This is our friend Tommaso Capozzoli. He is, among many other things, the sales manager for Stefano Bemer, and we usually stay with him when we’re in Florence. Tommaso has style. It is not loud, and it's unlikely to stand out at Pitti, but it is...

   A few weeks ago I received my final pair of Foster & Son bespoke shoes. The process has, unfortunately, been both good and bad.  First, the good. The fitting I had with John Spencer - Foster’s lastmaker - was impressive. The fit around ...

Bespoke shoes are a luxury for me, rather than the norm.  Unlike bespoke tailoring - which I will always buy over RTW as long as I can afford to - I’m quite happy with a shoe wardrobe which is mostly ready-made.  This can put more pressure on bes...

A couple of weeks ago, Justin Fitzpatrick at The Shoe Snob launched his first range of shoes, which are now available at Gieves & Hawkes on Savile Row. For Justin, this is the culmination of a long period of working and dreaming. He trained as a shoe...

  Before the public part of Tailoring Symposium in June, we all gathered next to the pool at the Four Seasons to have a chat about tailoring and its future, with The Rake busily making a video of the event in the background. This was perhaps the m...

Following last week's announcement of our pop-up shop on Savile Row - under the banner 'Permanent Style presents' - here are some details of the shop and the brands. I also include an invitation, above, to any readers to come to the opening party on...

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 fall into one of three groups: ...

Everybody loves a bargain. I think one reader referred to it as the ‘siren song’ of cheaper-but-quality clothing.  The reference is often apt. Enthusiasts of anything expensive are drawn to the idea - like hypnotised Greek sailors - that they c...

Masaru Okuyama - the Japan-trained but Hong Kong-based shoemaker - made me this pair of shoes over the past 10 months.  Their relevance is twofold. As a review of Masaru and his work, of course, but also as an experience of Japanese shoemaking, as t...

 At the next Pitti Uomo in January I am organising a shoe symposium, together with Stefano Bemer and Bespoke magazine, with the intention of showcasing the work of some of the best men's shoemakers in the world. We will have Cleverley, Corthay, Bes...

   Earlier this year I started a bespoke summer suit with tailors Manning & Manning. They are a small operation comprising old Row cutter Bryan Manning (above) and his son, with the making outsourced to various coatmakers and trouser makers.?...

Our Young Tailors Symposium last week in Florence - in the beautiful Stefano Bemer atelier - threw up some really interesting areas of discussion.The six tailors all had rather different backgrounds: some trained in completely different fields before...

The older I get, the more I wear well-made clothes, and (most importantly) the more I think about clothes, the simpler I seem to dress. I am rarely without my navy grenadine tie. I now have Crispaire trousers in three different shades of grey. Every...

Pitti is a beautifully set-out trade fair full of brands I love, exhibiting on often lovely stands. But it is still a trade fair.This is a place for sales and negotiation. Friends such as Mats at Trunk Clothiers, Will at A Suitable Wardrobe or Kirby ...

There are precious few clothing shops anywhere in the world that can still be called ‘destinations’: unique stores that aren’t in every country and every airport, where visiting them is a distinct pleasure of travelling to the city. I think New...

    Hidetaka Fukaya, also known by his nickname Il Micio, is as much artist as artisan. Shoemakers tend to divide into two groups: those that are primarily driven by the artistic side of their work and those that are motivated principally by the...

Summer outfits often involve white somewhere, as it’s nice to reflect the brightness of the weather – particularly if you’re in Italy and the sun is that much more consistent than it is in the UK.Combining more than one white – or cream – t...

 Scuola del Cuoio, the Florentine leather manufacturer, has a great story. Most of the products may not be suited to Permanent Style, but the school is worth highlighting and the story worth telling. Scuola del Cuoio was founded in 1950 by the Fra...

 In the past week I have been in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai - the images here are from the Beijing launch of our Permanent Style 2015 book at the menswear store Brio.George at Brio put on a nice display for the book, including several pieces fe...

 Next month, on June 17th, we will be holding a follow-up to our shoemakers event at Pitti in January. This time we are focusing on the best tailors in the world, and I'm proud to say that we will have Cifonelli, Anderson & Sheppard, Panico, Li...

 Last month we had a book launch at the Brio menswear store in Beijing. It's worth running through a few more details of the shop - because the stock is interesting, and because it is part of a pleasing trend in more specialist tailoring and craft...

 At the BTBA party last month I wanted to try wearing my tobacco-linen jacket separately. It is part of a suit of course, but it was commissioned from Sastreria Langa in Madrid with a 'shirt' sleeve and patch pockets to make it casual enough to wear...

  The third in our Symposium series, looking at some of the finest makers of accessories in the world, was an absolute pleasure on Wednesday. I'll write more next week about the discussion and the broader event, but it was lovely to see how people...

The colour combinations that we discuss every week in regards to formal wear, can be applied just as readily to casual wear.  Although there will always be elements that don't crossover (such as the immense versatility of denim) a lot of the themes...

Davide Taub of Gieves & HawkesOne of the nicest things about the Young Tailors Symposium last week was the fact we managed to arrange a film - something that will record for the hundreds of thousands of you what we discussed and enjoyed. We trie...