A Suitable Wardrobe

Brrr

2009-07-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Esquire illustrates golf dress as I learned to expect the game would be played in the Northern hemisphere on the first day of July. The man on the left depicts reality on the Northern California coast today, minus the pipe, but right down to the correctly scaled tweed cap.Brrr.

Happy Birthday

2009-07-04T07:00:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday America.

The Cart Before the Horse

2009-07-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

There is an ASW post scheduled for Monday that will show a bit of Mariano Rubinacci's Mount Street store in London, the source of the slippers in the photo. But for today, we'll put the cart before the horse and show the slippers themselves, canvas house shoes that could be Belgian Shoes were it not for their leather soles. The soles of course may be the principal reason to choose the Rubinacci

Maintenance: Madame Paulette's Stain Removal Kit

2009-07-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

I know little or nothing about the cleaning services of New York's Madame Paulette, but the company's Professional Stain Removal Kit is unsurpassed in my experience. The point of on the spot stain removal is that the sooner a stain is removed the less it is likely to cause irreversible damage, and one of Madame Paulette's kits demonstrated this just the other day when it removed a salad dressing

In the Pink

2009-07-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Sunny day clothing recently that included suede shoes from Gaziano & Girling, a chalk striped fresco suit by Thomas Mahon, striped shirt by Hemrajani, and a Charvet bow tie. Pink is perhaps the most complementary color to combine with gray, as light blue is with navy. White in the square, tie, shirt and suit serves to blend the elements together. And medium and dark grays are the best time to

Of Stingray and Antelope

2009-06-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Dimitri Gomez is one of a handful of the world's best bespoke shoe makers. He works by himself in a space within the Crockett & Jones store in Paris. Gomez is one of the few makers who makes a fitting shoe (the black shoe in the photo) before he begins work on the final product. The fitting shoe is open, so he can see exactly how foot and shoe are interacting. A man who obviously enjoys his work

Waiting for Guyot

2009-06-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

The front sidewalk of Marc Guyot's Cape Cod Shop in Paris is a pleasant place to spend an hour smoking a cigar in the sun. The scenery is always the same and yet ever different - women in summer clothing and the occasional well dressed male. Inside, Goyot's store is beautiful as if by accident. It is a small space that has been crammed with cloth and clothing from top to bottom until there is

Small Spoils of Travel

2009-06-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Small spoils of travel from a week on the road. There is a wine micro-dot necktie around my neck, a sized (no buckle in the back) black grosgain bow tie in my bag, and a silk madras four in hand, navy with maroon bow tie and three Irish linen hanks on the bed. Both bow ties have what I think of as the Charvet shape, unlike the butterfly style usually seen in the United States. They may be a bit

Piles of Silks

2009-06-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of an afternoon meeting with Michael Drake of the eponymous necktie and scarf maker the other day, to select ties for the spring 2010 season. Selections are made from samples that are woven in lengths of nine or ten colorways of the same pattern. The striped silk grenadines and silk shantungs, both rarely seen, will be of interest to men who love clothing. We talked as we

Brown Tweed in June

2009-06-26T07:00:00.001-07:00

On a day that thankfully gave me an opportunity to catch up on my sleep, I had an appointment with Peter Harvey, who now has the Fallan & Harvey name on the shingle at Davies & Sons on Savile Row. I dropped off a jacket for a collar adjustment and picked up another, a brown 14 ounce (420 gram) Shetland herringbone with blue and gold overchecks that I am unlikely to wear before next November.

In George Hamilton's Footsteps

2009-06-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

I paid a visit to shoemaker W.S. Foster & Sons the other day in search of a mid-brown leather for a pair of oxfords, and departed unfulfilled but happy. I had been corresponding with Foster's Miss Emma Lakin about a particular tone that I had seen on some shoes made for Charlie Watts but it was not available at this time. While we talked, I perused actor George Hamilton's last. The wear on the

Evolution

2009-06-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

The clothing of a mason working on Hadrian's Wall in Britain around 100 A.D. Cloak, tunic, braccae (breeches) extending to mid-calf, and leather sandals. Fifteen hundred years later, the dress of a gentleman. The sandals are now closed shoes, the cape is a tailored jacket, the leg coverings have become full-length trousers, and there is a hat.

Whiskey and Tweed

2009-06-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

When I think of Scotland what comes to mind are its great natural beauty, whiskey, and tweed. We had all three on Monday. For the day's car trip I am wearing a bespoke cap whose generous shape was designed by Michael Alden of the London Lounge. It is paired with bespoke cords that I have cut identically to my dress trousers, a Smedley polo, slip-on shoes and an unlined safari jacket of heavy

A Second Day at Warwick Hall

2009-06-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

The blue-gray Finmeresco again (Finmeresco is a high twist 11 ounce/330 gram cloth from Smith Woolens that is ideal for the mild San Francisco climate). Thomas Mahon is marking up the shoulders. He always cuts them a bit wide and adjusts them at the forward fitting because he does not leave extra cloth inside the shoulders and once it is gone it cannot be put back again. Thomas cuts in his office

A Long Trip To a Fitting

2009-06-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

San Francisco to London was about twelve hours Saturday, followed by five hours of driving to Warwick Hall in Cumbria. By the time we arrived my linen shirt, pristine before we departed, was stained by some of the half dozen shots of espresso that kept me awake on the road. We arrived at our destination early Saturday evening. Warwick Hall, on the River Eden, is an English country house where

Off Again

2009-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

Photo: Marc GuyotOff again, this time to Scotland, London and Paris, where I plan to visit a plethora of mills, tailors, shoemakers and haberdashers.And the photo? I will be having lunch with designer Marc Guyot whose tan and white ensemble is the subject.

Trinity College Boat Club Attire

2009-06-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

After my recent post on the Royal Henley Regatta to be held the first week of July, reader W. Holmes was kind enough to contribute photographs of Trinity College Boat Club attire from his time at Oxford University. I immediately noticed that the combination of jacket, hat and club tie is considerably more complex than the straw boater that was the only dress item needed to join the now-defunct

On the Seventh Day Wear Worsted

2009-06-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

We do not have much need for true summer suits here in the Bay area. If we have two days a year of New York style heat, that is fortunately about all of it unless one leaves the City. And I could probably count the number of suit wearing men outside of the City on my fingers.That aside, when I visit Mr. Thomas Mahon in Cumbria next week one of the topics will be another warmer weather suit, this

If I Could Have Only One

2009-06-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

If I could have only one pair of cuff links, they would be similar to the vintage double sided 14 karat gold pair in the photo. I generally prefer linked cuffs when I am wearing a suit, and, as a class, discretely sized gold links have considerable advantages over the alternatives. They do not tarnish, they look good with suits and shirts of any color, and, when purchased without a retail markup

Fashion Fantasies

2009-06-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

A worthy interview with author and dandy Gay Talese, from Men.Style.Com.

Hockney Has the Right Idea

2009-06-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is in full swing in most of the northern hemisphere (the city of Chicago, which has had its coldest June since records have been kept, being a conspicuous exception). That means it is time to praise the linen cap, which shades the eyes and protects the scalp from the sun without adding noticeably to a man's body temperature.To my mind, linen caps should be a semi-solid or solid color, and

Going Out of Business Sale at SW1

2009-06-14T07:00:00.001-07:00

Sadly, Milan's elegant SW1 shoe store, which brought us the Hampton (left) and Sloop slip-ons in the photo, is closing its doors on June 25.The little bit of sunshine that accompanies this news is that they are having a going out of business sale, and their Grandi Maestri Italiani line is 50% off. Prices range from 140 Euros $197) ex VAT for the Sloop and Hampton and 175 Euros ($246) ex VAT for

Lifestyle: New York's New Park

2009-06-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

I spent a morning walking around parts of lower Manhattan this past week, and the highlight of those hours was a visit to The High Line, New York's new $150,000,000 park in the air whose first segment, between Gansevoort St. in the Meat Market and W. 20th St. in Chelsea, opened a few days ago.The High Line is an old segment of elevated New York Central railroad tracks that has been renovated into

The East's Best Shoe Collection

2009-06-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Steven Taffel of Leffot, on Christopher Street in Manhattan, has assembled what is probably the best collection of shoe brands offered for sale in the Eastern United States, with hard to find delights like Corthay and Aubercy complementing better known names such as Alden and Edward Green.Leffot is a small jewel box of a store. Taffel displays half a dozen styles from each brand on a long table

Travel Travails

2009-06-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

I regret that my flight from Manhattan arrived in San Francisco some four hours later than scheduled. A man must sleep sometime.Normality should resume at the usual time tomorrow.