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Vintage ca. 1930s cafe racer-style leather jacket

Starts at $85, ends Monday

Q and Answer: The Three-Roll-Two

Benjamin writes to ask: I inherited a handful of my grandfather’s tasteful suits a few years ago and am slowly having them tailored and integrated into my wardrobe. Among my favorites are a very classic Brooks Brothers navy blazer and a cotton khaki suit. Both include three-button jackets, however the lapels were folded as two-buttons leaving the third button hole exposed on the lower part of the lapel. Being under 6’, I tend to prefer a two-button jacket, so I would like to keep them folded the way they are now. But I would also like to know a little more about the style, what’s the deal here? Was it a style years ago? Is it considered tacky?

What you’ve got is probably the most classic suit buttoning style, the 3-roll-2:  three buttons, with a roll in the lapel that rolls under the top button, making the coat functionally a two-button.

Three-button suits were the style of the “Friends” era, and two buttons the style of the “Cheers” era.  The 3-roll-2 is a compromise.  It’s found on many Savile Row single-breasteds, and is the classic buttoning for the undarted Ivy League-style “sack” suit.  It’s the opposite of tacky - the epitome of class.

The great challenge will be preserving the lapel roll as such.  On cheap and mishandled suits, the lapel doesn’t roll at all - it folds.  Often dry cleaners will press the lapel down into the chest of the suit, flattening out the suit’s three-dimensional shape.  They’ll also often press a 3-roll-2 into an awkward three-button, so be vigilant.  A good tailor can steam the lapel roll for you to preserve its shape.

A Guide to Men’s Jacket Lapels

Many of our readers are style aficionados.  We know too, though, that many are just learning the ropes.  A reader emailed me the other day, saying he’d appreciate some information on the various types of jacket lapels.

The peaked lapel has a lower blade which extends beyond the upper blade.  In British English, it’s known as a pointed lapel.  This lapel is traditional on double-breasted suits, and on more formal single-breasted suits.  A single-breasted, peak-lapel suit is the most formal informal suit a man can wear.  It is also the lapel on most evening and formal wear.

The notch lapel has an appropriate name, as it has a notch cut into it (the English call it a step lapel).  A bit like what Pac-Man might look like, if he were a lapel, instead of a circle.  This is the lapel configuration of most single-breasted business suits.  You sometimes see it on evening wear, but it is, in our book, inappropriate and inelegant in that context.

The least-common lapel style is the shawl lapel.  This lapel features a clean, unbroken line.  In roughly 1993, you might have caught one or two shawl lapels on lounge suits if you watched The Larry Sanders Show closely enough, but generally, you’ll only see them on evening clothes.  Generally, the shawl lapel is a relatively informal style in the formal wear context, often seen on white dinner jackets, which are worn during summer months.

There is also the Nehru jacket, which features no lapel, and should pretty much only be worn if your name is Nehru.

I learned many life lessons from growing up in the inner city.

One of the most significant: there is no sadder garment than the patchwork leather jacket.

Eight Days of Style

Reader Lucy wrote to us to ask that we suggest eight super-basic, affordable Hanukkah gifts for her boyfriend “to replace his stained light-wash jeans and Nine Inch Nails t-shirts.”  We’ll offer one choice for each day the oil burned.

For cold weather, get him a vintage naval peacoat.  The real deal will only cost you about $50-75 in great condition.  Remember that they’re sized to be worn with a bulky sweater underneath.

All I Want For Christmas: John Roderick

Today in our continuing series of style requests from men we like, John Roderick.  Roderick’s the frontman of the Seattle band The Long Winters, and his strapping, flannely, missing-toothed style makes him a darling of lumberjack fetishists everywhere.  In addition to his music, Roderick is the author of “electric aphorisms,” a book of short-form wit.

“These custom-made boots are the ultimate, maximum piece of super-excellent boss gear, ever.  If I owned these boots I would just roam the back highways of America on my Triumph, dispensing a kind of rough justice as I searched for a way to forget my past. If I owned these boots I would probably be real quiet and hard to figure out, and waitresses would be intrigued by my solitary nature.  These boots are very expensive, but it wouldn’t matter because my only other clothes would be some dusty denim and a weather-beaten horsehide jacket.”

Eighteen Inch Wesco Boss Engineer Boot

Ultimatum by The Long Winters

Guest Q and Answer: Will Boehlke on the Drape Cut

Gray writes:

I wanted to buy a suit in the style of Cary Grant in Holiday in Rome - I believe they are called drape cut.  Does anyone still cut suits in this style or am I limited to thrift stores?

We asked Will Boehlke of A Suitable Wardrobe to field this one - he’s the man when it comes to tailored clothing.  So much so, in fact, that we invited him to speak at our session at MaxFunCon in 2010.  Of course, our decision was a sound one, as Will is a font of knowledge on the drape cut.

“The drape cut was invented by tailor Frederick Scholte in London before World War II. Perhaps the most successful tailor on Savile Row in the twentieth century, Scholte’s Aha! moment came in the 1930’s when he admired the effect of the tightly belted, very full overcoats of England’s Brigade of Guards officers. Scholte spent several years evolving a system that evoked that look in jackets with extra folds of fabric “draped” over the shoulders. The small vertical folds of cloth seen on the chest next to the armholes in Luciano Barbera’s jacket in the photograph are the descendents of his invention. When combined with other techniques such as lightweight canvas and little or no shoulder padding, drape makes a jacket seem more relaxed.

“I am not familiar enough with ready to wear lines to know whether any offer jackets cut with drape, but it is one of the usual elements of the soft tailoring style at bespoke firms such as London’s Anderson & Sheppard and Mariano Rubinacci of Naples.”

(Above: Luciano Barbera)

I Want To Go To There

Beretta Maremmana Jacket

I am flabbergasted by how beautiful this jacket is.  The mens’ version: much less attractive.

Via a great travel wardrobe from the great Archival Clothing.

Look at how well Richard from Kent (UK) handles the mix of colors and textures in this fall ensemble.  You wouldn’t necessarily think of baby blue as a fall color, but when it’s woven into the knotty wool and popping out in that silk square, it works beautifully.  It reminds me of those moments in fall when the sky pops out behind a line of trees, and it’s as blue as it could ever be.

Greg in Phoenix demonstrates some astonishing derring-do in this combination of shirt, tie, coat and pocket square.  It’s busy, but it works remarkably well.

Note that each pattern varies in scale from those next to it.  The busy (but beautiful!) coat is grounded by the simple, bold stripe of the shirt.  The contrasts with the shirt in both pattern and texture with small white dots on a burgundy ground.  The ivory pocket square matches nothing in the rest of the outfit, but it’s a comfortable neutral between the earth-toned neutrals of the jacket and the white neutrals of the shirt and tie.

This is a lot of moving parts.  AP-level stuff.  I don’t recommend this for the beginner or the faint of heart.  I’m not even sure it looks better than would something a little simpler.  Greg looks absolutely wonderful, though, doesn’t he?