In our recent articles on menswear destinations in Rome, a couple of readers asked about the outfit I was wearing for beating around the hot city.  The individual pieces should be pretty familiar:  cotton double-breast...

This is the third in our series of articles meeting, and questioning, Permanent Style readers. The first profiled Manish , who enthused about Russian watches and recommended that readers should start building a wardrobe ...

I’ve never actively disliked T-shirts under tailoring. I just tend not to wear them myself and, when I have seen them worn, I think it can be done quite badly.  Done well, wearing a T-shirt rather than a collared shir...

In the coming months I will be writing more posts again in our ‘How great things age’ series , which aims to illustrate the beauty of quality clothing over time.  Basically, it’s an antidote to the new clothing th...

When I was young, my family used to play a game on holiday. The question for all of us was: what can you see that tells you you’re in a different country? It could be the types of trees, the style of road signs, the wa...

A reader recently asked about what constituted the ‘finishing’ of a suit - and what indicates quality.  I initially planned a response going through every aspect of this, with examples, but that quickly became unwie...

I think L'Étiquette is the best menswear magazine in the world at the moment. The main reason is its ability to cover bespoke tailoring and high-street casual - Caraceni and Converse - in a way that feels both easy and ...

Following on from French bespoke style with Camps de Luca, we now arrive in Milan with Ferdinando Caraceni. Milanese tailoring has quite a distinct style, with light structure overall but a strong shoulder. So while tail...

When I first had this cotton jacket made, I noted that it was a tricky one to work into an outfit. The vintage cotton cloth ( more details here) is rather rough and casual, yet the cut and style are quite smart. Having i...

This is my final cotton jacket from Ferdinando Caraceni - which fortunately I received a few weeks ago and was therefore able to wear a fair bit before the weather turned. It is obvious even now that this is a piece that...

Last month we talked about how small changes in the proportions of a double-breasted jacket can have a radical effect on its style - and therefore on the people or situations it suits.  This week I've used five of my ow...

We covered the appeal of cotton as a tailoring material generally last week, but didn't talk about the different types of cottons. There are corduroys and moleskins of course, gabardines and seersucker. But a difference...

My final jacket from Ferdinando Caraceni in Milan is superb in many ways, including fit, make and finish. The style, however, is interesting and not necessarily what I expected. I started this project last year with Nico...

Last week’s explanation of how I put an outfit together seemed to be popular, so let’s try that again. This outfit is simpler than last week’s. There are fewer colours, there’s no tie to worry about, the handkerc...

At the Milan event last month I had my final fitting on the cashmere herringbone jacket being made by Ferdinando Caraceni. The more I get to know Nicoletta – Ferdinando’s daughter, although not a cutter unlike her fa...

When I was in Milan two weeks ago I had a first and second fitting with Ferdinando Caraceni in a day. This isn’t something that all tailors are happy doing, but for some such as Caraceni – which has a lot of foreign ...

Back in February I began working on a jacket project with Nicoletta Caraceni, of Ferdinando Caraceni in Milan. There are, as you know, several tailors with the name Caraceni in Italy. They all stem from Domenico Caracen...