Navy and grey are the kings of colour. They should be your first choice for almost every item of clothing – suit, jacket, trousers, overcoat, knitwear, even ties. Navy in particular for jackets and ties; mid-grey or charcoal for trousers. The combination is just easier that way round.

But what should you turn to next? For that next V-neck sweater; for the first non-trouser-matching pair of socks; for the alternative overcoat.

There are several contenders, including brown, tan, green and burgundy. But for me, green wins. Brown is too often the colour of your leather accessories; tan is not versatile enough; burgundy works well with navy suits but less so with grey.

Green is the third colour. Wear it deep and dark, as a cardigan under a suit or socks under trousers.  

Among my favourite greens:

-       Long-sleeved polo shirt by Zanone, pictured

-       Flannel suit by Brian Smith

-       Upcoming overcoat by Sartoria Vergallo

-       Every other pair of socks I own

Flannel trousers by Anderson & Sheppard, leather jacket by Gieves & Hawkes, Cartier Tank Francaise chronograph watch.  Out of shot: Brown slip-ons by Gaziano & Girling. 

As previously, click on the image to enlarge. Photo by Khalil Musa

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If I have an addiction outside of tailoring, it is not shoes or ties but outerwear. Leather jackets, suede blousons, trench coats: I love the ability of such big pieces to radically change a look and a silhouette. Leather, cotton and their derivatives have just as much appeal as wool. 

Of course, the problem with such casual pieces is that they look so much better when they are aged. And if you have a lot of them, they don’t age quickly. Which leads one onto vintage outerwear.  

One of the interesting things about RRL - the brand set up in 1993 by Ralph Lauren and initially inspired by the ranch he runs with his wife Ricky (hence RRL) – is that it sells real vintage clothing alongside vintage-inspired designs. Most stores only use vintage as decoration. It is implied that the new clothing retains the value of the old, though that is rarely the case. RRL, by contrast, is happy for the two types of clothing to compete. 

I interviewed the RRL designers in New York as part of a piece on The Rake website recently, and it was interesting to note how deliberate the choice was to share retail space between the old and the new. It demonstrates a lot of the design and construction features that have been borrowed from old pieces, and shows a genuine love of vintage clothing.

The problem with such vintage clothing, however, is the fit. Practical outerwear is often roomy, both to accommodate equipment and a multitude of shapes. Genuine workwear was usually cut square, both because it was easier and because fit was of little concern. Finally, some pieces were made for very specific purposes that make them impractical today. 

The vintage pieces at the RRL store in London – which is worth a visit in any case – bring this home particularly strongly. The WW2 flight jacket shown at top, for example, is a beautiful piece of engineering. Made of  thick shearling, it is incredibly warm and insulating. But it is also cut with inserts under the arms so that they sit at right angles to the body. When you wear it you can barely hold your arms at your sides; you certainly can’t pop up the collar. It was not made with such piffling concerns in mind. It was made for a man to sit in a cockpit for hours an end, and survive the wind and the cold. It is not an urban entity.

The two waxed jackets below demonstrate the opposite problem. The one on the left is a Barbour fishing jacket. It is beautifully aged and has nice touches of wear without sacrificing practicality – as with all the RRL pieces. But it is also aggressively A-line. It is pinched at the back here, as several vintage pieces are, to suggest more shape. In reality you could fit two small children under it alongside you. 

The wax jacket on the right is RRL’s recreation. It is a lovely piece, with great detailing on the pockets and sensitively if artificially aged. But it doesn’t have the charm of the vintage Barbour.

So what’s the solution? Find new pieces from brands such as Ralph Lauren and wear them intensively. Wearing them in the rain always helps, as does keeping them crumpled up in a bag. (No need to run them over with a tractor, as some Barbour owners are renowned to do.) Or, if intensive wear is not an option then find good, hand-applied distressing. Just don’t buy distressed jeans – it doesn’t take long to imprint your own patina on a pair of jeans and they look so much better for it. 

[Below: a DB chalkstripe suit that The Rake's Wei Koh is enamoured with and I also admire. It is of course RTW, and I only wear bespoke tailoring, but we should never underestimate the ability of brands such as RRL to come up with better fabrics than most of the mills (big brands have far greater commercial freedom and resources) and better designs than even the best tailors or their bespoke customers.]

 Photos: Luke Carby

For those that were interested in the Chittleborough & Morgan suit I wrote about last week, here are some more images.

The photography was done by new online luxury magazine Essence, for whom I wrote a short piece on Anderson & Sheppard recently. Fortuitously, I happened to be wearing the C&M suit that day. You can read the article here.

Above, outside the Anderson & Sheppard shop and, below, shots in the cutting and fitting rooms with Ollie Trenchard. As per usual, I think almost nothing can be read into the photos about how the suit fits. But they are certainly illustrative of the style.  

Shirt: Satriano Cinque. Charcoal cashmere tie: Panta Clothing. Wool/silk tie: Drake’s. Alligator shoes: Lodger.

(All images should enlarge if clicked on, to just under the size of your window.)

In the search for decent sponge-and-press services, I recently tried Press2Dress, a dry cleaner based in south London and run by Michael Norman.

Michael is developing an online service that specialises in cleaning and pressing for bespoke clothing. He has 25 years’ experience in the industry and a small staff with similar experience. Any dry cleaning is done one piece at a time – unlike most dry cleaners, who pile everything into one drum – and on a manual programme rather than automatic. This means there is less agitation of the garments and they can be watched carefully, to make sure they handle the process ok. A pure filtered solution is also used each time.

Spot cleaning (the ‘sponge’ in sponge and press) is done by hand using steam and water-spotting guns, as well as a spotting chemical and brushes. Generally this is all that is needed for a suit unless it is heavily soiled – or the marks are oil-based. Perhaps most importantly, pressing is done expertly by hand. 

I tried the service a couple of weeks ago, to assess how ‘expertly’ it could be done, and the results were impressive. The small marks on my Graham Browne suit (pictured) came out nicely and the pressing was very well done – a lot better than my recent experiment with Jeeves. The lapel roll was retained and the trouser crease was perfect. 

Michael’s dry-cleaning service costs £40 for a suit, £21 for a jacket; spot cleaning is £30 and £16. That’s less than Jeeves. Of course, unless you’re going to south London, the pieces will have to be picked up – which costs £25. But if you do a few suits at a time, the cost is reasonable. 

Unless there are particular emergencies with stains, I tend to have my suits cleaned every two years, but pressed every year when they come out of summer or winter storage. I therefore plan to shift to a system where Michael picks up my clothes that have just come out of storage, cleans perhaps half of them, presses all of them, and makes any small repairs that are needed. For a wardrobe of expensive bespoke suits, it is not a large annual cost.

Michael can be contacted on: michaelnorman7@gmail.com

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Background: For those that haven’t followed previous posts about sponge-and-press services, you can read the review of Jeeves here, and of a similar service to Press2Dress that also does high-end valet services here.

In general, suits do not have to be cleaned very often, and should’t be. Regular dry cleaning will damage the fibres and drastically shorten the life of the suit. Often all it needs is a good press – the steam pressing that any bespoke tailor will do to a suit before giving it to you. Steam does great things for wool, and the press will give the suit back its crisp finish. Any small stains can normally be done with some spot cleaning – hence the ‘sponge and press’ service that many tailors offer on their own suits. 

They won’t do this for others’ suits, however, so that has driven my search over the past few years to find a good, independent sponge-and-press service. Press2Dress seems like the best solution so far.

I adore the A/W photo shoot for Drake’s, shown here. Such vivid colour combinations.

It reminds me of a post I wrote almost four years ago now about my favourite early photos on The Sartorialist, called ‘Casual and formal wear are closer than you think‘.

There are some things I would change about the post now (like the man with the green scarf) but the point remains about inspiration drawn from both casual and formal wear. Sometimes fans of sartorial clothing can get stuck in minutiae and  historical references. It does us good to spread our gaze a little wider.

Below, my favourite ever Sartorialist photo, for just that reason.

One of the new makers I met in Naples last month was D’Avino, a small shirtmaker run by Fiorenzo Auricchio (above). Fiorenzo trained as a boy under his father, who worked for Gino Borelli – so a pretty decent education – and then set up his own company.

As regular readers will know, I regularly use Satriano Cinque to make my shirts, and I have been more than happy with them. Given the people I have met at the Satriano visits over the past few months, others are clearly happy with them too.

But while Satriano delivers that lovely soft Neapolitan construction, and the most important, functional handwork (collar attachment, sleeve insertion), it is not the ultimate of what Naples can offer. That is reflected in the price: Satriano starts at €180, where Kiton and others are up towards €300. (More on Kiton, run by another Borelli, the lovely Sebastiano, here.)

D’Avino is the ultimate. Everything on the shirt except the long side seams and the edging of collar and cuffs is done by hand. As with Kiton, the side seams are also turned and then stitched by hand again, to give the seam pliancy.

Indeed, in a few small ways D’Avino goes further than Kiton. The placket on the sleeve is entirely constructed and attached by hand; the seam along the back of the yoke is done by hand; the cuff is attached to the sleeve by hand. Fiorenzo puts it at 25 hand operations, where Kiton is 17. I haven’t counted my shirts, but I’ll take his word for it.

These are all tiny, unnecessary details. They make no functional difference to the shirt. Perhaps attaching the cuff by hand gives it natural curve, as with the collar, but it’s tenuous. As with many aspects of a Cifonelli suit (of which more later in the week), the value is in the pure aesthetics, the pleasure of craft for its own sake.

D’Avino shirts run from €250 to €400. The photo at top is of the fitting in Naples – I will post more when I have the final shirt to assess. In the meantime, click on the images below to see close-ups of Fiorenzo’s work. The yellow stitches are basting. 

Those of you with long memories will have fond recollections of the annual scrum that was the Drake’s Christmas sale at the old factory. After a brief stay at the Music Rooms, the sale is now being held at the new factory on Haberdasher Street, and there is a much wider range of stock available, from knitwear and throws to shirts and Mackintoshes. 

The sale goes on for the next three days, but there were already people queuing at 9am today, so get there today if you can. Discounts mostly 60%-70%, with ties down from £115 to £35. 

Lorenzo Cifonelli made me this beautiful suit at the beginning of the year, and I’ve meaning to write about it ever since. 

He has cut two jackets for me in the past, a pale-grey cashmere DB and a green tweed SB. I gave details about both of them at the time, and you can see them at those links. However, I thought it was worth going into a little more detail here, particularly given reaction from some of my favourite tailors to this 11oz three-piece. 

In the words of one cutter, Cifonelli uses an extravagant amount of handwork in its suits. I think extravagance is the right word. I offer no justification for it from a practical point of view – it is pure aesthetics.

The waistcoat, for example, is handsewn and then top stitched around the collar and the armhole; even the bottom of the lining, where it joins the cloth, is handsewn, which is completely unnecessary. Indeed, it is harder to achieve the straight line required when sewing by hand – Cifonelli’s is, of course, straight, but it will have taken an hour or more to do that one seam. I will post more close-up photos of these aspects next week. 

It is easy to focus too much on the construction, however, for the fit and styling are also superb. No flat-fronted pair of trousers I have fits so cleanly down the fronts. The waistcoat uses two darts in the front – one only under the pocket – to shape it into the front of those trousers. As a result it sits clean and flat against the trousers where others often stand away. 

Among style points, the roping of the shoulder and broader lapel give a great plunging-V to the jacket, without resorting to the drape or heavier canvas of English tailors. The buttons are a chunky brown horn – probably the only showy thing about the suit – that I love. I always find it funny when English tailors tell you the horn buttons they have are the only ones on the market. They haven’t spent any time looking. 

At over €5000, this is an extravagant suit in many ways. But it is also one of the most beautiful things I have ever worn and many other tailors could learn from the style points as well as the construction. 

More photos next week.

Photos: Luke Carby

A colleague recently asked me for advice on buying a suit – probably navy, certainly single-breasted, possibly three-button. It’s the kind of everyday question that I get asked a lot, and probably concerns far more people than ‘Which French tailor has the best finishing?’

So here’s a guide through the posts on Permanent Style that should help answer that question. Even with the new categorisation system, I realise it’s not always easy to find the exact post you want. 

1 – How to look good in a suit

General advice on both buying and wearing suits. A good place to start.

2 – How to find a quality suit

What to look for in a ready-to-wear suit, from canvas to stitching, in one of my columns for How to Spend It, the Financial Times magazine

3 – Style and colour

A much broader area this, and one that has never been covered in a single post for that reason. I recommend looking through the Reader Question and How to Wear It sections, however, as that covers most of the points. 

2 – How to have a suit altered

If you’re going for ready-to-wear, you should have the suit altered, at least somewhere. This post has become a reference tool for such alterations, with 37 comments since it was first posted five years ago. Remember to glance at the comments on all posts – often the follow-up question you had will be answered there.

3 – Going to the tailor

If you decide to go for bespoke, read this post. Given my colleague is in Hong Kong, bespoke is a very real possibility. But you need to know what you want, and be firm with it.

I hope that’s helpful. I do notice there’s no post that deals with style basics such as 2 vs 3-button however, or navy vs grey. I’ll put that on the list. And if anyone wants a lot more people, there is also of course my book. 

My latest article in the Financial Times, on luxury hiking boots, was published this weekend. 

If you’re interested, the post can be found here.

In Paris this week, seeing all the Cs – Cifonelli, Camps de Luca, Corthay, Charvet, plus a few new faces. Look out for an exclusive peep behind the doors of the Arnys tailoring atelier too, now of course owned by Berluti. 

On a beautifully sunny winter’s day, above are grey flannels from Anderson & Sheppard, worn with old Lodger alligator shoes and – just peeking through – my favourite Palatino green socks.

Dinner with Lorenzo Cifonelli on Monday was a highlight of this week’s trip to Paris. So conscientious, so grounded yet creative: Lorenzo in many ways has the perfect character for a tailor. And he has good taste in restaurants.

I was having two jackets altered while I was there – my grey herringbone and green tweed – with the waist being taken in and, as a result of the same weight loss, the collar tightened slightly. We all lean forward a little more when we lose weight, as the distribution changes from front to back.

Lorenzo is also in the early stages of a collaboration with Corthay (more on Pierre next week). It looks like this will begin with sharing customers and some stock, but build into something bigger. I can’t wait to see what shoes Lorenzo would design, and what suits Pierre…

As regular readers will know, I am a big fan of Lorenzo’s restless creativity, but tend to tone down his designs for myself. Perhaps grey yak hair rather than bright green; perhaps one less calf-leather strap. The  jackets above are good examples. Two things he has made recently I loved 100%, however.

One is this jersey jacket, which is made of a much heavier jersey than most tailors use, and therefore better suits the structure of bespoke. The second was his double-breasted ‘sports’ overcoat, which has patch pockets and a horizontal gorge. I have learned from bitter experience how practical this is on an overcoat. With regular peaked lapels, popping the collar never quite works. Either they fold back down or relentlessly poke you in the chin.

Finally, I mentioned in a recent post how good Lorenzo is on buttons. The reason is that he commissions new designs himself, such as the matte/shiny buttons on my herringbone jacket, and chunky ones on my navy suit. Below is a selection of the ones he has designed, including Cifonelli-logoed blazer buttons.

As someone who has spent too much of the past year redeveloping a website, I take my hat off to Will, who has accomplished a much more fundamental redesign over at A Suitable Wardrobe – melding the blog with the ASW store.

One of the hardest things of keeping up such a store is discovering new products, and having bought two of them recently I thought they deserved a personal recommendation.

One is the Francois Pinton glasses, a brown tortoiseshell version of which I have worn for the past two years and several readers have commented upon. Admittedly, I had no idea the name was well known – I merely liked the design when I saw them in my local optician. But it seems I was lucky to do so, for they are hard to track down.

I now have the honey-coloured ones as well, courtesy of ASW, and find the colour to be a subtle point of interest without being too dramatic. Many of my favourite things, such as flannel or tan-leather watchstraps, fall into that category.

Second are the kidskin gloves, which if anything sound like they were even harder to source. I went for the brown suede versions, which are also a versatile choice and perhaps just a touch unusual. Brown will be a popular choice for men, but can look a little off with black shoes or bags. Suede makes that pairing a little easier.

Cleverley is having a last-minute sale on Wednesday, selling off bespoke shoes that weren’t picked up, were made in the wrong colour or for whatever other reason (other than quality) were never sold. 

There are 25 models available, in a good range of sizes. The models shown here are size 10, 8.5, 9.5 and 7, from top to bottom. They range in price from £500 to £1000 depending on the material, down from £2800 to £4800.

Readers will remember that I bought a pair in such a sale a few years ago, and they have done me proud. The sale will last one day, 8am to 9pm on Wednesday, December 18th. Good luck.

Photos: Luke Carby

I’ve received a few odd communications over the years, but this is the first time anyone has drawn a cartoon of me. As a big fan of graphic novels myself, particularly Chris Ware, this was a lovely thing to receive, although I must say the illustrator Yoann Duran has been rather generous to both my receding hairline and my looks overall. 

Items that appear to have been selected from around the blog include my Anderson & Sheppard flannel DB in royal blue, Alfred Dunhill bag and Edward Green suede shoes.

There haven’t been many people into the Arnys workshop since it was reopened under Berluti’s ownership. Indeed, there is still a ban on photography in the workshop itself, which seems a little odd given it is simply eight people sitting at the usual workbenches, stitching jackets together. 

The consultancy and cutting areas, however, have to be the most luxurious bespoke tailoring space in the world. Dark-wood panelling, deep leather chairs and cloth books bound with Berluti’s venezia leather lend it an opulent feel. Sliding glass doors separate the cutter – surrounded by basted jackets and hanging patterns – from the clients. 

One wall of the consultancy area is made of built-in wardrobes that house sample garments. Many tailors keep examples of their work on display; some even use sample pieces to give clients an idea of styles; but I have never seen a tailor with such an extensive wardrobe of potential suits, jackets and coats. Indeed, alongside one-button, two-button and double-breasted suits are an overcoat, a short, casual coat and a pair of jeans. Arnys/Berluti clients are clearly expected to have a range of things made bespoke.

The work itself is beautiful – top-stitched silk linings, Milanese buttonholes and delicately curved patch pockets. According to Jean-Francois, the head of the bespoke operation, the construction and cut is even softer than that of the Right Bank tailors we already know, such as Cifonelli, Smalto and Camps de Luca: “The Left Bank is characterised by a more relaxed, liberal attitude to life, which comes through in soft clothing, more colour and more creativity.” Men with experience of Arnys can tell me how true that is.

Jean-Francois, head cutter Karim and the whole bespoke team came over wholesale from Arnys, including Karim’s father Alfredo, who led it for many years and is still involved in much of the tailoring. I was never a bespoke customer of Arnys before the takeover, but the make and cut of the jackets seems to have continued unhindered, even if the Berluti aesthetic is rather different from Jean Grimbert’s free-spirited creations. 

As a relentless optimist, I also see a silver lining here for bespoke tailoring as a whole. Karim is travelling almost every week at the moment, visiting Berluti stores in London, China, Japan and elsewhere. Having a company like LVMH pushing this quality of bespoke tailoring globally has to be good for the industry, and a welcome change from ‘bespoke’ programmes offered by fashion houses, particularly in Italy. The growth Berluti bespoke shoemaking (post coming next week) could be similarly beneficial.

In Paris last week Dirnelli organised a wonderful dinner of fans of the blog and bespoke gentlemen. He is fourth from the right. The other gentlemen will remain nameless.

Around the table were customers of Chittleborough & Morgan, Solito, Camps de Luca, Rubinacci, Steven Hitchcock, Ripense, Napoli su Misura (NSM) and others. I found it striking how many serious bespoke customers there were among such a group in Paris. My experience in London and elsewhere is that readers tend not to have such extensive experience, or the ones that do are not active online. Indeed, this Parisian group was collectively responsible for convincing NSM to start travelling to Paris. Note the Permanent Style Tweed in the Ripense jacket below, right.

As per last year, Graham Browne will be holding a Christmas sale on suits and jackets commissioned during the last few days of the year.

They will be taking orders on December 23, 24, 30 and 31. Suits in stock cloths will be £800, while there are W Bill jacketings for £640 and Lumb’s Golden Bale suitings from Lesser’s for £980, following contributions from both those houses.

More details on the Graham Browne blog.

A reader asked what I was wearing at the dinner of Parisian Gentlemen last week. Fortunately, a profile photo was taken that day at the intellectual property conference I was speaking at – the reason I was in Paris in the first place. 

In the picture, above: Cifonelli double-breasted cashmere jacket (SherryKash bunch); D’Avino spread-collar shirt; Drake’s navy grenadine tie; Francois Pinton glasses; and Kiton linen pocket square. Out of shot: charcoal worsted trousers (from Caliendo) and Cleverley chocolate Oxfords. 

It is a subtle combination of small surprises: cashmere herringbone rather than worsted, double-breasted rather than single, paler glasses than one might expect, and grenadine rather than plainer silk.

Talking to Alfredo at Arnys that evening, he insisted it was “le style anglais”. Interesting, for I always think of it as an Italian look – hence the Italian Background. Then again, most sartorial traditions are other nations’ takes on the English look. England via Milan, perhaps.  

Also of interest, for me at any rate, is that the charcoal trousers out of shot are now my most common partner for odd jackets. Mid-grey flannels are lovely too, but often the texture clashes with fuzzier materials, such as cashmere. I’m having a similar pair made at Chittleborough & Morgan for just that reason. (You can see the Caliendo pair with my Solito jacket here.)