The attraction of denim for the modern, sartorial man is easy to understand.  In an age when clothing is increasingly casual, making tailoring less formal by using a casual cloth is attractive.  It retains the benefits of tailoring - the elegant...

Our ‘complete capsule’ article last month went down particularly well with readers. Setting out a concentrated, versatile wardrobe, I think it provided both a good starting point for new readers and a way for older ones to realise gaps in their...

Sartoria Pasinato, in the pretty town of Vincenza in north-eastern Italy, is an interesting example of a progressive tailor that still retains bespoke traditions. Vincenza is industrial and wealthy, famous for its Palladian architecture and for the ...

Eight months ago I quit my day job as a financial journalist in order to dedicate myself to Permanent Style. (Many heartfelt thanks for all the messages I’ve received since then.) This prompted an interesting question from readers: How would I dre...

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 own page here.  When you first sta...

  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, about my history and views on cont...

  Four things contribute most to the formality of an outfit: shine, darkness, contrast and desaturation.We see all four of them in formal outfits such as black tie. Dark black or midnight blue is contrasted against stark white. There is virtually n...

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 larger. That's down largely to the father’s ba...

There are a few provincial bespoke tailors in the UK, but not many. Italy has more, though again far fewer than there used to be. The advantage of a provincial tailor is normally a quiet preservation of tradition; and price.While in Italy a couple of...

 After the bespoke shoes symposium, it was off to the party at Villa Cora, just outside Florence. Sports cars were on hand to take participants from the Bemer workshop, above. (Though they got a little held up by Florentine traffic and people wanti...

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 post.)What are the trouser colours...

This bespoke jacket was made by Shibumi, the Italian/Japanese company better known for ties and accessories.  Over the past couple of years, founder Benedikt Fries has been working with a small Florentine tailor to offer this bespoke tailoring servi...

Everyone gets stuff wrong. We all have outfits we look back on years later, and cringe.  Fortunately, I believe this is something where you learn and progress. It is not a cycle of fashions, where every few years you wear something different, and di...

This coat from Liverano & Liverano in Florence has had a bit of an after life, being imitated in this tweed a fair bit, as well as spurring some to have the same coat from Liverano (despite the high cost).  It remains one of my absolute favou...

When I travelled to Korea back in December, one of the places I was keenest to visit was B&Tailor. Because, like many people, I’d been impressed for years at what I’d seen from Chad Park and his colleagues, but hadn’t had the best experienc...

Husbands in Paris makes quality menswear - tailoring and related clothing - in a particular seventies-influenced style that has remained impressively consistent over the past dozen years. The suits aren’t usually my style, but the fabrics are consi...

I'm back! Hello everyone, I hope you had a nice week in the amiable arms of Manish, and you haven't all decided he is better in every respect than me. Although even if you have, fear not - he will be writing again very soon, including the second part...

Six years ago, we ran a really nice exercise on PS where readers became the interviewers, sending in questions they'd always wanted to ask. It sprung from a comment that at least one reader hadn't been very impressed with a recent interview with me. ...

Assisi is a young tailoring house based in the Huam-dong area of Seoul. It was only established three years ago, but the tailor that leads it, Kim Min Soo, has been cutting for 15 years.  Like most Korean tailors I’ve seen, the team are more style...

This jacket from Sartoria Pirozzi doesn’t really need a normal review.  The point of it was to cover the tailor again because they are now coming to London frequently, having taken a share of a space in Shepherd Market.  And it was to check the q...

In many ways, today's outfit is a natural extension of things we’ve been talking about recently.  There was, back on August 12, our discussion about wearing all black, which has some bearing here. The outfit is not all black, of course, but it is ...

This Anderson & Sheppard jacket is part of a suit I had made over 10 years ago. When I wrote back in January about my ‘favourite clothes ever’, I named it my favourite ever piece of bespoke.  It is therefore a good candidate for our ‘Ho...

Crowley Vintage is a vintage shop in Brooklyn, New York with a more particular angle than most.  We’ve talked in the past about different types of vintage - those that focus on older or newer, on rarity or thrift - but there are few that focus on ...

Long-term readers will be familiar with my passion for Hermes silk scarves, which I’ve often bought over the years as a treat, and of which I now have a small collection (nine of them, since you ask).  I’ve found particular enjoyment this winter...

This bespoke jacket was made for me by Paolo Martorano, the tailor in New York I first covered in 2020.  It’s particularly significant because of the dearth of bespoke tailors in the US. Although many tailors travel to the US from the UK and Europ...