It’s been tremendously fun putting together these custom cloth runs. Subscribers have mostly been from Western Europe, East Asia, and the United States, although I’ve been happy to see other parts of the world represented. Earlier this year, a reader from Lebanon called me to phone-in his order, and we chatted for a while about Lebanese and Neapolitan tailors. 

Last year, I wrapped up a tobacco brown Fresco project. Fresco being a porous weave, high-twist fabric that’s both breathable and wrinkle-resistant (making it good for both summer and travel). And two weeks ago, we just finished deliveries on a slubby silk/ linen I call “summer’s tweed” (partly inspired by this jacket on Taka from Liverano), as well as a rare, patterned Fresco in a blue-and-navy houndstooth. Both projects were about filling a hole in many men’s closets – warm weather suits and sport coats that have the kind of textures and patterns we love in the fall/ winter months, but struggle to find in tasteful combinations in spring/ summer. 

Granted, these runs are only useful for readers who get custom clothes made, but in today’s market, there are so many options – MTO, MTM, and bespoke, either from local or traveling tailors, as well as the occasional remote, online operation. Although good, custom tailoring is always going to be expensive, there are increasingly more affordable options these days. I may put together a list of some of those options in a future post. 

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I don’t know how they do it, but Drake’s seems to get better and better every season. They started as a small scarf company nearly forty years ago, before turning into the tie manufacturer we all know and love. Then in 2013, they bought Rayner & Sturges, the go-to shirt-making factory for brands such as Paul Smith and Ede & Ravenscroft. That factory still produces for other brands today, but the acquisition has also allowed Drake’s to develop their own line of made-in-UK shirts. 

This fall, Drake’s is inching ever-so-closer to becoming a full menswear brand. Along with their sport coats, tailored trousers, and knits – which they’ve carried for a while now – they’re adding raw, selvedge denim jeans and a larger selection of outerwear to their offerings. You can see the difference in this lookbook, which feels really well-rounded. There are tailored clothes for guys who want to look a little sharper during the work week, but also lots of off-duty pieces for the weekend. 

Michael Hill, the company’s Creative Director, tells me he has a lot of favorites in this collection, but thinks the sport coats are a stand-out. “I especially like the linen-cashmere-and-wool gun club,” he tells me. “It’s one of the easiest-to-wear tweeds we’ve done. People wouldn’t think that, with all the color and texture in the jacket, but it pairs so easily with other things.” 

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I found this photo on a friend’s Twitter feed last year. It’s from 1985 and shows the old Holliday & Brown shop in London. For those unfamiliar, Holliday & Brown was a legendary English tie-maker back in the day, although they also made shirts and dressing gowns. Here, one of their customers is being fitted for an ancient madder gown, with a sales associate showing what the sleeves will look like once they’re shortened.

I’ve been wanting an ancient madder gown ever since. Soft and chalky, I imagine wearing one would feel like you’re wrapped in a thin suede. Unfortunately, it seems they’re are no longer available today – at least in the kind of dusty, muted prints you see above. 

Some years ago, scientists found that two of the three dyes used to make madder caused cancer in rats. Which meant, when printers dyed their silks and dumped the solutions out to disposal plants, they risked getting carcinogens into water supplies. They never found a way to filter out those chemicals, so the dyes were banned and replaced with synthetics. Today, only the third dye (indigo) remains in its original form.  

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Summer is a good time for lighter-colored shoes, but they’re not always the easiest to wear. Outside of plain white sneakers – which are admittedly pretty useful, even if ubiquitous – colors that are lighter than mid-brown often stick out too much from your trousers. Most men want to wear things that draw the eye upwards, putting the focus on their shirt, tie, and jacket combination. Lighter-colored shoes, on the other hand, often draw the eye down. 

There are a lots of exceptions. Tan shoes can look great with a pale gray suit, if only because they’re darker than the trousers (the other combination, tan shoes with a navy suit, almost always looks terrible for the opposite reason). I also think they work well with low-contrast ensembles, such as these in this post, or when the shoes are balanced out with a lighter-colored jacket. 

There are also some shoes that are just iconic, such as white buckskins. Having started with students at Princeton in the 1950s, white bucks quickly spread throughout the Ivy League school system, becoming “the shoe” for the style-conscious. Usual combinations included tan chinos or grey flannels, with the dirtiness of the buckskin being a source of pride (much like a well-worn button-down collar). They’re less commonly seen today, but their association with traditional American style endures. 

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Charvet has something like a million shirtings in their workshop. Bolts of fine cottons and breezy linens, stacked shoulder-high from wall-to-wall. It’s the kind of inventory you could get lost in – figuratively and literally – but if you’re willing to venture through it, you’ll come out with the perfect shade of blue. 

I’ve always wanted to commission a Charvet shirt for just that reason, but truthfully, my dress shirt needs are pretty easily satisfied. Like most men, I find blue is blue, white is white. You can mix-in some stripes, and turn to a variety of different weaves, but at the end of the day, a shirt is just a background for your tie. 

Lately, however, I’ve been venturing into slightly bolder, vintage-inspired designs (including Alohas, which I’ll write about another time). For that kind of shirt, you’d have to go to some other place than Charvet – they mostly specialize in the kind of things you’d wear to the office. A better first stop, I think, is Bryceland’s in Japan. 

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For as long as I’ve been interested in shoes, I’ve always favored boots, and one of the first boots I fell in love with were Chelseas. An ankle-length, pull-on boot with elasticized gussets, they were originally invented as an easier-to-wear alternative to button-boots. It wasn’t until the 1960s, however, when they really took off. That’s when they were picked up by rebellious youths in Chelsea, London (hence the name) and The Beatles (although, technically speaking, The Beatles wore a modified version with Cuban heels). 

My first Chelseas were RM Williams’ Gardener. Rounded and clunky, I found them too casual for my wardrobe, so they were replaced a few years later with Edward Green’s Newmarkets. Since then, I’ve learned Chelseas can be worn with almost anything – black ones with slim, charcoal suits for a Modish look, or black jeans and black leather jackets for something edgier. Brown suede Chelseas go well with denim and olive field jackets, or just jeans and chambray shirts. 

I’ve liked my Newmarkets so much that I recently decided to revisit RM Williams’ catalog – this time picking up a pair of their sleeker Craftsman model in tan suede. They cost a fraction of the price of my Edward Greens, but the chiseled, angular toe box lends a more distinctive look than EG’s 202 last (which my Newmarkets are built on). The pull tabs have logos, which is unfortunate, but you don’t really see them when they’re tucked underneath your pants. 

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My favorite jacket from Steed isn’t even something I own. It’s a cream-colored DB Edwin once cut for style writer Glenn O’Brien. In an old feature at GQ, O’Brien said of it: “I have a few tuxes. I guess in case somebody books me in Vegas for a couple of nights. My first-string tux is a peak-lapel Anderson & Sheppard – makes me feel like a million plus. Another is a shawl-collar double-breasted tux. The oddball in my formal wardrobe is this double-breasted white dinner jacket I had made by Steed of Savile Row. It’s not really white, but sort of ‘clotted cream.’ Somehow I rarely wear it. Maybe I’ll throw it on for a party some hot night.” 

If tailored clothing can be hard to wear in the 2016, semi-formal clothes are only more so (and none harder to wear than a cream-colored dinner jacket, as O’Brien notes). Generally speaking, such jackets are reserved for open-air social gatherings on hot, summer evenings. Think: country club dances, yacht club parties, and outdoor weddings (presuming you’re the groom).  

Much of this comes from the jacket’s origins. In the 1930s, well-heeled vacationers wanted something formal they could wear in the tropics, but without having to endure the heavier, darker fabrics traditionally found on evening clothes. So they had white dinner jackets made, originally with single-breasted closures and shawl collar lapels, although double-breasted designs later became popular. 

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End made another round of markdowns and added some new things to their sale section last night. There are some surprisingly good deals, especially when you consider that some of their prices are already lower than what you’d pay in the US (mostly thanks to them discounting for VAT). 

Among some of the more surprising finds, there are Inis Meain and SNS Herning sweaters starting at $115.  Inis Meain’s linen crewnecks, for example, are just $119 (well below the $400+ you’d pay in the US). I wear mine with leather jackets on weekends. There’s also a good selection of Barbour jackets starting at $105, raw denim jeans for $89, and Buttero sneakers for just $115. 

Some other things I like:

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It’s no secret that the key to wearing tailored clothes in the summer is to get something with an open weave. Style writers mention the same line every July: get a jacket that’s softly tailored and unlined, made from a tropical wool or porous linen. That way, you can feel every passing summer breeze. 

The same idea applies to shirts. Everyone knows you can wear a lightweight cotton or linen shirt on a hot day, but few people think about the weave. 

At the most basic level, plain weaves are often more breathable than twills, although not all plain weaves are built alike. Some can be tight; others a bit loose. I recently picked up a few things from Acorn in the UK (a recommendable fabric supplier for those who get custom shirts made. Their cloths are a good value, even if they’re not particularly luxurious). A run down of some of their summer options:

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Small companies often have charming stories and interesting provenance, but sadly, sometimes the quality just isn’t there. That’s the case with Miserocchi, the original car shoe company that invented driving moccasins back in 1942. Their most famous customer, Gianni Agnelli, wore them with soft-shouldered suits and spread-collar polos. After a car accident left him permanently injured, he found their slip-ons much more comfortable than anything stiff or welted.  

In the world of driving moccasins, Miserocchi is dwarfed by Car Shoe and Tod’s, who produce their shoes by the thousands in Eastern Europe and Italy. Miserocchi, on the other hand, still operates out of a small workshop in the alpine village of Domodossola. Supposedly, the two brothers who founded the company had a falling out many years ago. One took the company name, which he later sold to Prada. The other kept the factory, which is now run by his sons. As the marketing line goes, the company still produces everything the way they did fifty years ago, even with a bright red model named after Agnelli (which is what the industrialist wore). 

All that means little, however, once you actually order from them. Back when he was still writing, Will at A Suitable Wardrobe complained about how it took months to get his shoes, and how there were tons of unanswered emails and missed delivery dates in the process. My experience, unfortunately, was the same. It took about three months to receive my order and once I did, I was disappointed with the quality. The leathers are cheap and thin; the soles have loose stitching; and there’s visible glue at the heel. Perhaps worst of all, these just aren’t terribly comfortable. The insoles are made from a hard rubber – much harder than what’s used in my Car Shoes – which makes these feel like Italian getas. 

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