Day: December 20, 2005

I have not posted much about my great love of well-tailored suits. However I have very much enjoyed reading the English Cut, which is the pre-eminent tailor’s blog. (The Sartorialist is pretty good too, though I suspect Eden may object to treating the homeless as sartorial inspiration… or maybe not). I now have a raging desire for a £1,700 bespoke suit which I probably cannot afford to sublimate into a 700 quid Hackett off the peg. More’s the pity. (Why doesn’t the Hackett site actually show the suits??? It’s why we visit the site! I’ve tried telling them…) Actually, I’d like more opportunities to wear suits. There isn’t actually much call for it in consulting work these days, though I quite fancy swimming against the tide.

My preference would be a two button fairly heavy dark charcoal chalkstripe, no cuffs on the trousers, straight side pockets, flat fronted trousers with side fastenings and no belt loops, trouser bottoms not too narrow (probably 15 inch), fairly relaxed coat with lapels not too narrow. Though plain grey is appealing and of course matches any decent shirt.

Decent shirts being a subject and a half. Too many short collars come up too tight, but properly made shirts can be very expensive while not standing up to too much washing. Remarkably, Next does a line of very cheap shirts (15 quid!) with good quality collars that stand up to a decent tie knot (no, not one of those stupid footballer fatties) and… errr… don’t need ironing. Quite remarkable. They do them with double cuffs (i.e. for cufflinks) too. My beloved Hackett shirts seem to have built-in obsolescence, which is a terrible shame. Of course, you can always pick out some wearable if dull shirts from Marks and Sparks. (And no, I’ve never bought an M&S suit, though I try them on every couple of years.)

If I get enough requests from readers I may post photographs of some of my suits.