Two quick geeky facts this week.
Today calling something a seven-fold tie often just means that it is multi-fold – more than three folds in the silk. That isn’t because of dishonest marketing or capitalistic shortcuts. Rather, different ways of counting folds have simply become confused. Particularly in Italy, that phrase refers to a technique rather than an actual number of folds.
This is a casual shoe. Can you point out why? (Lodger Finsbury shoe)
As with much of menswear, there exists a sliding scale of the formality of footwear that the obsessive can get caught up in if he so chooses. I think this is generally to sacrifice the beauty of personal expression to the uniformity of correctness – a correctness that doesn’t exist today and, much to the disappointment of many, never existed in the first place. (It is a similar disappointment to the revelation that Italians don’t dress particularly well as a whole, very few Englishmen wear the good suits their country is famous for, and Americans wear Ralph Lauren polo shirts but otherwise singularly fail to look like Ralph Lauren.)
However, there are some differences in shoes that are worth remembering. Here they are.
He would have been measured like this. You shouldn't be
This was a question put to me the other day by a friend. He was asking about shoes, but I think it applies equally to suiting, shirts and other items of dress. Hopefully you will find my response interesting.
Shirts can be hard to wear casually. Even the biggest fan of bespoke shirting for wear with his suits during the working week can find himself defaulting to a T-shirt under knitwear at the weekend. I suggest the alternative of a long-sleeved polo shirt.
Drake's grenadine tie
I think if you were to categorise the main aspects of cloth, they would fall into colour, pattern and texture. That’s probably the order most men would notice those aspects in as well, but I would argue their importance is the other way around.
Check out Tommy Ton's work on GQ USA
I wouldn’t wish that everyone dressed like me. But it’s hard sometimes to find inspiration for the day’s dress when all around you is a sea of jogging bottoms, polyester and denim.
For those that get great pleasure from thinking about what they wear, and a particular thrill from a well-cut jacket and starch-sharp shirt collar, this is my experience on where I find my daily inspiration. I’d be glad to hear yours.
Classic men’s style is well suited to scholarly erudition, based as it is in so much history and the trends that speak of centuries rather than seasons. But reading the history of men’s clothing won’t get you very far towards knowing what to wear yourself. You need both. And the best books that have been written on classic men’s style include a mix, albeit with varying degrees of success in the mixture.
It is important to know what kind of book you’re getting, and hopefully this guide will give you a decent place to start.
A jacket like this but, you know, well made
Suits don’t necessarily fit into everyone’s day-to-day life. For some, in an office full of corporate lawyers, a suit is a necessity and a uniform. It is almost harder to take an interest in clothing that is imposed on you in this way. For other men, the barrier to developing a sartorial interest is the lack of suits in the office. Dressing up when everyone else is dressed down will draw attention; not everyone wants that kind of attention. Trying to show off? Who do you think you are? You’re not impressing anyone you know.
My advice is, dressing well is a question of degrees. So take what your peers wear and up it a notch.
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Bow ties are a tricky proposition for a man not accustomed to wearing them. While it is an item of clothing that could easily seem anachronistic, rather like braces or a fedora, the bow tie has the added disadvantage of being purely decorative. At least braces create the best line in a trouser leg and hats keep you warm and dry. A bow tie is mere fancy.
