Category: Shirts

Connolly, which opened on Clifford Street at the end of last year, is one of the most interesting new menswear stores London has had for a while. It offers luxury clothing, both under its own name and a few European bra...

I recently took delivery of a set of linen shirts from D'Avino in Naples (it's been a good quarter...) and I thought the colour selection I ended up with was interesting. I'm increasingly moving away from the more corp...

First off, I would like to apologise to readers that this review has taken so long. There has simply been so much going on that it has been hard to find the time to prioritise it. Now, to Charvet. I had this shirt made...

The world of shirtings is not as confusing as suitings. As outlined in two Permanent Style pieces (on English mills and Italian mills), there is a huge variation of mills, brands and integration in tailoring cloths that...

Over the past 10 days I have generally prioritised writing about new brands in our Savile Row pop-up shop. But there are also new developments at makers you will be familiar with - Baudoin & Lange, Luca Faloni, Beg...

I was quite intrigued to see Ethan Newton’s Bryceland's store in Tokyo when we visited a few weeks ago. In particular, how he is presenting his view on tailoring and how that mixes with the more casual americana s...

At the beginning of December, there will be an event in Brussels bringing together some of the craftsmen that featured in the Permanent Style trunk show last month - Lavabre Cadet and Michel Heurtault - as well as sever...

The exquisite shirtmaker D'Avino (that's the brand name, the man being Fiorenzo Auricchio) is here in London for a rare visit in two weeks. D'Avino makes to the highest level you will see, with handwork absolutely ever...

A reader recently commented that the site could do with some more practical pieces about putting clothes together - rather than commissioning them. I am deeply appreciative of such feedback. I do try to keep a balance ...

One of the central themes of Permanent Style over the past nine years has been the desire to make tailoring relevant to a new generation. To explore the ways in which the suit or jacket can transition from formal busine...

There are many reasons to commission a bespoke piece of clothing. I think the decision I made earlier in the year to order a bespoke shirt at Charvet, however, was the first time I have done so out of pure curiosity. I ...

When I brought my shirt from Simone Abbarchi back to him in June (or rather his assistant, Gianluca) we ended up making quite a few changes. This may be a cause for concern, though I will reserve judgment. I had had ...

It’s probably worth saying this once more. These images are merely indicative. They are intended to give a general impression of the shirt (a lovely grey from Simone Abbarchi). They are not intended to be the ba...

Simone Abbarchi is a Florence-based shirtmaker that has made for my friend Tommaso Capozzoli for a long time. He has always said that they have a very good relationship between price and quality, and he’s right....

Siniscalchi is one of the world’s best-known shirtmakers. Based in Milan, it has made for celebrity and royalty alike since it was founded in 1948. It is also, however, bizarrely expensive. We visited Alessandro ...

Last week was the official launch of the Permanent Style book, with an event in Milan hosted by Vitale Barberis Canonico and A Caraceni. I was interviewed by the fashion editor of La Repubblica, Simone Marchetti, abou...

D’Avino is a small Neapolitan outfit run by cutter Fiorenzo Auricchio (above). He has no website, an abandoned blog, and little used social media. Email is the best contact option. But he visits London regularly,...

Last year a reader commented – quite rightly – that there is a tendency here to cover freshly received suits/shirts/shoes, but not follow up on them later, when they have bedded in. He was right also to sa...

Dear Simon, I believe that I’ve read every post you’ve written about shirts. Italian, Spanish, British, even the one on Charvet in How To Spend It. I’m always looking for the same thing but still hav...

This safari jacket, made by London shirtmakers Budd, was born out of a desire for a soft, unstructured layer I could wear over a shirt or T-shirt in the summer. Often such things are referred to as shirt-jackets. They ...

My l atest column for How to Spent It is on a safari jacket made recently with Budd. An interesting project, there will be more about it on Permanent Style next month. In the meantime you can read about the background...

A reader recently asked whether he should have his shirt cuffs made bigger – or the sleeves shorter – in order to accommodate a watch. This is relevant to anyone buying a shirt, not just those commissioning...

This is the final shirt from Neapolitan maker D’Avino. It is, as I expected, absolutely beautifully made, and a very good fit for the first order. Neapolitan shirtmakers vary both by their price and their prioritie...

Salvatore Piccolo is best known as a Neapolitan shirt brand – his shirts and accessories are stocked in a few leading stores, including Trunk in London and United Arrows in Tokyo. But he started as a bespoke shirtm...

This past weekend I had two articles published that readers might appreciate. In How to Spend It, the latest installment of my ‘Inside Track’ column looked at the cloth development process at Charvet, with an...

A reader asked what I was wearing at the dinner of Parisian Gentlemen last week. Fortunately, a profile photo was taken that day at the intellectual property conference I was speaking at – the reason I was in Paris...

One of the new makers I met in Naples last month was D’Avino, a small shirtmaker run by Fiorenzo Auricchio (above). Fiorenzo trained as a boy under his father, who worked for Gino Borelli – so a pretty decent...

Learning how a shirt should fit you can take surprisingly long – as most fans of bespoke try far fewer shirtmakers than they do tailors. Once learned, however, the lessons are fairly simple. They are becoming parti...

At the end of last year I completed a project with Sean O’Flynn to cut a traditional dress shirt, with voile back, Marcella front and detachable stiff collar. Some readers may remember they have already seen this s...

It seems like everyone has found the three reviews this week very interesting. If you don’t mind, I’d also like to hear what you think about three things: The value of aesthetic hand stitching (buttonholes or...

The third in this series on bespoke shirts, this post looks at the made-to-measure service offered by Segun Adelaja, who owns a boutique in the Prince’s Arcade. It is obviously not a direct comparison to either Bur...

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This bespoke shirt was made for me at the end of last year by Burgos in Madrid. Burgos is one of the oldest and most famous shirtmakers in Spain, and one of very few still making by hand and using old-fashioned technique...

This week is blue-shirt week. Over the next three days I will post about three blue shirts made for me in recent months, by three different makers. Hopefully running the three together will make for some interesting comp...

This is the first in a series of posts about producers I met in Pitti and Florence more generally. Maffeis is part of a family of companies around Bergamo, in northern Italy. Another is Bresciani socks, which of cour...

In Naples last week, I was able to have a fitting on the shirt I ordered from Satriano Cinque earlier in the year. As neither Luca nor Gabriella travel to London, this was the only opportunity to get a fitting done ̵...

Last week I was in Madrid to speak at a style forum organised by El Aristocrata and visited several of the tailors and shirt makers, including the wonderful Burgos. Carmen from Burgos is actually in New York this week, t...

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 329 1879 Euromoney PLC 15 3 2307 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false Gianni Cleopazzo of Sartoria Vergallo was talking to me recently about an old-fashioned style of shirt he makes for a coup...

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 324 1852 Euromoney PLC 15 3 2274 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false Shirts cannot be tweaked and tucked quite as fully or often as a jacket, unfortunately. There is no inlay in the side seam...

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 303 1730 Euromoney PLC 14 3 2124 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false I know several men who like sartorial clothing but want to bring it down to their more personal (and usually more casual) ...

Normal.dotm 0 0 1 207 1184 Euromoney PLC 9 2 1454 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false For many, this combination of colours and patterns will be too strong for any occasion, no matter how light hearted. But ta...

This is Seb. Sebastiano really, but Seb to us. Because we’re just that fond of him. Sebastiano is head of shirtmaking at Kiton, overseeing the 40+ team of cutters and sewers that makes all of Kiton’s shirts i...

I’ve always felt myself very fortunate to have my tailor within walking distance. Few men today, particularly in the US, have that privilege. But my shirtmaker was always a tube ride away; until now. A few weeks ag...

Wing-collar shirts are flimsy things unless made in the detachable, collar-stud traditional manner. When attached to the shirt, the collar is inevitably too low and lacks the stiffness of the starched original. Precious ...

One of my favourite colour combinations is pink and green. The pink here is pale, too pale perhaps to be portrayed accurately in the photo, but it provides a subtle field of colour for green to play on. The green tie, fr...

I used to wear bigger watches. Chunky, sporty things with chronometer dials and a leather strap. So when my pattern was first cut at Turnbull & Asser the cuffs were set quite wide – though slightly wider on th...

Shirts are often underrated. Lying beneath tailored jacket and silken tie, they can seem less important than both. But in an age when men usually take off their jacket during the day, indeed often don’t even wear a...

I mentioned in my previous post on the Kiton factory outside Naples that the shirt manufacturing impressed me post. In fact, it wasn’t so much the manufacturing operation as the handwork that resulted – somet...

The combination of suit, shirt and tie that a man selects in the morning is certainly not the most important thing about what he wears. That would be the quality and fit of the articles themselves. But picking good combi...

It was a pleasure having dinner with Will of A Suitable Wardrobe in San Francisco last week, if only for the wonderful food at Kokkari and Eleni, our lovely waitress. But perhaps most sartorially significant was that I p...