Brand: whitcomb and shaftesbury

It was really lovely being back in Hong Kong last week, after a few years away. The talk we Lorenzo Cifonelli and I did at Attire House worked well - more a conversation than an interview, with Lorenzo asking me questio...

Last Friday was annoyingly cold, and damp. Combinations of subdued, rich colours always give me the most pleasure - but it felt particularly appropriate on a day like this. The textures of the three pieces also went w...

One of the reasons jacket fits and styles are so hard to describe is they cannot easily be put into numbers. Trousers, by comparison, are pretty straightforward. From the shoe up, there is: circumference at the trouser ...

If shirts are the items in a man’s wardrobe where he wants most predictability and consistency, then trousers are undoubtedly second. In that spirit, over the past year I have regularly commissioned odd trousers (...

I had this tweed jacket made by South Korean house B&Tailor over the past 18 months, using Robin Petterson - a Swede who does their fittings in London and at home in Stockholm. Unfortunately, although the end result...

It is the time of year for wedding preparations, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to share images of my friend Oliver's wedding last year. He is wearing probably my favourite groomsman's outfit. First, the colour. ...

As mentioned in my original post about this reader competition, our aim was to explore the different forms formalwear can take today. Men will always have a need to dress up, in order to appear appropriately for a smar...

Fitting on a single-breasted jacket at Hardy Amies This is the second in a series of articles intended to create an in-depth guide to buying tailoring. Some of these areas have been covered before on the site, but not i...

Whitcomb & Shaftesbury, the fabulously good value tailor I have written about recently, visit the US 5-6 times a year. They will be there next in a couple of weeks – in New York for three days and then Los ...

Air force blue is a beautiful colour. Better than the bright, tonic blues that are so popular these days – so much deeper, so much more subtle. Also known as RAF blue, the colour refers to the uniforms issued t...

Back in October there was a lot of interest around my post on the bespoke service at Whitcomb & Shaftesbury. Their ‘classic bespoke’ service, which involves cutting the suit in London (by a very experi...

I recently had the basted fitting for my two suits from Whitcomb & Shaftesbury – the tailor that runs a workshop in India but has all the suits cut by the same person London. They had offered to make me tw...

If you’re looking for a good bespoke suit in London, there aren’t many English options between £1000 and £3000 or so. Most are closer to the £1000 make and finish, but simply charge twice as...