Put This On

(Re)consider Buff

Ethan Desu recently took some wonderful photos of his colleagues at The Armoury and they reminded me of a post I wrote last month. Here we see his colleagues wearing buff-colored ties against their soft brown and grey suits. The color is more unique than your standard navy, brown, and burgundies, so they help attract just a little more attention. However, everything harmonizes quite well. Nothing stands out too loudly on its own and everything is pulled together very elegantly. As a result of having a slightly more unique tie set along gentle and conservative ensembles, the men here look a bit more rakish but still remain tasteful. 

What a wonderful color for a tie. 

Photo credit: Ethan Desu

If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is a Drake’s tie from this season. It’s always easier and safer to go with a dark, conservative pattern, but sometimes a brasher, bolder choice can be much more enjoyable to wear. I think this photo shows how it can be done well and without sacrificing any elegance. 

Barney’s is carrying something similar right now. It’s on already on sale, but if you wait a few weeks, it will be discounted another 30%. Mr. Porter also has some brightly-colored Real Ancient Madders. They just had a 50% off sale for founding members, but I imagine that will be made public soon. 

(photo from ethandesu)

Suede Shoes

I’m a huge fan of suede shoes and wear them more or less year-round. The word “suede” comes from the French word “Suède,” which simply means Sweden. At one point, Swedish suede gloves were the most common form of luxury, and the French word for Sweden ended up being used for the leather itself.

Suede can be made from almost any leather. You often find it made from lambskin, goatskin, and calfskin. In Germany they make it from stag and in Louisiana, there’s a producer that makes alligator suede. To get the texture, the animal’s skin is buffed with an abrasive. This can be done to the grain side of the leather, which will give you a finer, more velvety texture, or on the flesh side, which will give you a slightly coarser feel. Each animal will produce a slightly different feel to the suede, however, so the variation isn’t just through top vs. flesh side usage.

I personally prefer finer, velvety suede. To examine the quality, I examine to see if the fibers of the nap are uniform in length and packed tightly together. If the nap is firm, dense, and compact, the suede will be a bit more resilient. I eschew suedes with longer naps, as I find that they get a bit ragged and develop bald spots over time. I also avoid any suede that feels a bit greasy.

Since it’s fall, I suggest that you try suede shoes with wool flannel, corduroy, and moleskin trousers. Those tend to have “softer” looking textures, and I think they look quite well next to suede. The above are just some of the options - oxfords, Norwegian split toe bluchers, chukka boots, field boots, double monks, and tassel loafers. I myself just ordered a pair of Crockett & Jones Belgraves in Polo suede from Pediwear and plan to wear it often on weekends. In being an oxford, this shoe is a bit dressy; in being made from suede, however, it’s also a bit casual. They’re the perfect way to look sharp in a non-business, casual setting, I think.

(Pictures above by MostExerent, Ethan Desu, Leffot, and Run of the Mill)

The Color Purple

Most men rely on standard colors for their wardrobe - blues, greys, and browns, in various shades and textures. These are good foundational colors since they’re easy to wear and complement each other well. However, only relying on these colors get a bit boring, and eventually cease to excite the eye. As such, it’s good to have a few secondary colors in your wardrobe just to break things up a bit. Salmon pink, hunter green, and bordeaux are all very nice, but today I’ll talk about purple. 

Purple can make a statement since it’s a unique color. However, it’s so closely related to blue that it can also feel familiar and sophisticated. Purple is also much more versatile than men give it credit for. It complements many of the standard colors men wear and serves a good substitute for blue. For example, a dark, deep purple tie goes well with a tan jacket and light blue shirt, and can be used any time you would otherwise wear a navy tie (though the conservativeness of navy can make it more useful). 

I also recommend purple socks. Michael Drake, co-founder of Drake’s of London, wears them as a personal signature of eccentricity. This past summer, I often wore purple socks with light blue shirts and pants in either a grey tropical wool or tan linen (first picture above). I’ve found that this ensemble goes especially well with brown suede shoes. 

Hardy Amies once said of purple, “I can see no use for this handsome, not unmasculine colour except for ties, socks and handkerchiefs.” I, however, think it can be used for more than accessories. For example, lavender shirts go quite well underneath navy or tan suits. You can pair it with a conservative, charcoal tie, and then have a secondary color in the tie pick up the lavender in your shirt or the color of your suit. This practice seems to be common in Moscow. From my observation, one in six men here on the street will be wearing a lavender shirt, and it always looks good (assuming the shirt fits well). 

The standard palette of grey, brown, and blue is a nice foundation, but don’t neglect to have some secondary colors here or there. Purple works with a number of colors and wearing it well can add variety into your wardrobe. Just don’t overdo it. Wearing too much of it will make you look like Barney, and doing things such as matching purple socks to purple ties will make you look too studied. Purple, in my opinion, should be worn with a healthy dose of nonchalance. 

(pictures above taken from Ethan Desu, A Bit of Color, Men of Habit, and me)

Nice Try, Bro recently wrote this about the picture above:

One must wonder: is this just an unflattering photo of the gentleman on the left or does he indeed have way too much fabric in the upper back of his jacket?  Or maybe he recently hit the gym and shed some pounds.  Who knows.

But notice how much better the jacket homie on the right is wearing fits.  

Pinching and raising the neck of a jacket is usually done to correct collar flaws.  However, any time I have had my neck pinched and raised, I’ve noticed a better fit across the back as well.  You’d think this Florentine gentleman would have gotten that fixed, whether by pinch and raise or some other technique.

In any event, nice bag, bro.

To which Ethan Desu responded with:

A tailor much more skillful than myself once tried to explain to me the fascination of overtly tight clothing in young men new to tailored clothing. I mentioned to him the trend of those coming to me for suits, favouring jackets far too small, that looked magazine worthy while standing still but lacking any elegance or drape for movement.

The example he used was that of a leather glove - close a fist and it looks molded to the skin, stretched as it is against the back of the hand. But open the fist and the glove will bag at the knuckles and extend past the ends of the fingers. It explained it well for me and I’ve strived for elegant fit ever since, not always successfully considering how well my wife cooks.

While neither gent has particularly great fit with these obviously off the rack cotton jackets, judging by a static image of two different body shapes in motion is a poor case study. While the man on the left has his left shoulder up and back, causing the imbalance and what you are seeing as the excess cloth, the man on the right is wearing a tight jacket to hide these sins. With a forward and sloping shoulder, the jacket pulls tight like the glove on a fist, and gives the impression of fit.

Dropping a collar is a fix for a too long back balance. The issue here is an imbalance from left to right, and a cotton jacket worn off the rack in a size that isn’t skin tight.  Had the photo been taken a second later you might be deriding Mr Short rather than Mr Tall.

While taste is subjective without bounds - what I post and what I wear might have the coolest of tumblr scoff - fit has parameters, particularly in classic clothing. While it is tempting to praise the ultra slim, two dimensional fit, achieving clean lines with enough drape for movement and ease to remain elegant is the true marker of beautiful tailoring.

The last paragraph of Ethan’s post is something you should commit to memory.