I love cotton knits in the Summer. I couldn’t always see the point of them, but in the past few years I’ve regularly taken one on our holidays (usually to Portugal or France) and I adore the feeling on putting one on as the day cools down. They p...

By Manish Puri Whilst the recent sun in London has brought a sugar rush of excitement for the warmer days that lie ahead, it also brings a more troubling, recurring question: how do I usually dress for summer? It shouldn’t be difficult to answer. A...

We covered the appeal of cotton as a tailoring material generally last week, but didn't talk about the different types of cottons. There are corduroys and moleskins of course, gabardines and seersucker. But a difference I find particularly interesti...

I've always found cotton very appealing for summer suits, but historically haven't had much luck with them.I had a navy one made by Choppin & Lodge, but the make was really too English and structured for the material (my fault, not theirs). And...

A cotton suit, or at least jacket, should be a staple of casual summer wear. Cotton is often derided by fans of bespoke because it has no drape and wears out quicker than other fabrics. But the issue of drape – how the cloth falls across your body ...

A reader commented recently (I paraphrase): “Why should I care about old jeans? They were all mass produced and basically the same.” There are a couple of things wrong with that. The first is that mass production doesn’t necessarily mean lower ...

By Manish Puri Not all chores are made equal. Some take longer, some require more exertion, and some involve going out into the cold. On a typical weekend you’ll find me frantically searching for loopholes in the chivalric code so I can cherry pick...

This feature is the first in what will become a series on Permanent Style, in which we analyse the seasonal offerings of all the top menswear brands, and pick out our favourite ten pieces. As ever on Permanent Style, there is nothing commercial abo...

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 diametric opposite within Neapolit...

Cotton gabardine is probably the best suit material for men who don’t like suits. It is soft and casual, shaping to the body in the way cotton will, but not bagging like corduroy or wrinkling like linen. It also ages subtly and gracefully. The cott...

The aim of a shirt bought for summer might seem easy: to stay cool. But there are several variations here, and crossovers with styles and other functionality. This, then, is our substantive yet focused guide to buying a shirt fabric for the warme...

One sweater says lambswool, the other says merino. What does that mean? What’s the difference? This cashmere sweater costs £30; this other one costs £300. Can they really be made of the same thing? In our first chapter of this series - The Gu...

If shirts are the items in a man’s wardrobe where he wants most predictability and consistency, then trousers are undoubtedly second. In that spirit, over the past year I have regularly commissioned odd trousers (‘odd’ as in separate, so not...

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 it as a double-breasted jacket...

This is my final cotton jacket from Ferdinando Caraceni - which fortunately I received a few weeks ago and was therefore able to wear a fair bit before the weather turned. It is obvious even now that this is a piece that will wear in beautifully. As ...

As the next post in our series The Guide to Cloth, we have put together a glossary of cloth-related terms, covering everything from different animal fibres and their properties, to the various stages of spinning and finishing.  This took a lot of w...

The key functional aspect of trouser cloth is the body that enables it to drape well and hold its shape. It should throw a nice, clean line down the leg, hold its crease, and recover from wrinkling when hung at the end of the day. Unfortunately, th...

So how shall we review a suit? Let me count the ways. One: style. Still the most important thing, as much as we encourage men everywhere to care more about quality and fit. I adore the style of this, my completed Musella Dembech suit. [Read my ...

 In my review of Spanish tailor Reillo's cotton suit last week, there proved to be only room to analyse the fit and make.Yet a reader rightly pointed out that green cotton-gabardine is hardly an everyday cloth option. I'll explain the style aspects ...

 This suit is from Jose Maria Reilo, the second of the three Spanish tailors I commissioned from in 2014. The make is good, although there are one or two issues with the fit that I’ll come to in a moment.The suit is green cotton gabardine – an i...

Fans of traditional weaving and knitwear brands are funny about old machines. They often equate old machinery with superior techniques, when the new machines usually do at least as good a job – just faster. Usually the reason the brand still has ol...

We all know different materials age in different ways.  Leather is probably the most beautiful, and certainly the most varied. As a skin, if untreated it darkens when exposed to dirt or hands, yet lightens where it’s exposed to sunlight. It wil...

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...

 Green cotton trousers - the second part of the three-part commission from Spanish tailors Calvo de Mora. A lovely soft green moleskin from Scabal (Ascona, winter cotton, 501003) with a slightly longer nap.Non-English cloth merchants tend towards t...

The second brand to be tested as part of The Underwear Project is very British company Sunspel. (Previous post, on The White Briefs, can be seen here.) Sunspel is the cheapest of the brands on offer. Their regular briefs are £25. The same model...