Category: Jackets

Sartoria Formosa - led by Gennaro, above - is similar in some ways to the likes of Dalcuore or Ambrosi, in that it is a traditionally bespoke Naples house that has expanded into ready-to-wear in recent years. Five years...

Thank you everyone that responded to my ‘You are the interviewer’ post a couple of weeks ago. The number of variety of questions was staggering, and I will try to answer as many as I can over the coming week...

Good trunk shows pick good locations. Not necessarily fancy, but convenient and in a space that shows the product in a good light. This is particularly true with ready-made or made-to-measure brands, where customers are...

As regular readers will know, I am a big fan of leather and suede outerwear - whether from the superfine Seraphin, historic Chapal or uber-modern Stoffa. I have tried, used and love them all. When it comes to tailored j...

Gigi doesn’t normally talk much. The master cutter at Neapolitan tailors Dalcuore, he normally stands back, silently, as Damiano and Cristina do the talking. This is both his character and a result of speaking lit...

As mentioned on my ‘What I pack’ post, I’ve been travelling a lot in high heat recently. There was Pitti in Florence, where the temperature topped out at 37 degrees. Naples in July was very similar. An...

Dressing well becomes a matter of habit, over the years. You get used to wearing long socks, or high trousers, or being draped in slightly heavier cloth. But these habits have to be instilled. One I find most powerful t...

As with most of my reviews, I wrote a first, introductory post on P Johnson last year, after they opened in London. My apologies that the full review, here, has taken so long. In that time John, James and the others hav...

*For more on Ettore de Cesare, and examples of the pieces he has made for me, see original post here* The workshop of Ettore de Cesare is in Vomero, a residential neighbourhood on the hill behind central Naples. But he ...

This is a nice exercise in combining summery, pale colours. The challenge is being light and pale overall, while retaining enough contrast between shirt, jacket and trousers - both in colour and texture. The starting p...

In some ways, this navy jacket and topcoat from Ettore de Cesare are the antithesis of the Disguisery tweed jacket we featured last week. Ettore is a third-generation Neapolitan tailor known for his close-fitting, unst...

I recently remembered these shots we took last year in Japan - it was September, but Tokyo was hot and humid, as Europe has been in recent weeks. Although wool, the checked jacket is 9 ounces and half lined, wearing pre...

Last year I got to know a group called The Disguisery , based in Fitzrovia. (‘Disguisery’ is a collective noun for tailors.) A trouser workshop for many houses on Savile Row, they have been branching out int...

This week, Thursday June 1st to Saturday 3rd, both Agyesh of Stoffa and Marcus Malmborg for Eidos will be back in London. I’ve written previously about the wonderful colours and design sense of Stoffa, but not abo...

Last night was the (soft) opening of Anglo-Italian, the new shop in London being run by ex-Armoury buddies Jake Grantham and Alex Pirounis. It’s been a long time coming. Various events have slowed things down, and...

In a similar way to Stoffa (covered recently here), I loved the aesthetic of P Johnson tailoring before I ever got to see any in person. We are all - in our various ways - battling to show how useful, beautiful and rele...

This outfit was used in a piece written recently for Drake's regarding corduroy. The piece mentions some of the associations that corduroy often carries, and ways to avoid them; basically, keeping the colours dark and ...

The Japanese tailoring tradition is relatively short. After all, until the Meiji Restoration in 1868, almost no western-style tailoring was worn in the country. The Restoration made western dress required for courtiers ...

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 tha...

Those on the Drake’s mailing list may have seen this outfit on Friday, accompanying an article on their new trouser range. To fill in the details: the olive Drake’s chinos were worn with a white lightweight ...

Summer clothing, particularly from Italian brands, often includes a lot of light, bright colours. These can be difficult to wear, particularly in northern European countries where the sun might not be that consistent. ...

Richard James are an interesting name in bespoke tailoring. Better known for ready-to-wear suits and various accessories, they’ve actually had a bespoke operation since they set up – in a small shop at 31 Sa...

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 differenc...

The colour combinations that we discuss every week in regards to formal wear, can be applied just as readily to casual wear. Although there will always be elements that don't crossover (such as the immense versatility ...

A couple of readers e-mailed yesterday to ask about the jacket I was wearing in the images of visiting Simonnot-Godard. It is the jacket I had made by Steven Hitchcock back in 2012 - a sky-blue tweed from Holland &...

Hello Simon I am struggling with a lighter grey jacket like in your Caliendo denim post, or a navy jacket. Are they really that versatile to be the top 2 odd jacket colours? (As you mentioned in your oatmeal jacket pos...

I am proud to say that at the end of this week we will be launching a brand new Permanent Style website. The content will be the same, but it will be more expansive, modern and easier to browse. It’s been a long ...

Bespoke suit, Anderson & Sheppard This is the first in a series of articles that will, overall, create an in-depth guide to buying tailoring. Some of these areas have been covered before on the site, but not in ...

This pale, oatmeal-coloured cashmere is my new favourite sports-jacket material. When men are picking colours for sports jackets, their second choice (after the obviousness of navy) is usually grey. Which can be great...

There are many ways in which you can make a sartorial outfit look younger or more modern. Extremes are always wrong: very short jackets, big puffy shoulders. They just look trendy, for a bit. But aside from the extre...

Drake’s will always be best known for their ties, then handkerchiefs, then perhaps knitwear. But for the past few years they have also been doing a nice little range of jackets in the Clifford Street store that ...

A reader asked this a few weeks ago now, and I thought I’d illustrate my answer by showing the widths that five tailors have cut for my body and proportions. As you can see from the images below, some lapels ar...

This finished suede jacket from Cifonelli shows the beautiful breadth of what bespoke tailoring can do. Bespoke is not just for business suits; it is not just for casual jackets; it is for anything that benefits from...

As on Wednesday, so today. A piece made to measure by Neapolitan brand Stile Latino, with similar attractions. As with the completely unstructured coat we featured on Wednesday, this jacket is: An effective bridge be...

Quite a few people asked how my suede Cifonelli jacket was being made – on the blog, on Instagram, on Facebook. And by email, with two separate tailors asking for advice to make one for their clients. Key to th...

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 ho...

One area that fascinates me – perhaps more than any other – in my writing is the overlap between formal tailoring and more casual dress. If it is possible to retain the beautiful craft aspects of bespoke t...

If there is one question men ask more than any other, it is how to wear a jacket with jeans. Behind this usually lies a desire to dress up an outfit without appearing too up-tight. Friends in the creative or digital i...

This was taken during a recent photo shoot for Plaza Uomo magazine in Sweden. I think the only time I have shown the jacket before I wore it open-necked (blue shirt and navy crew neck, with charcoal trousers). It is n...

In the spirit of our recent posts on assembling outfits, here’s the process that put this one together. Originating idea: I’ve always liked the way this pale, silk tie from Ralph Lauren goes with my Rubin...

At the BTBA party last month I wanted to try wearing my tobacco-linen jacket separately. It is part of a suit of course, but it was commissioned from Sastreria Langa in Madrid with a ‘shirt’ sleeve and patc...

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 N...

OK, let’s break this down. There are four major choices of colour here: Trousers: green Jacket: tan Tie: brown Shirt: blue I put them deliberately in that order because that is the order in which they were chose...

I know that one of the style areas people find most difficult is wearing sports jackets, or separate waistcoats, with everything else: shirt, tie, hank, trousers. I’ve always loved the way Alan at The Armoury wea...

This Caliendo hopsack blazer was completed earlier in the year and is now fast becoming the most useful item in my wardrobe. Just like the Solito cashmere blazer I had made for Autumn/Winter last year, it is thrown on ...

  Bespoke driving jackets designed by Dege & Skinner, Henry Poole, Gieves & Hawkes and Huntsman. Which is your favourite? ( Worth expanding to full screen)...

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 unl...

Loro Piana I’ve been pleased to see that suede has enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years. Italians like Loro Piana have always done it well – often in a classic Italian mix of brown suede and gre...

This is the third of the commissions I made with Spanish tailors earlier last year. It is a lightweight donegal jacket, from Calvo de Mora. It is probably the best of the three, and the most expensive. Funny how those...

Walking along the River Tweed, wearing tweed that (is it just me?) is rather reminiscent of the colours of the landscape. Of course, it’s Harris tweed and we’re in the Borders, but it seems fitting nonethel...