Put This On

My Visit to Naples

I’ve been traveling a bit, but sometime at the end of last month, I was able to spend a week in Naples. 

They say there’s a difference between awareness and understanding, and I believe that you can’t really understand Neapolitan tailoring without having visited Naples itself. The Neapolitan jacket is more than a collection of unique details - the barchetta pockets, puckered sleevehead, extended front seam, and light construction. Some years ago, I commissioned a “Neapolitan” jacket to be made by a Chinese tailor. The fit and construction were good, but there was something missing. It looked exactly like what it was: a simulacrum. Capturing all the details was simply not enough to make it Neapolitan. 

Indeed, while I was in Naples, I had a chance to chat with Mariano Rubinacci, the current proprietor of the famous Rubinacci tailoring house. Rubinacci is one of the few houses in the world that has both built an international brand and kept an unwavering standard for its craft. In addition to its flagship in Naples, it has stores in Milan, Rome, and London, each of which offers bespoke tailoring services.  

I asked Signore Rubinacci if he’s able to train someone in Milan, for example, to make a perfect Neapolitan jacket. After all, I had already lost some money trying to get a Chinese tailor to do the same. He admitted that his tailors outside of Naples would make something slightly different. “We can train them to make the same exact patterns, cut in the same exact ways, and stitch just as we do, but in the end, a Milanese jacket will be slightly ‘cleaner,’” he said. “Perhaps there’s something in the air here.” 

After my visit, I can see how this is true. There is no other city in the world like Naples. It has an energetic, non-stop tempo that makes every corner feel like a theatre. The city isn’t just a background to the Neapolitan man’s suit; it’s the inspiration. The sun-baked cobble stone streets, the Neoclassical architecture, the peeling layers of paint on every wall, the breeze that blows over Mount Vesuvius, and the glistening Tyrrhenian Sea are all things that emotionally define the Neapolitan jacket. 

Take, for example, the extraordinary level of visible hand detailing. Any well-constructed bespoke jacket will be fully handmade, but Neapolitans take the extra effort to make this handwork visible, perhaps most of all through the mappina sleeves. It’s one thing to appreciate this artistically or technically, but it’s another to understand how this speaks of the Neapolitan. Every Neapolitan man I met - tailors, taxi drivers, waiters, etc - had an extraordinary amount of pride for his city. Don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t obnoxious, but rather charming. There’s no way to become quicker friends with a Neapolitan than to tell him (sincerely) how much you love Naples. Of course, out of humbleness, they may point out some of the town’s problems, but you could always sense they loved their city more than others care for theirs. 

This pride, I think, plays itself out in the city’s tailoring. Neapolitans not only know they make some of the best handmade garments in the world, but they want to show you. Their tailoring is meant to elevate both the wearer and Naples itself. How else can one understand a pignata pocket with the decorative double stitching, or the soufflé-like sleeveheads? 

In the following weeks, I have a few posts planned for Put This On about my experiences there. I’ll talk about some of the artisans I met and my thoughts on Naples’ changing tailoring culture. I hope you’ll enjoy the articles I have planned.

Q and Answer: The Partially-Lined Blazer

Layton writes: I recently bought a Paul Stuart tweed blazer on eBay. I’m happy with the way it looks on me, but it seems to be missing the liner on the inside that all blazers and suit jackets I have ever worn or seen have. Did the seller remove the liner, or are some blazers sold without one?

A jacket’s lining has three purposes.

The primary functional purpose is to allow the coat to slide freely on and off, and to hang freely when worn. The lining also provides some measure of additional warmth, and it covers up the guts of the coat, meaning that seams can be left unfinished without looking sloppy.

Until the latter part of the 20th century, the norm was for coats to be made from heavier fabric (for drape), with lining only where necessary. That meant that the sleeves would be lined (so your shirt wouldn’t catch), the shoulders would be lined (so that the back would hang smoothly without bunching), and the chest would be lined (to cover the canvassing and provide for pockets). This meant that exposed seams - in the back of the coat and sometimes in the lower part of the front as well - had to be taped (wrapped with a sewn ribbon) so they’d be presentable and durable.

When the suit coat became a mass-produced product, manufacturers realized that it was cheaper just to leave the seams unfinished and cover them up with a lining. Things were a bit more clammy in a fully-lined coat, but this was less important as the jacket’s primary cloth became more and more lightweight.

When one finds a partially-lined coat these days, it’s generally either a high-end product or designed for summer wear. Since I prefer to wear a heavier cloth, given the opportunity, I like a less-lined coat when possible.

The lining, by the way, is almost always made of bemberg, an early semi-synthetic fabric (invented in the teens) made from plants. If your suit is lined with polyester, it’s probably crap. (If it’s lined with silk, you’re probably super sweaty.)

Quarter for your Thoughts

One of the most important areas to pay attention to when examining the fit of a suit or sport coat is what online menswear enthusiasts like to call the “quarters.” This is the section of the jacket that sits right below the buttoning point. Professional tailors refer to the area as the “front” or “front of the skirt,” but this is just a difference in terminology. 

A jacket can be made with open or closed quarters (or, correspondingly, straight or cutaway fronts). On a jacket with open quarters, the fronts will cutaway a bit below the buttoning point. Likewise, on a jacket with closed quarters, they will fall straight down.

They’re never completely straight, of course. The lounge suit evolved from the riding coat, which was heavily shaped by King George IV. The King was one of the first royals in the 19th century to be an arbiter of fashion and taste, and he had the fronts of his riding coat cut away to make way for the saddle and horse’s flanks. It was quite unflattering on him, actually, because of his large stomach, but was indubitably la mode. Thus the fashion stuck and we now have the design on the modern lounge suit. 

What you choose for yourself is a matter of personal taste. Very closed quarters might give you a “Y-shaped” silhouette, while open quarters will make your jacket form a bit of an “X.” I personally prefer open quarters, though nothing too extreme. I like the swooping line they create from the top of the lapel down to the hem. It’s a slightly more dynamic look that I think works well on young, slim men.

Of course, people differ. A friend of mine, Cooper Frederickson, once joked that strongly open quarters looked like something Diamond Dallas Page would wear. We agreed in the end that Page is probably a strictly Men’s Warehouse kind of man, but the point is well taken. 

Pictured above: Simon Crompton on the left and Takahiro Osaki on the right. Crompton is wearing a bespoke British suit (I’ve forgotten the maker) with closed fronts while Taka is wearing something more open from Liverano & Liverano.  

One of my favorite blogs, Heavy Tweed Jacket, has a habit of long hiatuses wherein he takes down his content completely. Luckily, he’s back, posting pictures of Secretary of State Dean Atcheson in three-piece tweed suits. Which is tremendous.

Understanding a Suit’s Silhouette

It’s common to hear people describe a suit’s silhouette in terms of its nationality. Suits are described as being American, British, or Continental. The first is either a sack or modified sack silhouette; the second said to be built up with military shoulders and have more waist suppression; and the third said to be a bit slimmer and feature “natural shoulders”. This is roughly correct, though it stays truer for some countries than others. Jesse, for example, did a wonderful job of describing the traditional American style of suits a few months ago. His description really works for America because of how large J Press looms in our sartorial history. For a country like Italy, however, it can be a bit more diverse. For example, a Neapolitan jacket can be very different from a Roman one, and some would say that Naples itself is also too heterogeneous to categorize. Thus, it can be useful to break down the silhouette of a suit into parts and not just think of them nationally. By doing so, you can better understand what you like or don’t like about a particular suit, and be better equipped to find one that best fits your personal sense of style.

At the most basic level, a suit’s silhouette can be said to be either structured or soft. A structured suit will be made with a stiffer canvas and have a more built up, padded shoulder. A softer silhouette will, naturally, be made with a softer canvas and have a thinner layer of padding. A related issue, though not exactly the same, is the shoulder’s expression. A shoulder can be roped, natural, or bald. The first will have a prominent ridge at the shoulder seam that runs along the crown of the sleeve. The second will have a very light ridge, but run flat. The third will have a knocked down shoulder seam and very low profile. Jeffery Diduch did a great job of explaining the differences between shoulder expressions here. The takeaway is that while some expressions may be associated with specific styles of construction - for example, the bald shoulder with a softly constructed, unpadded shoulder line - they don’t necessarily have to go together. They’re two separate elements that work in concert with each other to make up what we see as the shoulder, which in turn gives us the impression of a structured or soft silhouette.

The minimally padded, softer silhouette is more popular these days, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should wear it. One of the important lessons taught by Alan Flusser is that we should dress to our body types, not what happens to be fashionable. A friend of mine in San Francisco, for example, has a very round upper chest, as well as round, sloping shoulders with prominent blades. In a soft Neapolitan jacket, he looks like an gorilla, but in something more structured and with a nipped waist, he looks athletic and handsome. As always, it’s best to try both of these styles on and be objective about how you look in each.

The other important aspect to a suit is how lean or full it is. In the most basic sense, this is about how close the suit sits to your body. Unfortunately, the trend of slimmer fitting clothes has led men to be single minded about this subject, but a better understanding is more nuanced. We can think of the suit in three parts - the chest, waist, and skirt (the skirt is simply the part of the jacket that hangs below the waist).

A lean chest will be shallow while a full chest will either be swelled or draped. A swelled chest will be fuller all around and look a bit more sculpted. A draped chest will have large, vertical folds of excess cloth that “drape” along the jacket’s edges, near the armholes. I made a post about drapes and swells at my other blog some time ago, and you can see illustrations of it there. The two often go together, but they don’t have to. You can have a swelled chest, for example, with no drape.

Similar to the chest, the waist can be nipped or left loose, and the skirt can hug the hips or be left a little full. These will create either a leaner or fuller silhouette, depending on how you combine these constructions.

The “lean and clean” look is what men’s fashion magazines have been pushing for years, and probably what has been most popular with men for decades. This silhouette will sit closer to the wearer’s body in all three sections. A fuller silhouette is less popular, but I think unjustly so. I don’t just mean the dartless American sack suits here, either. Anderson & Sheppard, for example, makes a fuller chest that gently billows out a bit. I find the effect more masculine, heroic, and elegant. I once read Michael Alden compare someone’s “lean and clean” suit to an overly skinny runway model that needed more “meat on her bones.” Setting aside my slight uncomfortableness with talking about people in this way, his description spoke well to how I feel about these kinds of silhouettes in general. Of course, this is all a matter of personal taste and style, but I find fuller suits to have more depth and elegance, and be infinitely more interesting. Not that everyone should share my taste, of course, but I do think that most men should consider fuller suits more.

Moving on to the last dimension, a suit’s silhouette can either be elongating or widening. There are many aspects to this. An elongating suit will have a lower buttoning point. This will draw longer vertical lines along the suit’s lapel, which in turn will make the wearer look a bit taller. It may also have a higher gorge. A suit’s “gorge” is often conflated with the lapel’s notch, but it’s actually the seam that connects the jacket’s collar to the lapel. More or less the same, but still slightly different. Italians tend to make suits with a higher gorge than their British counterparts, and Neapolitan and Sicilian tailors make them higher still.

A widening silhouette will have wider lapels and perhaps extended shoulders. In today’s single-mindedness about suits, this may sound unappealing, but it’s worth reminding that many Neapolitan suits, which so many people are in love with nowadays, often have widening silhouettes.

In the end, all of these aspects can be combined in a number of ways to create an overall silhouette. One of the most elegantly dressed men I’ve ever met wore a softly constructed suit with a bald shoulder. His jacket had a fuller chest, nipped waist, and tight skirt. His trousers had a slightly higher rise and the legs were fuller than what more “fashionable” men wear today. They were still slim and flattering, however, and they created a nice line going from his jacket to his shoes. What he wore matched not only his body type, but also his personality and character. As a man, he was every bit as elegant as his clothes, and what he wore expressed him as a full human being, not as a clotheshorse.

As you look at pictures of well-dressed men, try dissecting each of these parts. You’ll develope a more refined understanding of suits and become more sensitive to how they can make an impression. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll be better equipped to purchase suits according to your body type and sense of style. Maybe you like lean, structured suits, or maybe you don’t, but you won’t know until you understand how to look for them.

Pictures taken from The Armoury, Permanent Style, The Sartorialist, Mister Crew, Rubinacci Club, and a few others I’ve unfortunately forgotten. This article also owes a lot to Michael Anton’s original article on the same subject at the London Lounge, so many thanks to him for that.

We Got It For Free: SuitSupply Suit

In my short time writing about men’s clothing, I’ve been asked no less than a dozen times by readers to recommend a suit priced around $500. I’ve never been able to give a good answer. Recently, however, SuitSupply sent me this navy, chalk-striped suit to review after reading my post on their made-to-measure program. Of all the suits I’ve seen in this price tier, at least in terms of MSRP pricing, this is easily the best I’ve seen. 

To start, the suit is fairly well cut. The jacket buttons at my natural waist and it’s long enough to cover my rear. The collar always stays on my neck and the shoulders neither dimple nor rumple. Additionally, the pants sit on, not just at, my hips and the back fork falls fairly cleanly. These may seem like really basic points, but you’d be surprised how difficult it is to find a suit in this price range that meet them. 

The construction is also fairly decent. It’s a half-canvas made with a softer canvas material, and the shoulders are soft and sloping. Both of these features make the suit look more natural when worn. Additionally, the buttons are made of horn and the chalk stripes match up neatly as they move across the pockets. 

There are two downsides, however. First, the armholes aren’t as high as they could be, which causes the jacket to lift when the arms are raised. The sleeves also have functioning buttonholes, which means they can be altered only up to 3/4ths of an inch (either let out or taken up). If your arms are shorter than that allowance, you’ll have to take the sleeve up from the armhole, which can cost you about $100. You could also try the longer and shorter versions of your suit size, but that may throw other proportions off. 

At the same time, both of these issues are fairly common for off-the-rack suits, especially in this price tier. They’re hardly unique to SuitSupply (I’ve also been told that the Washington and Sevilla models have higher armholes). In the end, this suit is classically proportioned, well fitting, and decently constructed. I would enthusiastically recommend it to anyone. SuitSupply is working in a price tier with competitors that are selling either fused suits or ones made with really bad cuts (e.g. skinny lapels or short jackets). They’ve upped the quality, brought cuts into better balance, and selling it all for around $500. In terms of quality and fit, these are comparable to many brands selling at more than $1,000. While their custom clothing program is only available to those who can make it into one of their stores, their ready-to-wear line (which is a full menswear collection, by the way) can be ordered by anyone online.

So, in the future, if anyone asks for a recommendation for a suit priced around $500, I finally have an answer - SuitSupply.

“Get a well-fitting suit, a fitted shirt, a solid pair of leather-soled shoes and a nice necktie — and never worry again about needing something nice to wear on short notice.” - The Silentist

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.

This is the picture I’m taking to my tailor when I get my Donegal tweed made up.