Search Results for: italian tailoring

If prep ever makes a comeback, it’ll be because of lookbooks like Drake’s. For this coming fall/ winter season, they shot their collection of brushed Shetlands and tweedy outerwear against the collegiate Gothic architecture of Oxford University. The combination makes the photos look as though they were lifted straight out of Take Ivy. One of Drake’s employees, an Oxford alum who helped put this project together, led the team through his favorite parts of the campus and his old, familiar watering holes. 

Drake’s Creative Director, Michael Hill, doesn’t want you to think this is about Ivy Style, however. “We’ve always been inspired by Ivy clothing, but this isn’t about recreating a look,” he says. “It’s just that we’re close to Oxford and it’s a beautiful setting. Ivy is a style that inspires us greatly – we look back at provenance and history a lot. But this is also very much about doing something right for today, in our own way, and presenting our clothes in a manner that we feel was fun and playful.”

Playful is a good way to describe some of the new items this season. There’s a pocket square decorated with a spinning collage of space-floating astronauts (if you buy a truck-ton of those squares, I imagine they could make for cool wallpaper inside a nursery). I also like the single-stick London Undercover umbrellas that feature an archival print on the underside of the canopy, as well as the brightly colored, Kelim scarves (I bought the blue one). For the bold and fearless, there are block striped Shetlands coming soon. Those look as though Drake’s mashed together all the Shetland yarns they’ve run separately in the past and turned them into a single sweater. David Hockney, a man known for his eccentric embrace of color, would be proud. 

Hidden in the history of the tassel loafer is the story of why men’s dress has become increasingly casual with each passing generation. In the post-war period of the late-1940s, right when tweed jackets and Shetland sweaters dominated prep schools and Ivy League campuses, debonair actor Paul Lukas came back from Europe with a pair of oxfords. Their laces had little fringed tassels at the end, which Lukas thought made them look jauntier. So he took them to a couple of custom shoemakers to see if they could make something similar, and they in turn took the job to Alden. The company’s president at the time, Arthur Tarlow, came up with tassel loafers. That makes Alden’s model the original, and Paul Lukas the first man to wear this style. 

Alden’s tassel loafers were an instant success, but they didn’t exist in a vacuum. If you flip through any men’s clothing catalog from this period, you’ll see how much the idea of comfort had already supplanted Edwardian norms of propriety. Instead of high-button dress boots and gaiters, American clothiers were selling low-cut shoes such as white buckskins, brown oxfords, and canvas tennis shoes with rubber soles. In his 1982 Town & Country essay on loafers, which was later collected in his 1985 book Elegance, Bruce Boyer wrote: “To see these newer low-cut shoes side-by-side in the [1915] Brooks catalogue with the then more traditional higher-cut shoes is to realize immediately that back in 1915 the tide was unquestionably turning – had already turned in reality – and that men were allowing themselves more comfort in their dress. Heavy suits and boots, stiff collars, and high hats were all on the way out. Lightweight tweeds and flannels, button-down shirts and soft golf caps, Shetland sweaters and white bucks, had arrived.” The only thing missing from those 1915 catalogs were loafers, which were “the logical extension of comfortable and casual dress that marks the current century.” 

Tassel loafers were the norm by the 1960s, worn to business offices and government buildings alike, and favored by college graduates who wanted something dressier than their school-day pennies. But the tide turned again in the 1990s, when the style became a synecdoche for the country-club set and dishonest lawyers. In an all-too-often-cited New York Times article, Neil Lewis once reported that the term “tasseled loafer” was not just a way to describe a simple slip-on anymore, it was a political epithet:

As the world gets smaller, so do our possessions. What may have been that stack of books and papers you’d schlep twenty years ago is now just a few PDF files. The daily newspaper is now online. And your iPod, which used to be a technological wonder that fit your entire music library into the palm of your hand, has disappeared into your phone. My daily carry nowadays is usually not more than my laptop and its accompanying charger – and all that neatly fits into a portfolio, which I think of as a modern briefcase. 

Folios are surprisingly uncommon here in the US, but they’re tremendously useful. For one, they’re easier to manage than a traditional briefcase. If you’re running through the city, climbing in and out of cabs, it’s easier to reach into your belongings when you don’t have to fumble through a bunch of clasps or buckles. Plus, unlike a backpack, a folio doesn’t have any straps that could ruin a tailored jacket’s shoulder line. 

The downside, of course, is that they don’t carry very much (by design). But who carries more than a couple of electronics nowadays? Lunch gets eaten on the go and I’m not health-conscious enough to carry a water bottle. Plus, leather bags are heavy, which means I only break them out when I need to. Take it from the Japanese, who are often photographed with a folio under their arm. If you’re walking around the city all day, you’d be happy to not have to carry around five pounds of luggage. 

I’m convinced that no one who likes clothes can possibly like spring. The clothes are often less interesting; there’s less opportunity for layering. The cuts reveal more than conceal, and few of us look good naked. Whereas dressing for winter can be something of a paint-by-numbers exercise, dressing for spring is more like trying to solve a puzzle. How do you dress well, but also comfortably? 

It always takes me a while to switch wardrobes this time of year, but I often go back to the same things – breathable tailoring, button-down shirts, and loafers. For casualwear, it’s usually a field jacket or chore coat, then some raw denim jeans (gotta get those fades). I also like bolder shirts nowadays with unusual collars. If you’re looking for some style inspiration this spring, here are three things I’m really into at the moment. 

Some Spring Tailoring

The loss of the coat-and-tie uniform in the last fifty years has meant more than the loss of formality. It’s made it harder for men to know how to dress. The brilliance of traditional tailoring is that anyone can look good in a suit – provided you have a reliable tailor and are willing to follow some simple rules. But as dress codes have broken down and people everywhere are dressing more casually, it’s become harder and harder to wear tailored clothing. The New York Times tells us that we live in a more liberated world where people can dress however they want – swapping clothes in and out as freely as their emotions swing – but I’ve argued that things are nearly just as constrictive as they were in the 1960s. It’s just that instead of hard written dress codes, we have softly coded dress norms – things that define how men should dress, but are never spoken of and can only be understood through inference. 

I think this is why so many men have a hard time figuring out what they want to wear. They find suits and sport coats too formal; Americana and workwear too rugged; designers such as Dries and Margiela too avant-garde. Yet, they also know that an oxford button-down worn alone with flat front chinos lacks verve. Casualwear can be frustrating because it’s nebulous – it’s more about dressing according to emotions, rather than rules, and a lot depends on your personality and lifestyle. 

In the last few years, however, I’ve noticed a new space emerge for guys who want a more casual version of classic style. I think of it as reinvented Italian sportswear. Think of Stoffa’s made-to-measure bomber jackets, which are designed to be worn with tailored trousers in lieu of a sport coat. Or Eidos’ range of textured Arans with interesting necklines, unconstructed topcoats, and lounge-y cardigans. Similarly, Camoshita has remixed Italian style and Ivy classics for men who want something contemporary, refined, and smart. 

Black Friday sales are upon us. Every year, I roundup some of my favorites both here and at Put This On (we’ll have a comprehensive list of every worthwhile sale later this week, on Friday). Some of my favorite stores, however, are getting a jump on things. Many have started their Black Friday promotions already, with discounts going as deep as 50% off. From Mr. Porter to No Man Walks Alone to East Dane, here are eight early-bird sales I think are pretty great. 

Mr. Porter: Up to 30% Off Select Items

Mr. Porter’s massive selection has put them in everyone’s orbit. Whether you favor classic tailored clothing, Japanese workwear, or oversized, minimalist contemporary garb, Mr. Porter likely carries more than a handful of brands for you. 

Tailoring is often described in regional or house terms. Anderson & Sheppard’s iconic drape cut is soft shouldered and full throughout the chest, making even the most frail and pudgy look athletic. Conversely, Huntsman’s imposing shoulder line and flared skirt, which kicks out from the hips, accentuates their X-shaped silhouettes. Huntsman’s cut is derived from their heritage, obvious from the company’s name, back when the firm used to tailor for Europe’s hunting and riding aristocracy.  

Over the years, I’ve realized these generalizations only take you so far. In reality, there’s no such thing as an Anderson & Sheppard cut – only a specific cutter’s interpretation of a house style. The word cutter is a tailoring term for a person who drafts a pattern and cuts the cloth, sort of like the architect behind a building. Large tailoring houses can have two or three cutters, maybe more if you count the people making trousers, which means the same number of people can walk into a shop and come out with surprisingly different garments. If you like a bespoke suit or sport coat, it’s just as important to ask who was the cutter as it is to ask about the tailoring house. 

Which is why I like working with small tailoring shops, where the cutter’s name is on the door. You have a better chance of knowing who cut each of the garments that carries the shop’s label. One such cutter-run firm is Steven Hitchcock’s, who’s been in the tailoring business for over twenty-seven years. He left school at age sixteen to find a trade, first puttering around with the idea of becoming a mechanic (he even took some classes for it). “At some point, my grandfather suggested I spend a day with my dad, John Hitchcock, who at the time was a trouser cutter at Anderson & Sheppard,” says Steven. “It ended up being fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a pair of trousers get cut and made, as well as celebrities such as Liam Neeson walk through those doors.”

No Man Walks Alone is an advertiser on this site, but also one of my favorite stores. Greg, the company’s founder (who can be seen pictured above), simply has great taste in both tailored clothing and casualwear. Guys who are used to wearing suits during the workweek can find themselves at a loss on how to dress casually. Similarly, men who know how to dress casually can sometimes be confused on where to pick up a good suit. No Man Walks Alone is one of those rare stores that can serve both types of people. 

This weekend also marks their fourth year in business, so they’re celebrating with a five-day sale. Take 20% off anything with the checkout code FOURTH. Unlike No Man Walks Alone’s end-of-season sales, these mid-season promotions allow for returns, which makes it safer to take a chance on something. Here are ten things I think are particularly worth a closer look:

The internet is overflowing with information nowadays about custom tailoring, but I find the best information still comes from traditional networks – privately talking with friends who share an interest in the subject, as well as online acquaintances who’ve had bespoke clothes made. This is especially true if you’re interested in Italian style. In London, most tailors work for one of the large tailoring houses on Savile Row, which means you can easily walk down that street alone and find a reputable maker. 

In Italy, things are different. The firms are smaller; the tailoring houses less well-known. People are scattered throughout cities, which means they can be harder to find. In Naples, for example, tailors are often tucked away inside hidden courtyards and even apartment buildings, operating in workshops that have no commercial signage. The city at times reminds me of when I lived in Moscow. There, you often have stores hidden inside large, imposing buildings that otherwise serve as residential complexes. You’d never know they were there unless you were from the area – or talked to a local who could show you around. 

Since few Italian tailors visit the United States, I’ve been planning a trip to Italy to visit them. As such, I’ve turned to friends for recommendations on new tailors to try. Kentaro Nakagomi, the founder and designer behind Coherence, recommended I check out Sartoria Marinaro, which is based in Florence. “It has that good old smell,” he said.