Style

Charcoal is a surprisingly useful colour in an odd jacket. Great with muted tones of tan, green or brown, it's also dark enough to go with lighter grey flannels. And charcoal is my favourite colour to wear with cream tr...

One of the most useful things in this day and age is a jacket that can be worn equally well with jeans and with formal, tailored trousers. I’ve talked about this in the past, but in summary I find that for a jac...

This question might seem like an easy one, but I do get a lot of comments and emails about it, so I thought I’d lay it out in a post. No, in short, a leather belt and leather shoes do not have to match. But they s...

This is the latest in a nice series of posts called ‘ The Rules and How to Break Them‘. Like the other Guides we have put together recently, it now has its own homepage, here. You can navigate to that page b...

I don't tend to wear brightly coloured ties. Too often they’re brash and loud, where a dark simple tie would be more tasteful. The only time I’ve regularly worn them is in unusual colours like lime green, ra...

“The therapy I never knew I needed.” That was how one reader described our reader dinner at Huntsman last year, and this year’s was no different. Ten winning readers came to the event, with four flying...

Fashions sweep through the world of classic menswear on a fairly regular basis – no matter how permanent we think our tastes and styles are. I find it pays to consider each carefully, and then over time decide whi...

When I first had this cotton jacket made, I noted that it was a tricky one to work into an outfit. The vintage cotton cloth ( more details here) is rather rough and casual, yet the cut and style are quite smart. Having ...

The reviews of bespoke suits I’ve written over the years haven’t always been the same. Some included more on the experience (particularly when it was bad); some focused on the fit; others were more about st...

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...

Taka from Liverano. Lots of colour and pattern, but overall quite cold Being able to judge the relative formality of an outfit is a key component of dressing well in modern, variable working environments. Many things co...

This is the latest in my somewhat infrequent series on the style of my favourite people in the menswear industry. For those that want to catch up, the previous instalments have been: Personal style: How to dress like Br...

I think it’s telling that the thing that makes me happiest about this outfit is the oatmeal-linen shirt, a piece made bespoke by D’Avino. I’ve been doing this for a while - trying to combine pieces of ...

This was an idea that a reader suggested to me a few months ago. (Readers are the best...) It's called The Lookbook, and it's a collection of all of my outfits from the past 10 years of Permanent Style. One hundred an...

Although I love rich, natural colours (particularly in Autumn) I've always been fascinated by the subtleties of monochrome dressing. It has such strong style, and yet there is so little too it. It's striking and unusua...

Although casual clothing is far more susceptible to fashions than tailored clothing, it is possible to organize it into certain groups, or paradigms. These groups, such as preppy clothing or workwear, often have their r...

Best-Dressed Man of the Year: Ethan Newton Runners up: Andreas Weinas Yukio Akamine Noboru Kakuta Bruce Boyer Our Best-Dressed Man of the Year is Ethan Newton, founder of Bryceland’s Co - the store in Tokyo and...

The blouson in general, but particularly in brown and especially in brown suede, has to be one of the most versatile pieces in a man's wardrobe. The shape is short and neat enough to work well with smarter clothing; sue...

It’s taken a while to get to these remaining questions from our ‘You are the interviewer’ post (thanks again for those - some great questions in there). Hopefully I’ll be able to get through them...

A few readers last week asked about this outfit I included in our 'High/low dressing' post. It's a combination I love, and shamelessly copied from an Italian gentleman I saw in Milan a few years ago. Men should never be...

The biggest potential pitfall with tailored dressing is looking fussy. Fussy is not sexy; it is not attractive. It is closely related to appearing ‘affected’ or ‘mannered’. Looking relaxed in clo...

Drake's was one of the first menswear brands that really inspired me, back in the days when I'd sit in Michael Drake's study going through old decorative art books, dissecting patterns. Drake's managed to combine craft ...

This post is an illustrated explanation of how I wear trainers, or sneakers. As with similar exercises on the blog, I have attempted to be as structured as possible, keeping some parameters constant in order to focus on...

Last summer, a reader responded to a post by reminding me that in Slim Aarons's photography of Italian aristocracy, most wore cream or tobacco-linen suits, a white shirt, white hank and black knitted-silk tie. The pos...

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...