of trousers to facilitate that multi-functional use.



In fact the most beautiful part of the suit is probably the transition from waistcoat to trouser. The way the points of the waistcoat run into the trouser pleats, lying flat against the cloth, is just lovely.

Few changes were made at my prompting. This is still essentially a basted fitting – Joe likes a lot of fittings – and these are for the tailor rather than the customer. Next time we will get to the finer points of style. For now, Joe and Michael (Browne) tinkered with the front balance and got used to quite how sloping my shoulders are. It often seems like it would be quicker to start from the vertical and work up.


Other points to notice: the lovely line of the trouser, fitting as flat to the thigh as is possible with double pleats; the close fit around the seat and small of the back; and the long, elegant skirt.



Photography: Luke Carby

Reminder: The Dartmoor

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Just a reminder that the order period for our collaboration with John Smedley, the Dartmoor polo, ends on Wednesday next week.

We have already outsold the last collaboration, with La Portegna. Thank you to all those that have ordered so far.

Full details on our classic-styled, modern-cut polo shirt can be found here.

Bright clothing suits the sun

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When it’s sunny, wear white. My latest column for We Are The Market considers the problems with wearing elegant, summer clothing when the British weather is inconsistent, to say the least.

The key is to not miss an opportunity. Today there is unbroken blue sky - plus Andy Murray’s playing at Wimbledon, the Ashes start next week, we have the favourite in the Tour and the Lions are going to beat the Aussies tomorrow. There’s a feel-good factor, and I’m in head-to-toe cream linen.

Just right for the BTBA summer party this evening.

Read the column here.

The BTBA summer party

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Friday was the Bespoke Tailors’ Benevolent Association (BTBA, new version of MTBA) summer ball. As per usual there was an eclectic range of outfits, from sober business dress to top hats, cream linen to sequins.  

Three Anderson & Sheppard employees were among those receiving certificates: Jennie, Ollie and Sunna, who readers will know from the A&S blog The Notebook.

Michael Skinner doing the honours

Sunna (Johnson) and Ollie (Trenchard) with their SRB diplomas for coatmaking and cutting respectively

Steven Hitchcock and Tom Baker

Fred Nieddu, who joined Timothy Everest as cutter from Meyer & Mortimer last Monday, to work alongside Lloyd

Kathryn Sargent and Albert Nelson, one of the best coatmakers on the Row (works for Huntsman and Dege)

 John Hitchcock and Sunna

 

I wore a cream linen suit from Terry Haste (above), with white long-sleeved polo from Al Bazar, linen handkerchief from Simonot-Goddard and buttonhole from the garden. A few other combinations below, my favourite being Davide Taub from Gieves & Hawkes (third below). Such great muted colours.






How high should my trousers be? - Reader question

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Hi Simon:

Just wanted to say a big thank you for the wonderful work that you have been doing, it’s really pointed the rest us in the right direction.

One thing that I have been rather confused on is how pants should fit for someone with my physique. I am rather short (5'8), have a long waist (I mean distance from navel to crotch), a prominent behind and more muscular thighs and calves from soccer, skiing, and sprinting...as a result, you could say that my lower body is bigger than my upper body.

My goal is to elongate the body/legs in choosing a fit for the pants. I know I should go for shorter leg length that barely touch the shoes to create that impression...but should I opt for low rise or more traditional high-waisted pants? Should I go for a more slim or relaxed fit to minimise the size of legs/butt?

Lastly, there is quite a bit of space between the bottom of the jacket and the inseam at the crotch, given my low waist and preference for shorter jackets, and when buttoned, the jacket barely covers the top half of the fly zipper...is this displeasing to the eye? Is there a way to minimize it?

Thanks so much!

Gratefully,

Victor


Hi Victor,

That’s quite a lot of points, covering most of the basics of fit and proportion in suits. I’ll try to provide the basics as succinctly as I can. There's more detail in my book, Le Snob: Tailoring.

First, the key to lengthening your legs is for the trousers to give the impression of a long, unbroken line. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the trousers should only just touch the shoes, because when you walk you don’t want them flapping around too high either – interrupting that line. Get a nice balance in length, with perhaps a slant from the back of the hem to the front, so the break at the front is minimal but they stay in touch at the back.

The same principle applies to the question of slim versus relaxed fit. The trouser should drop in a clean line from your bum and waist. So anything that interrupts that – such a tight fit around the thighs or calves – is bad.

And on the height of the waist, yes a high-waisted trouser is always going to make your legs look longer. It will also solve your problem of not covering the waistband with the jacket, and be more pleasing to the eye when worn with that jacket.

However, in my opinion high-waisted trousers are unflattering on most people when the jacket is removed. If you agree with this, you need to find a compromise. I would suggest slightly longer jackets and a slightly higher waist on the trouser. I compromise by having my side-adjustors on the seam of my trousers, which raises them by around an inch (see pic above). It’s not perfect, but if you swap between wearing and not wearing a jacket, there is no other option.

The picture at top is a good example. There is about two inches between the waistband and the jacket button: enough so no shirting shows through, even with the model’s hands in his pockets, but the trousers are not that high. The outfit was made by Dege & Skinner.

I hope that helps Victor. Please add any follow-up questions in the comments below if anything is not clear.

Best
Simon Photo: Luke Carby


The bespoke leather jacket: Part 1

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There are very few bespoke tailors I would have faith in to explore an entirely new style or new medium. They include Lorenzo Cifonelli, Davide Taub and Rubinacci (Luca plus cutter). Many more, although highly innovative, tend to make within a definite style: I would put Edward Sexton, Tom Baker and Joe Morgan in that group.

It was to Davide Taub, in his pivotal role at the new Gieves & Hawkes bespoke team, that I turned to for an entirely new bespoke project: a leather jacket.

Davide has experience in this area, having created blousons in all sorts of materials while at Maurice Sedwell. In fact, when we started talking about this project it turned out he has been working with a leather specialist in his spare time, helping him develop his ready-to-wear models. In my experience, work such as this on RTW proportions and grading is invaluable, and shunned undeservedly by a lot of tailors.


The idea for our jacket was to create a simple, zip-up blouson in a veg-tanned, naturally finished leather. The finish on the leather should make up for the fact that most modern jackets go through a ‘distressing’ process to make them look old and worn, particularly around the seams.

Although simple in design, the jacket would include quite a few features from bespoke tailoring. The shoulder would have a thin pad, the chest a slim piece of canvas and, most noticeably, the sleeve would be cut to drop down vertically from the shoulder. Casual jackets are usually cut with the sleeve at almost right angles to the body, to allow for plenty of movement up and down. A handmade jacket, with its larger sleevehead and small armhole, can get away with being almost flat to the body.

It’s going to be an interesting journey, and doubtless the design that Davide sketched, above, will change over the fittings (in waste cloth). Hopefully what we end up with will be both stylish and unique. 


Royal warrant holders at the Coronation Festival

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This past weekend saw the Coronation Festival in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, at which holders of royal warrants exhibited. 

The royal warrant is not exactly the mark of quality that some might assume, given that it includes Austin Reed and Daks among its clothiers. But bespoke tailors at the event included Gieves & Hawkes, Henry Poole, Benson & Clegg, Dege & Skinner and Kent Haste & Lachter, as well as Permanent Style favourites such as John Smedley, Corgi, Swaine Adeney Brigg and Turnbull & Asser. 

A handful of menswear people were invited to lunch by Gieves & Hawkes, whose stand was probably the best there: an exhibition of 200 years of work under royal warrants, plus a few pieces from the fantastic new Royal Collection. This, Jason Basmajian's first full collection, is a huge step up for Gieves ready-to-wear: all made by Cheshire Bespoke in England, fully canvassed, English materials, unfinished sleeves/trousers and with alterations available from the bespoke department.


Stephen Lachter and Terry Haste on their stand.


Henry Poole had some basting work on display. Cue a lovely conversation with some amateur seamstresses.


I'm a big fan of Swaine Adeney & Brigg. Great English luggage, hand sewn and reasonably priced. This is their Lifetime Trunk, with a selection of compartments and boxes intended to be filled with personal effects and kept throughout one's life. Launched to tie in with the impending royal baby, of course.


He may not have a royal warrant.


In front of the stage, in Henry Poole 8-ounce DB, Drake's tie, Satriano Cinque shirt and John Lobb (Paris) shoes.


PR James Massey, Luke Leitch of The Times and stylist William Gilchirst.


Vintage Daks adverts, on the side of their stand.

How to buy a panama hat

How to wear fragrance

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If men are scared of colour, pattern and real trousers they are terrified of perfume. If they sometimes turn to fashion brands for reassurance in their clothing, they do so constantly with fragrance. It is much-misunderstood and misused. Here is my guide to wearing it.
Quality

Once you spend more than around £80 on 50ml of a perfume, the creator has had free range of the vast majority of the world’s ingredients. This is of course a lot of money, and there is nothing wrong with cheaper ingredients (the simple citrus-and-herb colognes). But the only objective thing to measure in the quality of a perfume is its ingredients, and above this price you’re on safe ground.

Concentration

Eau de Cologne, de Toilette and de Parfum indicate different strengths of perfume (3-8%, 8-10%, 15-20%). Cologne was made for a time when men changed three times a day and reapplied three times. You need EdT at a minimum and preferably EdP. Extrait de Parfum, one step up, is also becoming popular.

Applying

Wear more. Most men have one spritz on the chest or neck, and that’s it. Go for two or three – you should be able to smell it for up to an hour afterwards, and everyone else when they come close for most of the rest of the day. Go for pulse points (neck, wrist) and, particularly in the winter, the chest. Stronger, wintry scents will come through the cloth of a shirt where citrus ones will not. Apply lighter scents to the base of the neck or edges of the hair. And never on your face. This is not an aftershave and it’s not the 1980s.

Quantity

There’s nothing wrong with having more than one perfume. A perfume should suit your mood, your day and the weather – just like your clothes. Over the years you will probably build up a collection of 4-6. Two that are definitely autumn/winter fragrances, two very summery and two in between. It should be pretty instinctive which are which – lighter, citrus scents for the sun, heavier and spicier ones for the evening and winter.

Selecting

1. Fragrance is a journey of discovery. You’re not going to walk into Liberty’s, try 7 or 8 scents and select the one you will wear for the rest of your life. Get a couple of samples if you can, and wear it for up to a week, in the right conditions. It may take a year or more to feel you know the scents well, but this should be a pleasurable journey, like getting to know wines or whiskies.

2. Remember your preferences will also change over time. Sense of smell drops off from the age of 20, so you will prefer stronger scents as you get older; and as with drink, you will come to prefer bitter over sweet.

3. When people rate fragrances, they are largely going on the complication and balance of the ingredients. There is something to analyse here – it is not entirely subjective – but scents also suit different people: their skin, their clothes, their style. So take any ratings of perfumes with a pinch of salt. Try everything and make up your own mind.

4. Making up your mind, of course, is the hard bit. Some critics and perfumers say that fragrance is polarising: your reaction to it will be either very good or very bad. I’ve never found that. With at least half of the ones I try, I’m in the middle.

They also say you will see the reaction in others: compliments from women, awkward questions from men. I haven’t found that either. And personal analysis of what suits my skin I find unsatisfactory.


But then, even though I’ve been wearing and experimenting with fragrance for 15 years, I am at the beginning of my journey. And I’m enjoying it.

More on my favourite fragrances, and the best places to buy them, next week.

With thanks to Michael Donovan, Lorenzo Villoresi, Kean Etro, Gianluca Foa and many other fans of fragrance

The bespoke leather jacket: Part 2

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This is my first fitting on the bespoke leather jacket being made by Davide Taub of Gieves & Hawkes.

I already have a suit pattern at Gieves, having had a travel blazer made there a couple of years ago, and Davide has since altered that, so he was familiar with my shape. He created this model for the leather jacket using that pattern and his original design, in a waste piece of cloth.



Compared to an off-the-peg jacket, you immediately notice the close fit around the armhole. A regular jacket would never have this – even those few made by hand never cut it close because they need to cope with a variety of sizes.

Design-wise, we decided to keep it very simple. There were a few bells and whistles on Davide’s original design– such as an extended waistband – that we quickly dropped.

If you have never designed a piece like this, it’s incredibly hard to get these things right. How long should the waistband be? How should it fasten? Should it fold back? How will it work in the leather? The only realistic options are either to copy an existing model exactly, or go without. We decided to go without.



The original design also considered adjustors on the waist, but I wanted to forego those to demonstrate that, being bespoke, they were not needed. We also couldn’t quite decide on the placement of the pockets, so left those off. I would never use exterior pockets on a jacket as short as this, and inside there will be exactly the right pockets to hold all my things.

Given this minimal look, we quickly realised the importance of the collar and the seam lines running down the front and across the back. These seams had originally been placed by Davide to run into the seams of the sleeves. We kept this on the back, but decided to run the front seams a little further forward, to create a slimmer look.

The collar had originally been quite long and pointed, taking its cue from a shirt collar. We quickly trimmed that back – you can see it has been folded under and pinned. A shorter and wider collar went with the design better and looked more contemporary.

So many things to think about, on such a simple piece.


Photography: Luke Carby

Factory sale: Drake's, Edward Green and Mackintosh

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Drake’s, Edward Green and Mackintosh are having a sale this week at the new Drake’s factory – 3 Haberdasher Street (wonderfully), N1 6ED.

The days and times are: Wednesday, 10am-8pm; Thursday to Saturday, 12pm-7pm. We are promised discounts of up to 70%. It’s also a good excuse to see the nice new factory.

Vitale Barberis Canonico

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This past week I’ve been in Biella, visiting the lovely people at Vitale Barberis Canonico and researching a piece on Italian mills and bunches – a follow-up to the popular post on English mills.

Barberis is going through something of a transition at the moment, with Fracesco Vitale Barberis recently taking over from his father Luciano as creative director. (Below, Francesco on the left, Luciano in the middle and head of communications Simone Ubertino Rosso on the right).


Barberis is in a good position, being the only big mill left that doesn’t also have a clothing line (Zegna, Loro Piana and Cerruti are the others) and its independence will only be more of a bonus given the recent takeover of Loro Piana by the LVMH group. Zegna is already VBC’s biggest customer.

Francesco is a true anglophile, and the only Italian I know whose favourite game is Mornington Crescent (always a sign that someone really understands the English). Simone is a sharp young guy who, usefully, speaks fluent Mandarin. And the rest of the team are extremely switched on, gearing up for trying to increase awareness about Vitale Barberis Canonico. There is to be an archive room – they are the oldest recorded mill still working in the world, after all – and a celebration later in the year of the 350-year anniversary.

As I have said before, there is little difference between mills and less between cloth merchants. Your choice of cloth shouldn’t be based on the brand on the front. Barberis is often seen as lower in quality than Zegna, Dormeuil or others, but it’s only because they produce a wider range, from the cheap to the luxurious.

What difference there is between all these mills/merchants is down to quality control and some finishing (what Lesser’s reputation was always based on). Your decision between bunches should be based on the objective facts: the raw materials, the weave, the design. And what your tailor likes working with.   

The biggest difference between English and Italian mills is that the latter are vertically integrated. Where Pennine weaves, Johnson’s finishes and Dugdale’s sells in the UK, Barberis actually owns some sheep in Australia (only a few, mind) and then combs, dyes, spins, weaves and finishes itself.

It’s hard to think of another industry with such a contrast in integration – yet there is little difference in the final product. There goes the argument always trotted out in luxury magazines about how great it is to own every part of the production.

Over the next few weeks: the dyeing process, the Barberis tailor, Italians mills and merchants explained, and the great VBC cycling team. 


Summer cloths from 1931. Crikey. 


I love old cloth books. Such beautiful objects. Notebook used to show scale

VBC Rides!

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The glorious 'VBC Rides' cycling team, with riders from a variety of the local mills. We're in front of the Oropa monastery, at the end of the glorious climb from Biella that was made famous by Pantani in the 1999 Giro: his chain came off at the bottom of the climb yet he managed to win the stage, overtaking 60 riders on his way up.

Below: on the other side, contemplating the descent and the climb up to the Bielmonte ski station.


How to dress in hot weather

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The remarkable heat in London over the past two weeks has led to a few questions from readers as to the best way to stay cool in tailoring. Here are my top five tips.

1 Wear linen

Linen is a wonderful cloth: breathable and cool to the touch. Although each has other benefits, ceteris paribus I vastly prefer it to cotton, fresco or other high-twist fabrics.

Linen will wrinkle, of course, but go for an 11-ounce weight or heavier and the effect will be reduced. And you don’t need to have it in cream or tan either, so there need be no concerns about associations with colonial overlords. Navy linen can be nice, and my favourites are chocolate, tobacco brown and grey.

2 Go sockless

“But it’s hot today, and I don’t have a linen suit.” So first thing: take off your socks. If you generally wear over-the-calf socks, like me, this can make a vast difference to the coolness of your legs. It goes against the point of over-the-calf, of course, as you are exposing ungentlemanly leg hair, but needs must. The look is particularly effective when everything else is formal: navy cotton suit, shirt and tie, calf slip-ons…and bare ankles.

If you find this uncomfortable, try the cut-away socks that sit below the line of the shoe – often called trainer socks. Trunk in London sells some good Tabio ones, as does A Suitable Wardrobe.

3 Wear a hat

Keeping the sun off your head keeps you cool. You may feel sweaty – and cooler, therefore, when you take the hat off – but the direct sun is always hotter. So wear a nice panama. Not a tiny little trendy trilby, but a proper hat.

If you want to avoid those colonial associations, again, try it in a colour other than cream, such as Brent Black’s caramel-coloured Safari editions. And wear it with a bit of panache. Think Jude Law in The Talented Mr Ripley: cocked back, or tipped to one side, with big bronzed grin.

4 Lightweight everything

There are lightweight versions of almost everything you wear. Lightweight shirtings, lightweight chinos, linen socks, unlined shoes and of course lightly constructed jackets. The problem with all of them is that the weather is rarely warm enough for long enough (at least in the UK) to justify it. There will be perhaps three weeks a year when I think I really need a lightweight shirt.

The one item that I think it is worth investing in is a Neapolitan jacket. Anyone can use a lightweight cloth, but I have tried summer jackets from four English tailors and none of them compare to a Neapolitan construction. Get one in a lightweight wool/silk mix, and you can wear it with a cardigan when the weather cools down.

5 Put up with it

You can wear more clothes in the heat than you think. First, it is often cooler to be covered up, as mentioned under point 3. Direct sun on the skin is the enemy. And second, you get used to wearing more clothes over time. Even in the depths of winter, most men today would feel weird in mid-weight flannel, because they’re not used to it. Try wearing that lightweight Neapolitan jacket for a few days and see if you get used to it.  

Picture: At Camps de Luca, Paris. Hat just out of shot; stiff Corthays not quite suited to going sockless.

Italy's mills and merchants explained

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This is a follow-up to my popular post on English mills and cloth merchants: how to tell them apart, how they are related and how to select between them (basically, don’t; there is little difference).

Italian mills are a lot simpler, as there is less overlap and fewer brands. But they are also different in some substantial ways to English mills. The major differences are:

- A lot of Italian mills make ‘Italian-style’ ranges for English merchants and non-English merchants such as Scabal and Dormeuil. These are not always labelled as such in the cloth books. Far fewer English mills supply cloth to the Italian mills, though there are some in Ariston and Caccioppoli bunches.

- More Italians mills are vertically integrated, doing their own finishing for example. And the big mills such as Zegna do everything from owning sheep to dying, spinning, weaving and finishing. English mills usually just weave. 

- Italian mills rarely use lots of different brands and old names, unlike England where mills have merged over the years, leading to a lot of historic names.

The following is a list of the Italian mills, merchants and mill-merchants that supply cloth to bespoke tailors. Putting it together has involved input from four different Italian mills, though it is likely still not comprehensive. If anyone knows any I have missed, let me know and I will include it once verified.

Mill and merchant:

Ermenegildo Zegna: Vertically integrated, from sheep to suit. One of the biggest producers and sellers of cloth to tailors. Buys cloth from other mills for its branded tailoring, but otherwise only sells its own cloth (other than cottons).  

Loro Piana: Vertically integrated, from sheep to suit. Again one of the biggest producers; only sells its own cloth. Particularly specialises in raw materials.

Vitale Barberis Canonico: Vertically integrated, from sheep to bunch. Sells around 50% under its own name and 50% under others’, including many English and Italian merchants.

Cerruti: Mill, with a separate fashion line. Weaves for many merchants, but also sells small some under its own name, such as co-branded bunches with Dugdale’s.

Drago: Mill, selling a little under its own name but mostly under others’.


Mills:

Ormezzano: Mill, only sells under its own name to ready-to-wear. Unlike most Italian mills, doesn’t do its own finishing.

Colombo, which also has its own clothing line

E.Thomas

Zignone

Botto Fila

Piacenza 1773

Reda


Merchants:

Caccioppoli: Neapolitan. Collects together ranges from lots of mills and sells a more southern-Italian look. Most Italian mills offer the more sober end of their range in England, which is what sets Caccioppoli apart.

Drapers: Partially owned by Barberis. Sells around 50% Barberis cloth and 50% from others.

Ariston

Eurotex

Carnet

Giovanni Barberis Organista

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This is Giovanni Barberis Organista, tailor to the Vitale Barberis Canonico family. The two families are only distantly related (the last two names are both surnames, indicating a split at some point). More importantly, Giovanni’s family have made suits for the VBC family for three generations.

Giovanni has been working as a tailor since 1955. His grandfather started the tradition when he became a tailor in 1875. “It’s wonderful to that living memory, to have worked with someone who made suits in the 19th century,” he says.


Today, Giovanni is semi-retired, making around three suits a week with his wife for help. He trained in Turin, though he says he “should have gone to Savile Row 60 years ago to train with the best, as they were then”.

Giovanni has a collection of old artifacts, including the canvas you can see below, which dates from the end of the 19thcentury. It was for a morning coat – it slims down noticeably towards the bottom. As ever with artifacts like this, the diminutive size is striking.



Giovanni also has a great collection of magazines going back to 1913. Below you can see some of his collection of ‘Le Stile Maschile’, an old Italian series. More on those at a later date.




How to buy fragrance - the perfumes

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Following the recent post on how to buy fragrance, this is the second installment – the brands I like and some suggestions of ones to look for.

First, though, a reader asked about the difference between molecular and natural ingredients. Natural ingredients are generally but not always better. Molecular ingredients are usually cheaper, so the cheaper perfumes use them almost exclusively. But there are some very good molecules as well – ambroxin, for example, which was created in the 1950s to replace ambergris.

“The best perfumes are a combination of both: molecules give them depth and naturals give them sparkle,” says perfume guru Michael Donovan.

Natural ingredients have become much more expensive in recent years, largely due to farming techniques. Tuberoses, roses, jasmine and other ingredients have become unaffordable for cheaper products – hence my point in the previous post that you have to be paying more than £80 a bottle to give the perfumer a full palette of possibilities.

And of course it is possible to have simple fragrances that are quite beautiful. A lot of the traditional colognes worn by our sartorial heroes in the 1920s and 1930s were simple combinations of citrus and herbs. There is the original cologne, Farina Gegenuber 1709, for instance, and several old Italian scents such as Acqua di Genova.

These are classic, fresh and uncomplicated. As with any area of consumption, however, the connoisseurs tend to favour more complicated creations.

So which brands should you look to? Well, one of the main considerations has to be that the scent will be around for a long time. There’s no point undertaking a long journey of discovery, identifying your four favourite scents after years of joyful experimentation, only to discover that two of them have been discontinued.

So look first to classic houses such as Creed – originally English, now French, going strong after 250 years and with a full range of scents for you to play with. Green Irish Tweed is a perennial favourite; I wear Original Vetiver (so named because it had the original idea of using the top of the grass, not the root). Pour un Homme by Caron is also a classic, a strong-lavender scent that is a favourite of Tom Ford.

Among the more modern houses, two stand out: Frederic Malle (above) and Byredo. Malle’s strength is curating – working with the best noses in the world to create their perfect scents. Byredo is a Swedish house that makes less unusual fragrances, but all with unique touches. Both have been so significant in the evolution of men’s perfume since the dog days of the 1990s that they will certainly be around for decades to come.

Some fashion brands do great scents. The risk is that you are paying a certain amount for advertising, fashion shows and retail stores. Etro has always done wonderful fragrances and Tom Ford is a genuine lover of perfume. His scents, particularly the Private Blends in eau de parfum, are great. Perhaps that means you pay £140 for 50ml rather than £90, but if it’s the scent you love then it may be a price worth paying.

The best place to check out these perfumes (other than Tom Ford) is Liberty's, or order 2ml samples from Roullier White.
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