Category: Uncategorized

It is genuinely important that - if you can - you visit a UK shop and support it now they’re open again. Why? Because good retail offers something distinct that could easily be lost.  Let me explain the difference be...

I am a 39-year-old father of three wonderful daughters. My family is without question the most joyful and important thing in my life.  Why is this relevant to Permanent Style? Two reasons.  First, this demographic is ...

A new customer over at the PS shop recently wrote an email to the support team that surprised me. In it he said he was ‘shocked’ that such luxurious products didn’t come in better packaging. He said he almost retu...

  “And what lining would you like in the suit?” “Oh I don’t know, just something to match the cloth.” This is as far as most people go with selecting the lining of their jacket or suit. And with good reaso...

Best e-commerce: The Armoury Runners-up:  Mr Porter, Luca Faloni   Mark Cho and I have been playing e-mail tag for a while. First he had to move the call, then I did, and when we finally connect, he’s in the bac...

Charitable giving: No Man Walks Alone Runners up:  The Anthology, Private White VC   I was a little surprised by the cynicism of around this award. Clearly, people are seeing more brands than me using charity (at ...

I'm a relatively recent convert to cordovan, but have come to love it as I've started to wear more casual clothing, and darker colours. It also added a layer of love visiting the Horween tannery in Chicago last year (sh...

Something that has consistently surprised me over the past year of this horrible pandemic, is the friends - especially in the menswear industry - that have lost some interest in what they wear every day.  I offer no ki...

    When we published our recent article on the types and styles of shirt collars , a reader requested a follow-up piece on the precise dimensions of what I wear.  In fact, this has come up a few times over the ye...

In normal menswear - not even classic menswear, but everyday, everybody menswear, everything outside big fashion brands - retailers can often have more influence than designers. People like Charlie Davidson of The Andov...

We've had a few questions from readers in the past fortnight about Brexit, and they've all contained misinformation, or been plain wrong. So I thought I'd publish a simple breakdown (here and on Instagram) to explain wh...

  When Bruce read our article on Nicoletta Caraceni’s 50-year-old jacket recently, he was spurred to send an example of his own: the Anderson & Sheppard jacket worn above.  And really, there are few people be...

It’s hard to use terms for this past year that haven’t already been overused, and lost most of their meaning along the way. But there are certainly several issues and trends that have naturally emerged from it, and ...

Over the past six months, we've made several improvements to the website based on requests in last year's reader survey .  Some of the new pieces of functionality will not be that obvious, so I wanted to highlight them...

**UPDATE: The answers to the quiz are now listed at the bottom of this post. Don't peek if you want to try it out yourself first! The winner of the competition was Mathias Olsen. Well done to him.** This is a spot of fu...

Now more than ever, I think it’s important to say what we stand for at Permanent Style. And one of the ways that comes across clearest is our editorial policy: what we cover, and what we don’t.  Implicitly, this de...

I recently saw a presentation by the cultural historical and writer Benjamin Wild (below), on the history of menswear. The talk covered everything from 1300 to the present day, but it was pre-20th Century that was the m...

I’ve been lucky this year that so many outerwear collaborations have come to fruition - no delays, no problems, everything fulfilling my expectations. That doesn’t always happen.  This next one is no less exciting ...

Working from home has thrown up lots of interesting clothing debates recently - including whether people will just stop caring, as we discussed recently .  Another interesting one, I think, is the idea of comfort. As i...

I’m not sure about the mock neck.  It’s been having a resurgence recently - everyone is doing one, from Camoshita to Loro Piana, Margaret Howell to Inis Meain. I can’t remember the last time a style of knitwear b...

While in Stockholm last month, I spent a morning shopping with Oliver (Dannefalk, above) and Carl (Pers) of Rubato. I was particularly interested to hear their views on vintage shopping, as I knew that both of them used...

Philip Warkander is a Swedish academic, lecturer at Lund University in fashion studies.  We got to talking recently thanks to an introduction by Dag at Saman Amel, and it was interesting how many of the topics Philip c...

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a men’s fashion magazine in the new (very nice) newsagent on Chiltern Street. I really miss good print products, and fashion magazines in particular. I think I flicked through it all ...

So here's the weird thing about Stockholm: nothing is weird. Everything feels normal.  No one wears a mask, and while there’s still social distancing, it's minimal and feels almost like politeness. People do sanitise...

It’s probably surprising how little time and attention I’ve put into my beard over the years.  I’ve had it almost 20 years, long before it was fashionable (which I do tell people, to my shame). Yet I’ve always ...