Search Results for: summer

A friendly reminder: the order window for this year’s summer tweed re-run closes this Friday, August 30th. Since introducing it in 2016, I’ve been happily surprised to see it pop up in some unexpected places. It’s shown up in GQ, The Sartorialist, and Permanent Style. Bespoke shoemaker Nicholas Templeman wore it in a Last Magazine feature. Dionisio D'Alise, the head cutter at Sartoria Formosa, sometimes wears it at fittings. Anderson & Sheppard trained coatmaker Lee Oxley says he loves the cloth. The best response, however – and I mean this genuinely – has come from readers, who email me to say how much they like their resulting suits and sport coats. 

I originally designed the fabric because I was looking for something like the silk jacketing you see on Taka from Liverano & Liverano above (the photo above is from The Armoury, my fabric is pictured below). There was once a time when raw silk jacketing was a bit more commonly available. The material has the same slubby texture you see in raw silk ties, but it comes in a weight that’s suitable for tailoring. Today, however, it’s all but impossible to find outside of vintage fabric vaults. So I designed my own.

This is a mid-brown, 9/10 oz fabric made from a 60/ 40 blend of linen and silk. Despite having a bit of silk, the cloth is matte and breathable. It has a semi-open weave that’s suitable for the heat. It holds a crease and is hard-wearing. Most importantly, it has a bit of irregular texture and slight flecking, which makes it look like your favorite Donegal tweeds. It can be hard to find a good spring/ summer fabric once you get past your basic tropical wools and linens. Most are a bit too flat-looking, or too crisp to hold a pattern (on a clear-finished worsted, sometimes a pattern can look too vivid). This allows you to add a bit of a pattern to a summer outfit while still making it easy to wear.

Mr. Porter is having a one-day sale today, where you can get 20% off select items with the checkout code JUNE21. The promotion only applies to items marked as “seasonal,” which you can find neatly organized under this “sun shop” section. Don’t bother trying to apply the code to other full-priced products or already-marked down sale items – I tried and it doesn’t work.

The good news is that there’s actually a bit of good stuff in the “sun shop” section. There are some handsome camp-collar shirts from Officine Generale, Gitman Vintage, AMI, and Kapital. I have an older version of that Kapital shirt and wear it all the time with ranch jackets, chore coats, and even on its own with just jeans. Additionally, there are some summer-ready shorts from Orlebar Brown and Officine Generale; mid-length swim trunks from Orlebar Brown; and my favorite chambray, which is made by Chimala. This Rubinacci “Victory” pocket square has a cream-colored background that makes it useful in just about any tailored outfit, but also a bit of pattern that keeps it looking like the solid-colored, cream squares worn by prom DJs (no offense to prom DJs). 

I also bought a vintage Lee’s 101-J trucker jacket from Wooden Sleepers yesterday (it’s pictured below). The style was introduced in the 1930s and is known as the first slim-fit denim jacket. But more than provenance, I like the design for its slanted chest pockets, zig-zag stitching, and slightly cropped fit (they’re shorter than Levi’s truckers). You can find them on Etsy for as little as $50, but if you’re looking to splurge, this Kapital trucker looks excellent. Note, Mr. Porter’s website recommends sizing up twice. 

END, a contemporary menswear shop based in the UK, always has one of the best end-of-season sales. Since they’re located in Europe, their prices are typically 20% lower than what you’d pay for the same items in the US, thanks to VAT deductions. Which means their end-of-season promotions are even better than what they seem at face value. At the moment, they’re holding their spring/ summer sale, where you can find select items discounted by as much as 60%. Once you account for VAT discounts, however, the sale is actually closer to 68% off. 

END’s online inventory is one of the few that rivals Mr. Porter’s (who, by the way, just dropped prices for the third time and are having a 70% off sale). Which means, your best bet is to browse through the sale selection by filtering for clothing categories and sizes. This way, you can stumble upon things you may not otherwise see. If you’re looking for highlights, here are some things I think are particularly worthwhile. 

Barbour: If you’re one of the few menswear guys left who doesn’t own a Barbour, END is one of the best places to score a deal. Again, since their prices are already lower than what you’d typically find stateside, their end-of-season promotions make these especially attractive. These days, I mostly wear the waxed cotton Bedale in olive, although the longer Beaufort is better for layering over sport coats. The Liddesdale is also a favorite of many people. It’s an uber affordable, quilted jacket that looks great with jeans and Shetland sweaters. At END, you can find the Liddesdale at a very low $95, while the waxed cotton models start at $209. For sizing advice, check out the Barbour buyer’s guide I wrote for Put This On. 

In the course of his American speaking tour in 1882, Oscar Wilde claimed that some silver miners tried to play a prank on him when he visited the rough, rust belt town of Leadville, Colorado. According to him, about a dozen miners led him to the bottom of a mine shaft with the intention of getting him drunk and leaving him there for a scare. But in a twist, the Dublin wit and writer regaled them with stories about the Italian goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini and Renaissance metal working. The miners asked Wilde why he didn’t bring Cellini with him, to which he explained that Cellini has been dead for quite some time. Living in a town where every man carries a revolver and no one dies of natural causes, the miners enquired: “Who shot him?” Afterward, they took Wilde to a dancing saloon, where a piano player sat in the corner with a sign over him that read: “DON’T SHOOT THE PIANIST; HE’S DOING THE BEST HE CAN.” It was, observed Wilde, “the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across.”

Wilde is one of the few Europeans to ever leave the United States with something positive to say about American style – well, sort of. ‘‘In all my journeys through the country, the only well-­dressed men that I saw were the Western miners,” he lectured to an audience. In an issue of Harper’s Bazaar published the same year, an illustrator showed Wilde’s admiration for the miners’ uniform. “Their wide-brimmed hats, which shaded their faces from the sun and protected them from the rain, and the cloak, which is by far the most beautiful piece of drapery ever invented, may be dwelt on with admiration,” Wilde said. “They wore only what was comfortable and therefore beautiful.”

Compare this to when Albert Camus sailed into a New York Harbor in March 1946 to promote the English release of his novel The Stranger. During his three-month stay in Manhattan, Camus didn’t quite know what to make of the city’s “swarming lights” and "frantic streets,” but he was staggered by how the material abundance contrasted with the depravations of post-war France. He was less impressed, however, by American neckties. “You have to see it to believe it. So much bad taste hardly seems imaginable,” he later told a journalist. Seventy years later, Noam Chomsky recounted this anecdote to Glenn Greenwald after the two were introduced to each other at the University of Arizona. Confused, Greenwald asked Chomsky if he was trying to say something about his decorative, purple satin tie. Chomsky said plainly: “Yes.”

Like a flying horde of locusts sweeping across a wheat field, Mr. Porter’s end-of-season sales are always a feeding frenzy. After all, where else can you find discounted dress shoes sitting alongside rare Japanese labels and American workwear?  Tonight, they started their summer sales event, where you can find select items discounted as much as 50% off. Before you dive in, however, there are some caveats.

First, discounts are still being rolled out, and not everything is up yet. You can expect to see the entire sale selection up by tomorrow morning, but it’s worth checking back often since the stock here moves quickly. Second, the best way to tackle their sale is by filtering for sizes – pants in size 32 or shoes in size 9. That way, you raise your chance of coming across a serendipitous find. Third, if you’re on the fence about something, I suggest buying it. You can always return things for free if they don’t work out. 

You can browse the sale on Mr. Porter’s dedicated sales page, at least for what’s currently already up, but here are some things I think are notable:

It’s hard for me to imagine going without a pair of sneakers this time of year. Summer is about having the windows down and volume up, biking somewhere on a hot afternoon, and hanging your feet off a picnic bench while BBQ-ing with friends. Camp moccasins and penny loafers can be great for these sorts of things, but I also like having a pair of casual sneakers you can wear with jeans and camp collar shirts. 

I’ve cycled through a bunch over the years, but find I keep returning to the same ones (although, the first pair below were recently acquired). If you’re looking to get a pair this summer, here are some of my favorites. Since they’re mostly designer shoes based off classic silhouettes, I’ve included links to the originals, which are much more affordable. As sneakers go, the build quality between the low and high end of the spectrum is smaller than it is in dress shoes – almost everything is in design. I like the uniqueness of these versions, but their designers found the originals to be inspiring for a reason. 

Visvim Bamboo Skagways

Well, this is a surprise. The summer tweed I ran last year made it onto The Sartorialist, the first men’s style blog I ever followed. Pictured above is Kenji of Bryceland’s wearing the fabric in a handsome double-breasted. Bryceland’s, by the way, recently expanded into Hong Kong, which has made it possible for them to fulfill online orders. That means they now have a functioning webshop for those located outside of East Asia. 

Many thanks to everyone who supported that cloth run, by the way. It was genuinely fun to organize. Below are photos I’ve found around the web of people wearing the cloth – Max from the Armoury, Pete in San Francisco, Sartoria Formosa’s bespoke tailor Dionisio, Mitchell at Menswear Musings, and Andy from San Jose. 

No Man Walks Alone, a sponsor on this site, still has a few ready-to-wear sport coats made from the fabric. You can knock 10% off the listed price with the checkout code DWW10. It’s a wonderful cloth, I think, if you love the texture of tweed, but want something that’s light and breathable enough for summer. More details of the cloth can be found in this old post. I’m also planning to organize more custom cloth runs in the future, although I can’t imagine another one being featured at The Sartorialist.