I was very excited when I received this jacket a month ago. Primarily because of the shoulder. Enzo Ciardi is fast becoming one of my favourite tailors. I like him, I like his roomy Neapolitan style, and everything he's made for me has been good: on ...

Talking with Kenji Kaga of Sevenfold (and Tie Your Tie) recently threw up some interesting questions around what makes a tie appear vintage. Kenji is heavily influenced by 1940s-1950s styles, as is evident in his tailoring. But he freely admits...

Tokyo is one of the most varied, creative and stimulating retail experiences in the world. Not only is the city huge, but each area has a distinct feel and atmosphere, reflected in its shopping. There are small, niche brands everywhere, as well a...

   I bought this vintage folio from Bentleys Antiques in London last year, and it has proved fantastically useful.  We can all count ourselves lucky that laptops (well, MacBooks anyway) are only a touch bigger than European writing paper in the...

Reviewing this jumper from Stoffa is a good opportunity to discuss the current trend of knitwear being cut shorter and wider, in something of a vintage style.  The way knitwear is usually designed to work, the ribbing at the bottom sits on top of th...

The Real McCoy's headquarters in Kobe, Japan is extraordinary.  I had been warned it would be, but it really didn't prepare me for the scale of the operation or for the mix of craft and eccentricity.  The company owns four warehouses in the port of...

I was keen to have a cloth company as one of the exhibitors in our Savile Row pop-up shop. There's nothing like picking cloth from full bolts, where you an drape it around yourself or simply see how a check looks at scale.  Fox Brothers were perfec...

My view on jewellery has always been that it should be something special, certainly emotionally and probably financially too. Men wear so little of it, and it is such a statement to do so, that it should be precious. Not a cheap leather bracelet, i...

This might be our last piece on summer clothing this year, and I wanted to use it to talk about one of my most useful pieces of the last few months - this vintage ‘jungle jacket’.  I bought it two years ago, at the now sadly closed Vintage Showr...

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 jacket to work with jeans it needs to...

  By Lucas Nicholson I recently visited Los Angeles for the first time, and spent a very enjoyable week being proved wrong. Admittedly my hopes hadn’t been high for menswear in the city, but what I witnessed was wide appreciat...

I met Mattia during our recent pop-up shop on Savile Row. A Permanent Style reader, he is also a fashion student, which gives him an interesting perspective on classic menswear.  I enjoyed talking to him, and his friends, about their studies and the...

   I'm a big fan of vintage leather goods. There's nothing like a real, century-old patina on alligator or bridle leather; plus silver or brass hardware that you can let tarnish or keep polished and shiny.  Over the years I have bought a Louis V...

During September and October will be restocking all of the outerwear collaborations we do with Private White VC, and releasing a new version of the Donegal raglan coat.  The Bridge Coat was restocked a couple of weeks ago, and just over half have so...

The origins of the ‘casual chic’ look we’ve discussed in recent months - which I see as a route forward for relaxed yet smart menswear - can perhaps be seen in the leisure and sportswear of the 1930s.  That era saw the growth of leisure pursui...

Since I first wrote about Cromford Leather nine months ago, I’ve been using them consistently for leather alterations. I thought, therefore, it was worth a catch-up piece. This is also a nice opportunity to include some shots of their workshop...

Continuing our recent discussion of jacket replacements - chores, Tebas, safaris and the like - I've shot two of my favourite overshirts in order to talk about different types, and how they can fit into a wardrobe.  The buffalo-check shirt above is ...

Earlier this month I visited Seoul, to see some of the tailors I had been intrigued by but mostly seen from afar, and to visit some of the shops and brands. My impression was of a dynamic city – new development, new retail, every shop with a dis...

A beautiful Norfolk jacketWhen Tom Phillips, the author of Menswear: Vintage People on Photo Postcards, first put together this collection, he expected to see conformity across menswear in the roughly 40 pre-WW2 years it covered. What he got was a co...

The decorative instinct of Mitchell Jacobs, one half of the team behind accessories brand Penrose, is something I’ve written about briefly before. But I had a chance recently to delve further into the craft behind the weaving and finishing of Mitch...

This is perhaps best seen as an exercise in combining summery, pale colours. The challenge is being light and pale overall, while retaining enough contrast between shirt, jacket and trousers, both in colour and texture.  The starting point is the...

With the PS reader profiles, we’re always looking to add something different - a different style, a different age, hopefully at some point a different location.  Although Shun’s love of classic menswear will be shared by many, he is a little dif...

David is an example of a reader that has been into clothes for a long time, and now looks back on it from the perspective of a professional and father, fitting that interest into a life that has changed dramatically.  A resident of south-east London...

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...

Note: General Eyewear now has a store in Soho as well as the Camden HQ - details here. General Eyewear has historically been a source of vintage inspiration for glasses, supplying designer brands and costume designers. But as it has starting selling ...