Category: Suits

Cifonelli is one of the three best-known tailors in Paris – the others being Camps de Luca and Smalto. (Though Smalto’s influence has rather waned in recent years, as the others’ has waxed.) It is best known fo...

This dark, muted green linen was a risk. I had never had anything like it before, let alone seen it on anyone else.  But I think it’s worked out very well. I’m pleased as well as relieved.  The colour is unusual y...

  I found it very interesting in our recent capsule suit collection article how many readers mentioned wearing suits casually.  It’s natural to assume that suits are for business. It is how they have been most co...

One of the lovely things about the questions and comments we get on Permanent Style is the trends they highlight. In the past two weeks there have been dozens of questions on old posts about wedding attire. So I know ev...

Pitti is a long trade show: four full days, when most are usually three. As a result, by Friday everyone is exhausted, with selling, talking, and late dinners. Although it does depend on why you’re there. Most people ...

  Musella-Dembech is a tiny tailor. They’re still based in the family home, even though recently they’ve expanded to make the whole appartment a working sartoria. Their reputation, however, is rather lar...

Relief, and relaxation. Those are my abiding memories of this, my fitting at Gieves on a new suit. Readers commented on a previous post that it was nice to know what I was thinking and feeling during a fitting. That it ...

These ‘Building a Wardrobe’ pieces have now been collected into a Guide, which will expand over time. You can see the list at the right (on desktop), at the bottom of this post (on mobile) or simply on its ow...

  Having run through the major types of tailoring style in Naples, we’re now onto the smaller variants. For those that might have them, those previous Neapolitan posts were Solito (the modern Neapolitan cut), Ciar...

Given how much readers have liked the posts recently looking at Armoury trousers, and then the Bryceland’s range, I thought a post going through the Armoury’s tailoring would be interesting. If anything this is more...

  This talk with Tommaso Capozzoli of Sartoria Vestrucci is a useful beginner’s guide for commissioning a suit.  Tommaso explains how he would work out what kind of suit a customer wants, how he would direct ...

  Best-dressed non-professional 2019: @Gusvs9 Runners-up: @urbancomposition, @flannels_and_tweed   @Gusvs9 doesn’t like people to know who he is. You never see his face on Instagram, and there is no biograph...

In our last installment in this Tailor Styles series, we looked at the modern incarnation of the Neapolitan jacket: light and soft, but also short with a small shoulder. Today’s suit, from Sartoria Ciardi, is the diam...

You know when you think you’re not part of a trend, and then see everyone wearing the same thing? As a clothing snob that likes to think he’s different to everyone else, it’s very annoying. I had admired Michael H...

The Campaign for Wool recently asked me to help them with a series of videos educating people on caring for wool products. Chaired by HRH Prince Charles, the Campaign is a charity that communicates how environmentally f...

Wearing a white tie with a blue shirt is something that makes perfect sense in Naples. To a certain extent, wearing sugary-pink jackets and lapis-blue tailoring makes sense too. It's just sunny so much of the time, even...

There are many unsung heroes of bespoke tailoring, but one of the biggest has to be the presser. Frankly, a jacket can look awful once a coatmaker has finished with it - dragged all over the place and wrinkled to hell. ...

It’s easy to draw conclusions about a tailor from their surroundings. The big houses of Savile Row certainly benefit from this, in particular those with wonderful interiors like Huntsman or Anderson & Sheppard. Bu...

We are travelling gradually south in this series covering the styles of the finest tailors in the world. So having covered the major styles of London, we arrive in Paris – which is all close chests, roped shoulders...

This suit from Vicenza-based Sartoria Pasinato has turned out very smartly, with a clean fit and very sharp line. Part of this is a result of the cloth, which is a cavalry twill from Vitale Barberis Canonico (584, 440g)...

Of all the tailoring we have looked at it in this Tailor Styles series, this suit has to be the most dramatic and stylised. The lapels are big. Not just wide but rounded, ending with peaks high up the shoulder. The jacke...

This is part of a long-running series of articles known as the  Guide to Suit Style, covering everything from the number of buttons on a suit to the difference between made-to-measure and bespoke.    It will continue...

Apologies to those that had been waiting a while for coverage of this suit. It was finished in the Spring, but Japanese magazine Men’s Precious asked me to wait until it had been shot as part of a feature before publi...

One of the most interesting things about the growth in tailoring in recent years has been the way models have changed, split or evolved. We have bespoke suits being cut in London but made in India (eg Whitcomb & Sha...

First, there must be coffee. With the Italians, always coffee. Being English I find it hard to relax and chat. I want to get straight to the fitting, rather than sit down and exchange niceties. But it is a nice social r...