Category: Alterations and care

Dressing well is not just about buying clothes, but about looking after them well, and responsibly. Caring for things so that they last longer, and you need less.  In the past we’ve covered quite a few aspects about ...

On Permanent Style we often recommend to buy less, but buy better.  Just as important, however, is to recycle well (finding a good home for things you don’t wear) and to look after clothes well.  They are three side...

Being at home more has given me time to write about something readers frequently ask about: how I store my clothes. The short answer is, with difficulty, particularly given how much I care about looking after them. Tail...

This is a personal article about the journey I’ve been on to counter clothes moths, and the regimen I’ve found that works. For anyone that would like a quick summary, it comprises: Fumigating at least once a year, u...

In the past week, perhaps as it has been particularly wet here, I’ve had three comments from readers on old posts about dealing with soaking-wet shoes.  Those old posts were never very comprehensive, so here is somet...

One of the reasons a bespoke suit can last a long time is that it is easier to adjust, and the tailors that made it are better at doing so. It's easier to adjust because more cloth is left in the seams, and in more plac...

How a suit lasts - and can be repaired over time - doesn't get much focus in bespoke. The craft, the history, the style: they're all talked about more, and understandably so. They're a good deal sexier. But it's a shame...

I've been on holiday for the past two weeks, swimming every day, and have noticeably lost weight. I'm tightening the side adjustors on my trousers where I didn't before. It reminds me how frequently readers ask about su...

It has always surprised me how many Italian tailors say they can’t source good, unpolished horn buttons. Particularly because, since its launch last year, even customers can buy them from UK distributor Bernstein &...

*Michael now has a basic website with contact details at www.mnbespoke.com* There are precious few dry cleaners out there that understand bespoke tailoring. They are likely to clean suits in bulk, with everything going ...

   This is the last instalment in our series on looking after suits at home. The first showed how to brush and generally maintain suits, and the second how to press a jacket. You can see them at those links. It’s...

   Our latest video on suit maintenance may be the most useful of the lot: How to press your a jacket at home.  In the video, Richard is at pains to point out that a lot of the pressing process cannot be replicated at...

   A few weeks ago a reader asked about tips on having a suit altered. As often happens, this came up in the comments to a post – some of the best information is in there! I always recommend having a suit altered...

   When friends ask me about looking after their clothes, it always strikes me that their questions come too late. They’ve trodden down the heel cup of a shoe, and want to know if it can be repaired; a suit is lookin...

In the search for decent sponge-and-press services, I recently tried Press2Dress, a dry cleaner based in south London and run by Michael Norman. Michael is developing an online service that specialises in cleaning and pr...

Suits should not be dry-cleaned very often. For some I know on and around Savile Row, that means once every six months. For others, it means never. The exact amount, of course, depends also on how often and in what manne...

Hi Simon, First of all let me say I’m a massive fan of your blog. In fact I’ve even cancelled my GQ subscription because of your blog. Doesn’t mean you should start charging us though! I was wondering i...

I’ve never been great at looking after my suits. Shoes, yes. Brush them down at the end of every day, before the shoe trees go in; give them a wipe in the morning; regularly polish and, slightly less often, a treatment...

This is an alteration to an old flannel suit, pinching in and raising the neck of the jacket slightly to correct a collar that currently stands a half inch away from my neck. This, of course, is one of the last alteratio...

Most men destroy their suits by having them dry-cleaned too often. That much is uncontroversial. A high-street dry cleaner will stick your suit in a large drum, soak it with chemicals that spread the dirt around more tha...

One true hallmark of a bespoke suit is the size of its armholes. Most armholes in ready-to-wear suits (and made-to-measure patterns, to a certain extent) cater for men with larger arms and shoulders, in order to be on th...

As regular readers will know, the search for truly old-fashioned craftsmen is one of the purposes of this blog. And while I would never recommend or compare services I had not personally experienced (an area where some o...

Fit is the most important thing about a suit. It can be cheap, it can be threadbare and it can be hideously patterned. But the man wearing it will always look better than his contemporary if it fits him well– and his c...

I do not have short arms. In fact I’ve always thought them a little long if anything; average at the very least. Yet every suit I buy has arms that are an inch too long. Surely the rest of the male population with a 40...

Many people look after their suits badly. This may seem obvious. After all men hang their suits on pegs, leave them on the floor after a day’s wear and occasionally bundle them into bags. For the most expensive piece o...