Put This On

We Got It For Free: Marshall Anthony tie

A relatively new men’s clothier, Marshall Anthony, recently sent me one of their indigo raw silk ties. I’m usually skeptical of new neckwear brands, but this time, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Marshall Anthony’s raw silks are somewhat like Drake’s tussahs or the raw silks that Ralph Lauren used to put out many years ago. They’re slubby, but lighter in weight and much easier to knot than Drake’s shantungs. In addition, they have slight color striations, which give them some visual interest. You can see the striations in the main picture above.

Most of Marshall Anthony’s ties are padded with a wool interlining, but these raw silks feature a wool and cotton blend. Caron Gabriel, one of the designers behind the company, explained to me that because of the slubby nature of the raw silk, they decided to go with a blend in order to make sure the tie wasn’t too bulky or too thin. I found the effect to be just that; it dimples well, makes a nicely sized knot, and gives an arched drape. As well, despite it not being made with a pure wool interlining, the tie still relaxes and resets easily after a day’s wear. 

Everything the company produces is handmade. The ties are individually cut and sewn by hand, and if they’re untipped, they feature hand rolled edges. Untipped, hand rolled finishing is something I’ve come to really appreciate on casual ties, so it’s great to see it on raw silk. The widths are 3.25”, which fits in well with today’s modern slim look, but still stays within the range of tradition. Likewise, their bow ties are 4.5” in width and 2.5” in height. Not too large, not too small. 

Caron tells me they have some big plans for 2012. They plan to expand the brand into a full menswear line, which will eventually include everything from suits to shoes to outerwear. For now, they’re working on continuing their neckwear line and building in a new shirt collection. They also have a program where customers can send in older neckties they no longer wear and have them turned into custom bow ties. Give them a look when you have a chance. 

Q and Answer: Can I Repair Frayed Shirt Collars and Cuffs?

David asks: I do a lot of thrifting button-down shirts. Sometimes I’ll get attached to a shirt even if it’s slightly past its use-by date - when there’s fraying around the cuffs or collar. I’ve thought about fabric glue, but I’ve never tried it and I’m not sure if it’s really worth the effort. Should I just suck it up and get a new shirt or are there any decent options to repair mild fraying?

It’s absolutely normal for the collars and cuffs of a shirt to fray before the rest of the shirt is worn out. These parts of the shirt take the most abuse, after all. But can they be repaired?

The answer is yes, but whether it’s worth it to execute the repairs is another matter.

When a man’s clothes were made for him, it was normal practice to repair them before replacing them. The cost of making clothes one at a time is much higher than it is to make them on an assembly line, and tradespeople capable of making repairs were plentiful. It made economic sense to maintain the clothes you had. Today, that math is less clear - if you maintain your shirts this way, it’s more likely to be a personal choice than an economic one.

The fraying at the collars and cuff cannot be repaired, per se. The cost of reweaving it would be extraordinarily prohibitive. That leaves you with a few choices.

First, you can leave it frayed. Particularly heavier weight shirts like oxford button-downs almost seem more at home slightly frayed than brand new. The old-money aesthetic values that guide their wear suggest that you wear them into the ground rather than replace them. These values have been aped by manufacturers who often sandpaper the edges of oxford shirts to fray them intentionally. Your goal here is to achieve a Prince Charles’ shoes level of wabi-sabi.

Second, you can turn the collar and cuffs. This is just what it sounds like. The collar and cuffs are removed and reversed, so that the inside is out and the outside is in. This works best with double cuffs, and can be problematic with shirts that have pockets for collar stays. Even so, a tailor can generally replace one side of the collar with fabric from the shirt’s tail. This may cost twenty or thirty dollars.

The most drastic step is to replace the collar and cuffs. If you’ve seen dress shirts with white collar and cuffs, this practice was the origin. Since matching fabric won’t be readily available (and won’t match anyway, given the number of washes the shirt will have been through), a plain white collar and cuff can be used. Again, this option comes with a significant cost, but if you’re dealing with a very fine dress shirt, it may well be worth it.

If your shirtmaker or tailor doesn’t offer these services, there are mail-order options, like Maldonado’s, who charge $20 to replace a collar and $12-15 to replace cuffs..

This Fits has a good tip about a Lands End Canvas sale right now. There are certainly better oxfords out there, and he’s right about the disappointing collars, but the pricepoint can be very attractive if you need affordable options. A better oxford would  be Brooks Brothers. Those go on sale for about $40-50 once the season ends, so make the chioce that’s right for you.

thisfits:

TODAY ONLY: Lands’ End Canvas Heritage Oxfords for $20 Shipped

Use promo code STILLTIME (PIN 4268) for no minimum free shipping.

This month, Lands’ End Canvas is running one-day-only promotions through the 20th. Today’s deal is pretty good: $20 for select shirts, including their well-regarded heritage oxfords.

With their fairly slim fit, LEC’s oxfords are some of my favorite shirts. In fact, if they redesigned them with slightly beefier collars, I’d probably not look elsewhere for OCBDs. 

Today’s sale is a bit of a rare event: I’ve watched the price on these oxfords steadily increase since LEC launched two years ago, and they’re now sitting at nearly $50 full price. While a number of them go on sale, a few staple colors almost never do, including the blue-striped oxford above. If you’re looking to stock up on a few basic shirts, don’t miss this.

(Source: canvas.landsend.com)

CottonWork Deal

If you’re a college student* and have a job interview coming up, CottonWork is running a promotion where they’ll make you a free custom shirt. Just apply here. The offer is good for the first hundred entries, but it renews itself every month. So if you miss out this month, just go back in January. 

I’ve used CottonWork before and in my experience, they’re one of the better online made-to-measure shirt companies. It can be nicer to get a shirt made by an experienced local tailor, but if you don’t have that available to you, online made-to-measure options are a good alternative. They’re also much cheaper. 

When getting measurements, I strongly suggest that you get them from five to ten different people. Weed out the anomalies and figure out the averages. The quality of a custom shirt largely depends on how good your measurements are, so get them from people you trust. 

If you’re not a college student, you can still take advantage of their “Essential” collection for promotional offer price of $40. My gut says it would be better to buy from the “Luxury” line or higher, but if you’re looking to just get a test shirt made, this can be a good place to start. 

* Note: Offer only available to students at one of the twenty-two colleges CottonWork has selected.

Q and Answer: Can I Wear a Tie and a Button-Down Collar?

Matthew asks: I’ll often wear a knit tie with a button-down collar.  I figure, a casual tie for a casual shirt.  But I can’t find much of a consensus on wearing other ties with one.  What are your thoughts on the particulars of ties with button-down shirts?

Here’s the short answer: yes, you can wear a tie with a button-down collar.

The longer answer, as it always does, has a bit more complication.

The button-down collar is a particularly American style. The oxford-cloth button-down is so beloved that in menswear circles it’s become known simply as the OCBD. The collar, originally invented for sport, has become the definitive shirt style for both casual and more formal dress in the United States. Just because it’s a genuine icon, though, doesn’t make it appropriate for every situation.

There is, of course, a heirarchy of formality in shirts. Speaking generally, double cuffs are more formal than single cuffs. Collars grow more formal as their spread widens. Fabrics with harder finishes are more formal than those with softer finishes. Button-down oxfords are the most informal of all. Still, we live in an era where half of the covers of GQ magazine feature men wearing skinny ties with plaid sport shirts, so there’s still plenty of room for the tie-and-button-down combination.

If you live outside the United States, wearing a tie with a button-down collar may be affectedly American, or even inappropriate. I certainly wouldn’t do it if I worked at a London financial services company, for example. Of course, I wouldn’t likely wear a button-down collar much if I lived outside the United States, so it simply wouldn’t come up.

Inside the United States, I think your instincts are absolutely correct. I tend to wear a button-down casually. They pair well with sportcoats, especially casual, texture-y ones, and they look great with knit ties and bows. In fact, I generally prefer button-down collars with both of those tie styles.

The more American your aesthetic, the further you can push this - if you buy all your clothes at J. Press and wear nothing but sack suits, like George H.W. Bush, you can wear a button-down in almost any situation. If you’re of the Anglophilic persuasion, or tend to wear Italian styles, they’re not particularly suitable, even with a blazer or loud checked coat.

If you want to wear a button-down collar with a suit, you’re entering dangerous territory. Above is a famous photograph of Cary Grant in a button-down and suit. It’s a picture that often comes up when people argue about the subject of whether the two are an acceptable pairing. Cary Grant looks great, so as a general rule, I’d say that if you’re Cary Grant, you can wear a button-down with a suit. I’ll also make an exception for the kind of dyed-in-the-wool trads who have sworn a blood oath against suit darts and dress every day like they were going to a meeting at the Dean’s Office at Harvard in 1964. And heck, while I’m at it, I’ll make an exception for the most casual of suits - corduroy.

For all us normals, though, it’s almost never a good move. The best case scenario is that you’ll make it to the level of the inoffensive dress of an insurance conference attendee from Dubuque. The worst case scenario is that you’ll fall short, and end up at the offensive dress of an insurance conference attendee from Dubuque. It’s really not worth the risk.

Q and Answer: Which Shirt Cuff Button Do I Use?

Brandon asks: I was wondering which button to use on a barrel cuff shirt.  There are two buttons to fasten my sleeves, those that would make the cuff tighter and those that would allow them to be looser.

This is an easy one!

As Carl Goldberg demonstrated in our “Body” episode, commercial cuffs are almost always too big, not too small. They should never be able to slide further than the midway point between your wrist and thumb.

That means you should always use the button that makes the cuff smaller, unless you’re wearing a very large watch or have exceptionally big wrists.

Plackets and Pockets: Know the Details

For classic men’s style, expressions are often in the tiniest of tiny details. Closed eyelets on shoes express formality, cuffs on trousers express casualness, and structured shoulders give a sense of rigidity and authority.

The details of a button up shirt are just as expressive. The length of your collar points, shape of your collar, and cut of your cuffs all hold certain meanings. I’ll cover those some other time, but today I’ll discuss something you may not have considered - plackets and pockets.

A placket is that extra piece of material at the front of the shirt where the buttonholes are placed. It’s usually created by folding the shirt’s material onto the front, or by sewing a separate piece of material onto this area. This design not only helps give support and strength to the opening of the shirt, where most stress is placed, but it also creates a visual center when the shirt is buttoned. Most shirts you’ve seen (and almost certainly the one you’re wearing right now) have plackets.

The alternative is the French front (also known as the “plain center”). Here the material is folded to the underside of the shirt so that it’s not visible. It is then secured by the stitching on the buttonholes.

There’s no right or wrong way to choose between these details, but you should know what effect each will have. Getting a shirt without a placket or pocket, like the shirt above, will look cleaner, and since simplicity tends towards formality, it will also be dressier. A shirt with a placket and pocket, then, will conversely be a bit more causal.

I also find that shirts without plackets and pockets look more Continental European, while shirts with these details look more American. As such, you should choose shirts that most accords with your personal sense of style. I happen to favor shirts without them, as I like dressier, tailored Italian clothes, but someone who likes a more casual American style should get shirts with these details.

However you choose, note that some shirts should be made in certain ways. An oxford cloth button down, for example, is inherently casual and very American, so I think it looks best with a placket and pocket. If you want it to be even more American, you get the pocket with a flap, like this. This design detail was invented by J. Press and has since been strongly associated with the trad/ Ivy League crowd. Again, it’s all about knowing what these details mean and choosing accordingly.

How to Dry Clothes Properly

An electric, heat-conducing dryer is the enemy of all clothing. Cotton fibers are supposed to have some humidity in them, but when they’re run through a dryer, they become brittle, break, and eventually take on a dull, worn-out appearance. In fact, all that lint you find is composed of the yarns that your dryer has robbed. Plus, dryers shrink clothes and crack mother-of-pearl buttons. They’re really quite terrible. 

Thus, I strongly recommend that you hang dry. This past summer, Jesse put up a clothesline in his backyard. As you can see, you should hang your clothes upside down with clothespins. This will help you avoid pinch marks on your shoulders. 

The other option is to hang dry them indoors. You can use regular clothes hangers for this. If you don’t want to get creases on your shoulders, throw wash cloths under them. 

My own practice, however, is to hang things on a clothing rack, which I place either indoors or outdoors, depending on the weather. Mine looks very much like this (though it’s not this exact model). There are many designs on the market, but I like this one because it has racks on racks on racks (sorry, had to) for my slacks on slacks on slacks (had to again). The greater amount of hanging space means I can fit about two loads of laundry on it. I also prefer metal to wood since I find it much sturdier. When it’s not in use, it folds up into a flat, thin frame and is stored away. 

This method obviously takes longer than a using an electric dryer, but it will add years to the life of your clothes. If you have lower-quality garments, like Hanes athletic tube socks, I’m sure it’s not the end of the world if you throw them in the dryer. For higher-quality garments, however, let them hang dry. If for some reason you must put them in the dryer, at least use the “no heat” setting.

You can buy a good clothing rack for between $30 and $60. Just look online, perhaps on Amazon, or go to your local Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It’s not the cheapest purchase, but when you consider how much you’ll save in energy bills and replacing clothes, it’s a smart investment.