The weather in the Bay Area has turned a bit drizzly this past week. The best raincoats I’ve come across are made from techy or treated fabrics – such as Gore-Tex or waxed cotton – but I’ve been relying on this 1950s mountaineering anorak instead. It’s a simple piece, made from an untreated, plain weave cotton, but the pullover style gives great protection, while the string-closure at the neckline can be tightened when it’s cold. 

Pullover-style jackets such as this one have been associated with everyone from adventurers to college students. See, for example, old photos of Edmund Hillary and his team as they climbed up Mount Everest, or Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris in the 1965 film The Heroes of Telemark. Theirs were designed for mountaineering, which means they were made from more rugged materials and insulated for warmth. Somewhere along the way, however, the anorak became trimmer and lighter weight. In the mid-century, Belstaff and Barbour made some for less arduous missions, while in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Peter Storm’s were associated with British casuals. You can also spot the jacket in old Ivy Style photos, such as those in Take Ivy. 

For the kind of wet, chilly weather we’ve been having, I like to wear mine with jeans, some LL Bean boots, and a chunky turtleneck sweater. The problem with anoraks is that the fronts can sometimes be a bit plain, so turtleneck gives bit of a visual interest at the neckline. This particular jacket also has a few interesting pockets around the body – a big kangaroo pocket at the chest, two pockets at the hips, and two pockets halfway at the back. It’s a more interesting look, I think, than the kind of packable anoraks you see today around college campuses. 

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For clients of custom tailors, finding a good spring/ summer fabric can be tough. Once you get past your basic linens, cottons, and tropical wools, you’ll notice that warm-weather fabrics don’t have the same textures and patterns that make fall/ winter clothes so appealing. Gone are your prickly tweeds and district checks. Instead, you’re left with solid-colored fabrics on the one hand, and patterns that look like they can only be worn at Pitti Uomo on the other. 

After last year’s successful tobacco Fresco run, I decided to put together a couple more custom fabrics. Like last time, I’ve found that it can take a lot of work to get the color and general design just right – a little too much of something this way or that way, and the swatches just look off. After a bit of work, however, I think I have what are two very special spring/ summer jacketings. 

 

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Anonymous Ism couldn’t be better named. The Japanese sock manufacturer has little social media presence – no Facebook or Instagram accounts, just a Twitter page with one lonely Tweet. Their company website isn’t even working. I finally tracked down their North American rep a few weeks ago and asked if I could get more information. He replied: “what would you like to know … and why?!”

It seems the company would like to stay as anonymous as possible. The only information I could get is that they’re owned by Gallet – a 32-year old Japanese company that has traditionally done private label manufacturing for high-end brands and shops. Anonymous Ism is their house line, and it’s proudly made in Japan, but they apparently don’t like talking about it. 

Nonetheless, the company makes some of the best casual socks I’ve come across. I’ve been wearing them for the past year and was so impressed by how well they’ve held up that I bought a dozen more this past sales season. Some of their offerings include quarter-length and no-show socks, although I only wear their three-quarter length designs. Typically made from a blend of cotton, acrylic, and polyester, they stay up surprisingly well throughout the day – letting you avoid that dreaded sock pooling that can happen around your ankles mid-afternoon. 

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You never know who you might meet on the internet.

A year ago, I found someone on StyleForum talking about Colossus of Roads, a folk art legend that I grew up admiring in the ‘90s. Back then, as a teenager, I spent a lot of time in train yards checking out graffiti murals and hobo art. The latter refers to the kind of drawings you see at the very end of this post. Some simple, others complicated, these were put on the side of freight cars with solid paint sticks or industrial crayons.  

The term hobo art is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s mostly done today by graffiti artists, railroad workers, and occasional train hoppers. The name just comes from the early 20th-century practice of hobos communicating through pictograms. Since many were illiterate, they would put up coded drawings around train yards to communicate things such as “this town has work” or “you can sleep in this hayloft.” Basically, things to make a illegal passage safer. Today however, like with any graffiti, it’s mostly done for fame. 

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I wasn’t sure what to expect when I bought this Ten C liner. The Italian outerwear company offers all sorts of add-ons for their outerwear – body and hood liners made from felted wool, down, and shearling. I bought a few last year and like them, but the hood liners are admittedly more decorative than anything. 

This body liner, however, is fantastic. It goes well underneath all of Ten C’s outerwear, as you’d expect, with the shearling collar adding a bit of visual interest to whatever else you’re wearing. It can also be worn on its own. In fact, that’s how I’ve been mostly wearing it this past winter. Paired with my 3sixteen jeans and a chunky knit, it serves as a nice in-between piece when you want something warmer than a field jacket, but don’t want to deal with the bulk of a parka. 

The secret to a liner’s insulation is the quilting, where individual chambers trap warmth. Inside, any number of materials can be used for batting (the technical term for the warming middle layer). Sometimes you’ll find cotton, which doesn’t have much loft, but comes in different thicknesses. That’s probably what your grandmother used to make her quilted blankets. More commonly, however, you’ll find down or polyester (the latter being sometimes referred to as “microfiber”). Their high-loft makes them warmer and lighter weight than cotton, and they’ll hold up better after multiple washings. 

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Edwin and Matthew DeBoise from Steed Tailors were in San Francisco this past weekend as part of their US tour. I stopped by their hotel on Sunday to say hello, as well as to get fitted for two new sport coats – one being a dark brown Donegal from W. Bill, the other a tan glen plaid tweed from The London Lounge. Both single breasted jackets with three-two-roll fronts, patched hip pockets, and some funky sleeve button configurations. 

Fittings are nice time to catch up with your tailor. Edwin and Matthew tell me they’re planning to introduce a new line of Scottish knitwear and scarves, as well as handmade ties and pocket squares. The latter will be made by a woman who produces for another Savile Row firm – all hand stitched from English silks and wools, and made in Northampton. I forgot to confirm whether they’ll take custom orders for the ties, but they’ll have made-to-order knitwear if the stock options don’t suit you. The last photo below shows some of the prototypes. 

I also had a chance to flip through some swatch books. I don’t know how other clients of bespoke tailors are able to arrive at their decisions so quickly (assuming they do). I take months to settle on a fabric, so fittings are a nice time to look at options. Two bunches that caught my eye: the lightweight, porous wool-silk-linen blends from Portofino, and the new Harris Tweeds. The first looks to be a great source for patterned summer jacketings, while the second has some rather nice patterned tweeds that go beyond your usual herringbones. As usual, I favored the slightly more conservative designs. 

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Who had style in 1985? The editors of the now-defunct M: the Civilized Man thought they knew. They named their January 1985 issue with just that question. The cover story was written by John Burr Fairchild, who at the time went by the nom de plume W. Rushton Chatsworth III. An excerpt:

For some people, style is everything.

Those people – and there are a lot of them – have no style, never will, and are completely irrelevant to this discussion. 

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There are only a few more weeks left in winter, but so long as there’s time for tweed, there’s time for madder. Paul Winston over at Winston Clothiers once told me the chalky, dusty hand of ancient madder reminds him of a horse’s wet nose. I’ve always thought was a charming description. 

The term madder actually refers to two things. The first is the rich-red, vegetable dye that’s derived from the Eurasian plant Rubia tinctoria. In ancient times, it was used to dye regal clothes, which Bruce Boyer says is how we get the “ancient” part of ancient madder. Then we have “madder style,” which is an old method of printing that involves using thickened mordants, drying, aging, dunging, and dyeing with alizarine (the coloring agent obtained from madder root) or other coloring agents. I’ve never known whether madder in silks refers to the first or the second, but for what it’s worth, not all madder ties contain red. 

In any case, the nice thing about madder ties is that they sit in the middle in terms of formality – just as good with tweed and corduroy jackets as they are with worsted suits and pinstripes. I like them in indigo blues, faded greens, and dusty reds, although the occasional buff or brown colored tie can be good as well. For a bit more versatility, aim for ones with paisleys or small geometric prints. The bigger, bolder diamond designs you see above can be great if you mostly wear sport coats, but they’re more particular. 

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It takes a lot of guts to open a new men’s store nowadays. With fast trends, copycat competitors, and the ease of online comparison shopping, it’s just harder and harder to build customer loyalty. When I spoke to George Wang about this last year, on the eve of him opening BRIO in Beijing, he said he hoped his taste would help set him apart. And it’s true – many of the best boutiques are a cut above thanks to the owner’s high-level of taste. See the late Wilkes Bashford, Charlie Davidson of The Andover Shop, and Mark Cho and Alan See of The Armoury. 

This month, a man who has been inspiring others for years will be opening his own shop. Ethan Newton – who has worked everywhere from Evisu to The Armoury to Ralph Lauren – will be opening Bryceland’s in Japan with his business partner Kenji Cheung. The store’s name is taken from Ethan’s family. “Bryceland is my mother’s maiden name,” Ethan told me. “There aren’t any more males on that side of the family to carry it forward, so I decided to honor it by using it for my business.” 

When I talked to Ethan about his shop back in October, he described it as Ivy, although he meant it more in approach than aesthetics. “When I first started studying tailoring, I realized there are certain products that are just perfect in design – whether it’s a Zippo lighter or a blue blazer or a Buco J-24 jacket. Basically things that are made right and don’t need to improved on, they are as they should be. I think a lot of Ivy stuff embodies that – the perfect grey flannel suit, the perfect tweed jacket. I want a business that revolves around that spirit.” 

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I was sad to learn a few months ago that Ciro Palermo passed away. Ciro, as some may know, was the inspiration for O’Mast, the 2011 documentary on Neapolitan tailoring by Gianluca Migliarotti. That’s partly because Gianluca grew up watching his father getting outfitted in Ciro’s workshop, and partly because Ciro was the last direct connection to Vincenzo Attolini – that famous early-20th century cutter who transported Domenico Caraceni’s soft tailoring techniques from Rome to Naples.

Like many tailors of his generation, Ciro Palermo grew up in a tailoring workshop and started his trade at a young age, first doing small tasks before becoming an apprentice. Working under Vincenzo Attolini, he eventually became the cutter’s right-hand man and helped define what we think of today as the classic Neapolitan silhouette. When Vincenzo unexpectedly died, he went off to start a new tailoring workshop with Vincenzo’s son, Claudio Attolini. And when Claudio shifted his focus to ready-to-wear, Ciro left again, this time not telling anyone where he was going. 

Ciro’s clients eventually found him working out of a small apartment in the seaside district of Chiaia, where many of the city’s tailors are based. It’s in that apartment where I first saw Ciro’s tailoring (thanks to Gianluca, who took me there a few years ago). Unlike Rubinacci or Antonio Panico, Ciro’s workshop is modest – hidden away with no signage and sparsely decorated inside. Once in, you’ll find that it looks more like a small alterations shop than a top-end bespoke tailoring house. 

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