On Monday my latest column for How to Spend It was published, in which I talked to Jean-Claude Colban (above) of Charvet in Paris about the state of the cotton and silk industries – and his project to create the perfect white shirting. Below is the full interview, which I’m sure readers will appreciate more than the HTSI audience.

What is changing at the moment in terms of the way you produce your materials?

Colours are an interesting subject. The world’s colours, particularly for silks, are becoming both more standardised and more ‘solid’. This is the technical term for colours that are more resistant to light, humidity, sweat and so on. It is judged by standardised tests, and certain dying techniques and shades are known to be more solid. 

Dyers call it progress. Certainly it is in demand in certain markets. But it narrows the range of colours that are easily available. This season, for example, I used as a reference a colour from our records in 1939 – a bluish-green. I gave a swatch of it to a dyer, and he came back with four shades, none of which were close. Expressing my surprise and disappointment, I tried to push one of his buttons – his sense of pride. He came back with two more, one supposedly his best attempt but still a ‘solid’ colour, and the other closer but less solid. I had to push another button – calling his father. This time we got the exact right colour, with no more discussion about solidity. 

Is it caused by cost-saving, ignorance or something else?

Often, it is just an excuse. It is easier to work with a small range of colours. There is a growing lack of knowledge, about colour in particular but textiles in general, that leads to people trying to get away with easy solutions. It is very concerning.

Do you think customers can tell the difference?

I think Catherine Deneuve, the actress, said ‘I can distinguish even between two green peas’. And this is true of more than just Catherine Deneuve. But you need to see the two peas alongside each other, otherwise many will not notice. 

The colour difference is particularly important because many weaving techniques are based on subtly different shades. We are known for what some journalists call the use of a ‘hidden colour’, which is a decent approximation for something I never explained very clearly. The fact is we use shade differences between warp and weft to create certain effects, and having to choose from a standardised palette is a problem. Luxury is also a matter of choice of colour. 

Does it matter how natural the colours are?

Absolutely: colours were produced until around 300 years ago entirely with natural dyes. In some parts of the world, such as India and Syria, it was done with natural dyes until maybe 20 years ago. There was a famous silk dyer in Aleppo, a blind man, who knew the perfect shades just by the smell. It’s true – it’s a documented story. Now this kind of knowledge has unfortunately gone. 

I am myself very fond of natural dye because I think anything that is a shade from nature is pleasing to the eye. This is an idea that has been developed by people much more knowledgeable than I. They say, for instance, that the artificial colours of soccer players create a significant amount of aggression, whether willingly or unwillingly. 

There is an endless capacity for nuance with natural dye. Over the course history, we have generally always begun with natural dyes and then reproduced them will artificial or chemical processes. 

Are there any advantages to artificial, solid colours, other than the obvious resistance to sweat etc?

The colours are easier to reproduce. The process is more consistent, at least in theory. 

Is consistency a big problem with dyers today? 

Oh yes. In fact I would say that the item that has the highest degree of sophistication and luxury, particularly in shirting, is a plain, piece-dyed fabric. Because the plainer the fabric, the most noticeable every defect is. 

If you want to weave a jacquard solid for a tie, it used to be very simple. Now, with dying the way it is, you often mix together six shuttles of supposedly the same colour, just to average out the differences. 

In fact, now that you understand that, you might understand that the thing we are most proud of, that we have developed recently, is our programme of solid white shirts. White shirts might be seen as an obvious thing, something plain that can be taken for granted. But that is precisely why they cannot be. The simplicity is revealing – it shows all defects. 

White has aspects of candour, of honesty, and this is one thing we pay a lot of attention to. 

When did the project begin?

It was two years ago. We first identified the first cotton to use – which was not obvious, because it’s not just a question of the length of the staple, but also the shine it will produce in the cotton. It also had to be consistent production that we could secure for ourselves. 

Then we went into the best weave. This isn’t simple, particularly for poplin where people make lots of assumptions about warp and weft count, number of picks and so on. So we did a few things our own way – I hope you’ll excuse me for being a little reserved on what they were.

Then you get onto finishing, which is very important with cotton fabrics. As I’m sure you know, there is a tendency to use finer and finer yarn and weave it faster and faster, which produces a fabric which is extremely harsh. The solution, then, is to soften it – often with silicone. As the silicone-haters that we are, we developed our own natural finishing for it. 

Which bit was the most fun?

Probably the next stage, selecting the colour. Bluish whites were in fashion for a long time; yellowish whites have a very limited Middle Eastern market; pink whites have been trending very strongly for the past five years; in the end, we went with a slightly purplish white. 

And I wouldn’t notice the difference between any of them – unless they were alongside each other.

Indeed. If you notice the colour, there’s a problem. 

The final fabric is available in poplin, oxford and panama, pinpoint and two twills. All at our entry-level price point for shirts. It’s a nice little collection and it was a very fun process. More than that, I think it proves something about what we can do. If you can’t produce a great white fabric, then what’s the point?

Do you think it’s important for people to understand a process like this?

Yes, because there is a shocking gap in the perception of cotton quality at the moment. People know that two-fold fabrics are better than single-fold, and they know to look for a higher thread count. But beyond that they know nothing. And the problem with high thread counts is that while the yarn will be extremely fine, it is not resistant, it is sheer and it can break. If you point to that man and say ‘The King has no clothes’, his response is, ‘But it’s a 300 two-ply’. That’s all. It’s the same as fine suitings or high gauges on knitwear.

In the end, people have to put their faith in us. And we have to strive to live up to that faith. I remember when we decided to test every single piece of cloth that was sent to us, for example. No one else was doing it and it was painful, but it was the only way we could guarantee consistency. 

In the end, the value of a brand is nothing more than the trust you can put in it. 

Salvatore Piccolo is best known as a Neapolitan shirt brand – his shirts and accessories are stocked in a few leading stores, including Trunk in London and United Arrows in Tokyo. But he started as a bespoke shirtmaker, learning from his mother, and still has several hundred bespoke customers around the world. Although RTW clothing is growing rapidly it is still almost half of the business.

I am always interested in companies that do significant amounts of both bespoke and readymade, and the way each informs the other. Turnbull & Asser, for example, recently introduced a slimmer shirt whose shape was based on analysis of recent bespoke orders. The only feedback most designers get is how many units they sell in each six-month season; bespoke customers tell you exactly what their perfect shirt is, day-in day-out.  

Salvatore’s shirts are all made to the same specification, whether bespoke or RTW. This means several aspects of handwork, about the minimum for Neapolitan bespoke: hand-attached collars, inserted sleeves, shoulder seams and buttonholes. 

But he also adds in little points that he has learnt from bespoke orders. The sleeves, for example, all have a little tuck in the inside of the elbow so they are slightly bent. It’s a tiny thing, but it makes sense: you rarely hold your arms dead straight.

Aside from the bespoke influence, Salvatore’s biggest strength is his depth of involvement with cloth. His Oxford shirting, for example, is made by an Italian mill that had never previously made an Oxford; they came up with an original, ultra-dry finish together. The yellow shirt above was made with a cotton that used purely yellow thread where most others mix in white – as Salvatore wanted a highly saturated effect.

This is not quite the level of involvement of Charvet, for example, but it’s a lot more than most shirtmakers, who just pick from mill’s cloth books or occasionally design their own patterns.

I also like Salvatore’s design aesthetic. Although most of the pieces are not things I would wear, they definitely have an internal consistency. I admire the whole if not the parts.

Note: Salvatore is not to be confused with Camiceria Piccolo, which is a shirting supplier in Naples that also makes bespoke shirts. Although the latter was founded by Sabatino Piccolo, its current owner is called Salvatore Piccolo as well – hence the frequent confusion.

Photos: Luke Carby

The cost of variety is rarely appreciated by consumers. Among all the things that make up the price of a piece of clothing – materials, labour, rent, tax, marketing, R&D – the waste implicit in a broad range is hardly ever considered.

This was brought home to me particularly strongly last week, when I was in Paris talking to Jean-Claude Colban of Charvet. It offers six different shades of grey, knitted-silk tie. Six! Some were familiar, others unique. But implicit in the cost of all of them was the variety available – you pay for the ones you turn down, effectively, as well as the ones you buy. It’s hard to think of anywhere that offers such a range, particularly in a bricks-and-mortar shop where you can see the shades first hand.

Gallo is another good example, but on design rather than colour. Every season the Italian sock company produces 200 new designs, which it offers to its various stockists around the world. Not all of those will be manufactured, but there is a development cost in each one, and the ones that are made will necessitate hundreds of small runs, as each is made in the requisite sizes. Gallo socks cost around €38 each; Mazarin starts at €20. Part of that extra cost is design time, wasted prototypes and lost economies of scale.

Of course, you may decide that’s not what you want to pay for. But without shops such as Charvet we wouldn’t have the luxury of choice, or quite the ability to express ourselves.

Photo: Luke Carby

This is the final shirt from Neapolitan maker D’Avino. It is, as I expected, absolutely beautifully made, and a very good fit for the first order.

Neapolitan shirtmakers vary both by their price and their priorities. The shirtmaker I have used most often, Satriano Cinque, is towards the cheaper end of that scale. Shirts start at €180, with no minimum order. For that you get a bespoke shirt made to an individual paper pattern, including a meticulously designed collar. The handwork is all the functional things – hand-attached collar and sleeve – plus hand-sewn buttonholes.

D’Avino is at the other end of the scale. The shirt is almost entirely handmade: shoulder seams, bottom edges and side seams alongside the functional points listed above. As mentioned in my previous post, D’Avino also goes beyond other top makers such as Kiton. The placket on the sleeve, for example, is attached by hand. The work is so fine you can barely see the stitches. For more detailed shots of the making, see my first post on the fitting.

Depending on your preferences and budget, you can pick where you want to be along this scale of handwork. But both Satriano and D’Avino are clearly separated from a lot of other Neapolitan shirtmakers – mostly producing ready-to-wear – who only do aesthetic things by hand, usually buttons and buttonholes. In this way, the makers vary both by price and priorities.

I deliberately photographed the D’Avino shirt after a few hours’ wear, to demonstrate how Fiorenzo (Auricchio, the cutter) took into account the propensity of the denim-like cotton to wrinkle. This shortens the sleeve and it must be cut a little longer to compensate.

Elsewhere there are one or two things I would change on the fit – such as a slightly taller collar – but this is inevitable on a first iteration.




I have always liked denim shirts as a casual twist on tailoring, but they gain hugely from being bespoke. Most casual RTW shirts, including denim, are cut shorter and wider to allow them to be worn tucked in or out. Such a compromised fit simply doesn’t work, and the shirt will inevitably billow out at the waist.

I highly recommend D’Avino shirts for those looking for the highest levels of craftsmanship.

Photography: Jack Lawson

Conservative accessories are a great thing to master. First, because the acquisition of unusual clothing – such as cord suits or purple jackets – requires something effective to balance it. And second, because dressing extremely conservatively – but with variation in texture, perhaps – is sometimes the most stylish statement of all.

The most versatile for this purpose is navy. Twill, grenadine, cashmere, knit: each has its use and place. Second is black – particularly a black silk knit or a grenadine. Third place, for me, goes to charcoal. Not the mid-grey of Macclesfields or flecked cashmeres, but dark charcoal.

Charcoal is softer than either navy or black. It softens the appearance, and is therefore particularly good in an outfit that already contains a lot of contrast. But it is darker and less noticeable than grey. It is likely to sink, unnoticed, into the background. It will not be given a second thought. And thus its work is done.  

Pictured above: a charcoal wool tie from Viola Milano brings Chittleborough & Morgan tailoring down to earth. Worn with a pale-blue shirt from Satriano Cinque and a deep-gold pocket square, in the Corthay atelier, Paris.

Photos: Luke Carby

 
A reader recently asked whether he should have his shirt cuffs made bigger – or the sleeves shorter – in order to accommodate a watch. This is relevant to anyone buying a shirt, not just those commissioning bespoke.

The short answer is no, if you can help it. Unlike the sleeve of a jacket, a shirt sleeve relies on gripping the wrist to keep it at the correct length. This enables it to have excess cloth in the sleeve so that when the arm is extended, this excess is taken up and the cuff remains on the wrist. If a shirt cuff is made too big, it risks slipping too far down the hand, or compromising this excess in the sleeve.

Having a larger shirt cuff to fit over a watch is a poor functional solution in any case. The sleeve can often become stuck on the watch, or sit at odd angles. I learnt these lessons personally and painfully over several years of having shirts made at Turnbull & Asser.

At my first appointment with the lovely David Gale I was wearing a big sports watch (horrible thing) and he compensated by making both cuffs bigger, therefore sitting lower on the hand. Suit sleeves were subsequently cut longer too, to leave the required half-inch of cuff. They were even cut a little too wide, to accommodate enlarged double cuffs.

That cheap watch had far-reaching and long-lasting impact, one my wardrobe is only now, finally, shaking off. Shirt cuffs are now all considerably narrower, and the watches I wear with tailoring are slimmer and sleeker.

So I recommend against designing a wardrobe around a watch. If you have no choice – because your watch is large, and you will not sell it or cannot buy a second, dress alternative – be aware of the dangers of enlarging cuffs too far. Realise the dangers and do so in moderation. Then reconcile yourself to a lifetime of checking the time, then pulling your cuffs back down again.

[Pictured top: Mr Gale with a good dress watch, and effective shirt cuff, measuring me back in 2009]

 
Dark green is a subtle and versatile tie colour. You’re not surprised I think that, right? After all I sing the praises of green at every opportunity. But broad truths bear repeating. With an outfit like the one above, navy would be the safe choice, the classic choice. Grey might work equally as well. But better would be green: just as subtle, but far more interesting.

The club stripe makes it pair easily with an odd jacket (less formal than a dot or any small, repeating pattern) and the shantung silk adds even greater depth. Deep red is also a great club-stripe colour, but it works best with mid-greys, where green goes with navy, grey or (here) tan.

Shantung, by the way, is one of the few materials other than knitted or unlined wool that works with denim. This example is from Shibumi.

Jackets in the background from Orazio Luciano. Photo, Luke Carby.

 
This safari jacket, made by London shirtmakers Budd, was born out of a desire for a soft, unstructured layer I could wear over a shirt or T-shirt in the summer. Often such things are referred to as shirt-jackets. They have no structure whatever, like a shirt, but have external pockets to perform some of the practical duties of a jacket. 

The problem with safari jackets is that they often look rather colonial, and middle-aged. That is partly down to colour, which is usually sand for authenticity. Another, perhaps more important reason is the fit. Presumably in the belief that such jackets must be ‘easy’ fitting in order to remain cool, they rarely have any suppression in the waist and large, blooming sleeves.

The way to avoid this is to go bespoke. With tailoring that’s a rather expensive choice, but with a shirt-jacket it’s not. My jacket from Budd cost £395. Still a lot of money, but a lot less than a £3000 suit and not much more than a £225 Budd shirt.
 

 
Darren Tiernan, the head cutter at Budd, was clearly interested in my suggestion of a safari jacket, but also understandably wary. Few bespoke craftsmen like stepping outside their comfort zone, usually because the refinement of their craft is concerned with perfecting an established process.

We started off big. A test shirt was made in cheap, navy linen, with Darren cutting most of the measurements a size bigger than a normal shirt. At the first fitting we then cut a lot of things down: the shoulders, by a quarter of an inch, the chest and waist, by around a half, and the length, by a whopping two inches.

It was worth being conservative with the initial shirt for two reasons. One, because of the sheer uncertainty of how we both wanted it to fit. And second, because as with any shirt it is always a lot easier to reduce the size than to increase it.
 

 
At the second fitting, things looked a lot better. The length was more that of a jacket, rather than a shirt. The pockets had been moved up in proportion, and the hip pockets enlarged to be more similar to jacket patch-pockets. We also shortened the sleeves and took some of the fullness out of them.

The only thing we couldn’t change was the button placement, because the buttonholes had already been cut for the first fitting. That’s why their position looks rather odd.

I have to say that at this point I was very interested by the project, but a little uncertain as to whether I was going to like the final result. That all changed when we had the shirt made in the final material, a 265-gramme army-green Irish linen from John England. Suddenly, it all fell together. A little more slimming in the waist (two darts) some more out of the top of the back, and it was complete.
 

 
We had trouble finding that linen. There are only a couple of bunches of decent-weight ones and neither offered a satisfying green. I credit Darren with finding the John England samples, which for me really made the garment. After a dozen wears so far (and one wash) it has softened nicely and feels extremely comfortably over either a T-shirt or shirt.

The key to wearing it seems to be undermining those colonial associations, by loving the wrinkles, leaving most of the pockets unbuttoned, and often leaving the cuffs loose. I’ll take some more photos to demonstrate in a week or two.

More back story in my How to Spend It column.

Photos: Luke Carby

 
Dear Simon, 

I believe that I’ve read every post you’ve written about shirts. Italian, Spanish, British, even the one on Charvet in How To Spend It. I’m always looking for the same thing but still haven’t found it. Maybe I missed one, maybe I didn’t. 

What makes a quality shirt? Not fit, but the construction specifications that make quality. Are collars and cuffs fused or how are they supposed to be made? What parts need to be hand stitched? What are the materias that get used to make a quality shirt? How does a quality shirt manage to hide the top button flap underneath the tie knot (poor quality shirts always seem to show some cloth and don’t allow the tie to sit between both sides of the collar). 

I really hope you can help me with this because I’ve been puzzled by what makes a quality shirt for a long time and haven’t found any proper answers yet. Anywhere. 

Best,

Simon Martelo

Hi Simon, 

It’s a good question, and the reason you haven’t found much so far is that there isn’t that much to say – at least not compared to a suit. Here’s a list of the many things that don’t make a difference to quality, and those that do.

Unimportant:

- Material: material doesn’t really matter, but it’s what you pay for in many luxury shirts. There is little benefit in terms of comfort, and what you are paying for is usually a finer (thinner) cotton, which makes it lighter on the skin but also more delicate (like big Super-number suitings). It can also give the cotton a sheen that is rather showy. 

- Buttons: mother of pearl is nice, and certainly preferable to plastic. But where that mother of pearl comes from is pretty irrelevant, and more expensive ones just tend to be chunkier, which again is rather showy. 

- Machine stitching: some shirts have more stitches to the inch. This is certainly better, but it makes little difference to longevity. If looked after properly, even cheap shirts can last you 10 years or more. 

- Closeness of stitching: Fine French side seams, with the material folded over three times and then sewn together very closely, are to some extent a sign of quality. It certainly looks neater; but who do you know who has had their side seam rip open? (Same goes for single-needle stitching.)

- Gussets: the little bits that end the side seam, stopping it coming apart. As above.

- Off-set side seams: when the side seam and the sleeve seam don’t line up, because the sleeve has been turned to change the pitch. This certainly has a functional advantage, but I’ve worn both and never noticed a difference in look or comfort.

- Pleats up the sleeve: when you attach a cuff to the sleeve, there is excess that must be taken in somewhere. You can do this through a number of pleats, or in constant gathering like the Neapolitans do. The latter is harder, but in no way better and too effeminate for some. There is an argument that pleats can through fullness into the right places – perhaps around the elbow, where you need room – but it’s very minor.

- Aesthetic hand-sewing: hand-sewn buttonholes; hand-sewn buttons; hand-sewn side seams; hand-finished bottom hems; hand-attached plackets, etc. Some are purely aesthetic, some claim to be functional. Only pay for them if you want the aesthetics.

Important:

- Fit, as you mentioned

- Style, which is largely the collar length, shape etc, and highly personal

- Functional hand-sewing: having the collar and sleeve attached by hand. It gives a natural roundness to both, which is particularly useful with the collar, and a softness to the seams that is one of the first things people comment on when they have a handmade shirt. The softness is mostly due to the increased width of those seams

- Fused/floating collars: this is a personal choice, but it is one of the most fundamental aspects of a shirt’s construction. Floating collars take more time, and for that reason are often held up as a sign of quality. I find them uncomfortable when buttoned and too ready to collapse when open. A good fused collar will not bubble when wet, or in any other way age badly. It is more likely to require collar stiffeners when worn buttoned.

- General care: a lot of the details in the first section above are used as short-hand for the general care that has been taken in the making of the shirt. Care is important. If buying a brand for the first time, there may be weaknesses in the way the shirt is sewn that you can’t see easily – such as the way the thread is knotted off after a button is sewn on. But then again, a manufacturer may also add fancy gussets and so on in order to distract from all the shortcuts he has taken elsewhere.

Buy shirts for their fit, then their style, then functional hand-sewing. And look after them. Don’t dry clean; hang dry; tackle stains quickly. Most shirts get stained long before their side seams rip.

Image courtesy of Drake’s

 
Customers of Luca Avitabile – the superb Neapolitan shirtmaker introduced on this site – will already be aware that he has split from Gabriella, his partner at operating company Satriano Cinque.

As per usual, any back-biting should be largely ignored. Gabriella and Luca simply wanted different things – the former to pursue women’s fashion at home in Naples, the latter to cater to male bespoke customers abroad. Any payments due on orders made with Luca before September should be paid to Satriano Cinque – it seems all customers have received emails to that effect. Any made since then can be done with Luca individually. 

It has been a pleasure to see Luca develop a customer base in London, and to meet many of them on the way to or from appointments. He is, from my experience, the best value Italian shirtmaker currently visiting London, and it has been interesting to see customers explore materials they wouldn’t normally have access to from RTW – jersey, pique, linen mixes. 
 

 
Luca and Luigi (Solito, Neapolitan tailor) are visiting London again on October 23-25. This will be a particularly special visit, as Luigi’s father, the master tailor Gennaro Solito, will also be coming from Naples. 

The two are now camped out in the Traveller’s Club, on Pall Mall. A jacket and tie would normally be required to enter the Club, but because the Italians are located in the basement the rule does not apply – rather ironic, given this is one group of men that would likely take pleasure in the application of such a rule. 

All communications with Luca should use the address l.a.shirtmaker@gmail.com. If anyone has any questions about the service or my choices with his shirts and materials (about a dozen so far) please let me know in the comments below.
 

 
Photos: Luke Carby

 
Dress way the hell up, as our American cousins might say. New Year’s Eve is a special event, and it deserves a special effort where our clothes are concerned.

That doesn’t have to be black tie, as above, but wear a jacket at the least. And if you want an alternative evening outfit, try a dark suit with white shirt and navy satin tie. Satin is the most formal form of silk, and particularly suits the lights of evening. Or my favourite formal outfit, silver tie on a blue background.

The tuxedo above was made for me by Richard Anderson, in a black mohair mix (personally, I don’t like midnight blue). It was detailed in The Rake at the time, so there are no posts on Permanent Style – but you can see the making of the dress shirt with detachable collar, cut by Sean O’Flynn. 

Studs (and cufflinks) from the Hanger Project, in lapis and gold. Bow tie from Le Noued Papillon, and ceramic flower from Boutonniere. The latter produces easily the most beautiful synthetic buttonholes I’ve seen, though I do prefer a real flower where possible. 

Enjoy tonight, and do try not to spill anything down that lovely tailoring.

  
Last year a reader commented – quite rightly – that there is a tendency here to cover freshly received suits/shirts/shoes, but not follow up on them later, when they have bedded in.

He was right also to say that this is a deficiency. You always know more about how a suit feels, styles and lasts a year later. I have covered the way items age a little, in the ‘How great things age‘ series, but this is only to address one, narrow aspect of my experience. And there are some reflections in the ‘Tailors I have known‘ posts, but they are pretty brief.

Here, then, is a first step to address the problem: five things I’ve had made in recent years, and my reflections on them now. Please let me know if you would like other items included in future reviews.

Green Loden overcoat, from Vergallo

This top coat made by Gianni Cleopazzi from northern Italian tailors Vergallo has worn very well. The cut and make were great, and I was particularly pleased with the Loden cloth – I have become a convert since.

One thing that didn’t work though was the loop of silk we used to fasten the middle button – the one between the regular, waist button and the collar. The silk is simply too flimsy to fasten one handed (let alone with gloves) and twists too easily. A strip of the Loden cloth was too thick. We have yet to find a resolution to that.

I would also recommend the system we used for adjusting the half belt, which cinches the waist when the coat is only worn with knitwear, rather than a jacket. However, I would suggest to another tailor that they pay attention to the front/back balance of the coat.

As the belt only tightens the back, it pulls the front of the coat backwards and makes it a little tight at the waist. The balance has to be a compromise between sweater and jacket, as well as the more obvious areas like shoulder and waist.  

Bespoke gloves, from Czeslaw Jamrozinski

I was rather excited by this Polish bespoke glove maker, particularly the experience of having samples in the shop fitted tight onto my palm and fingers. The final gloves also lived up to that promise of a close fit. 

However, I have since found that the tightness of the fit causes them to ride up my hand, and as a result I wear my Merolas far more. Of all the glove manufacturers, Merola seems to have the best palm/finger size ratio for me. 

The bespoke glove process may have been improved with future pairs, as all bespoke does, and over time eclipsed Merola. But I rarely travel to Warsaw and haven’t been able to find out.

Linen shirt-jacket, from Budd

This was a relatively recent acquisition, but being linen it aged and changed very quickly. My reflections in the initial posts still stand: it has proved a great lightweight jacket to wear around town, perhaps with fresco trousers and loafers in the summer. 

However, the clean and crisp look of those initial pictures didn’t last long. After two or three wears, the shirt became very rumpled and casual. That’s fine, but it is better suited to more informal accompaniments, such as denim, in that state. The crispness requires re-ironing. 

I would be interested to try the same process with a fused collar and cuffs. Budd normally uses a floating lining, as most English shirtmakers do, and as this looked too stiff and formal we removed itin the final shirt. But a light fused lining, as I prefer in my Italian dress shirts, might have been a good compromise. 

Bespoke raw-denim jeans, from Levi’s

These jeans, cut by Lizzie Radcliffe in the Regent Street store here in London, are easily the best-fitting denim I’ve ever worn. And I’ve tried a lot, from the high street to the wilds of Okayama. 

My only word of caution would be to not expect the same fit as bespoke dress trousers, given the way raw denim adjusts with wear. No matter how perfect the fit on the waist when they are first cut, the waistband will expand as your legs pull it this way and that. 

One option is to have the waist taken in after a while, which will usually involve cutting the waistband. Denimheads would consider that sacrilege, but I don’t mind – particularly if the cut is hidden behind a belt loop.

Travel blazer, from Gieves & Hawkes

The travel blazer was cut by Kathryn Sargent when she was head cutter at Gieves & Hawkes, and covered in The Rake at the time. The fit is superb – among the top 3-4 pieces I have ever had made. 

The exchangeable-button system, however, didn’t quite work. With gilt buttons it was fine: the shank was long enough to fit through a hole in the jacket and be held by a metal ring behind. It was a tiny bit tight when the jacket was fastened, but not so much that you’d notice. 

The problem was the other two types of buttons: a solid black horn with metal shank inserted, and brown, holed horn buttons that were glued onto a metal backing which had a shank. In both those cases, the shank broke off after a few months under the strain of daily use.

The jacket looks great with the gilt, but I’m always on the look out for other buttons with long shanks built in.

 
Dear Simon, 

Following your Calvo de Mora combination [above] What are your general guidelines to wearing a black necktie? Most of the time I see it paired with the classic ensemble of white shirt with a grey jacket/grey suit. Any other combinations?

Thanks, Alex

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Worn with consideration, a black woven necktie can be almost as versatile as navy. It is dark, conservative and professional; if there are any risks, they are excess contrast or a touch of dullness if there is a lack of variation elsewhere. 

Let’s start with the benefits. A plain, dark tie provides a base for an outfit, a pivot about which the rest of the ensemble can turn. Navy is the most versatile option, and a navy grenadine is particularly good at bridging formal and informal – it’s the only piece of clothing, along with a white linen hank, that I always pack when travelling. 

Black is almost as useful, but is obviously darker and a touch more dramatic. Black ties are often worn with white shirts by models, salesmen and misguided movie stars. It looks striking, even glamorous from a distance, but cheap close-up. 

Which is why we have to mitigate the risks. First up, avoid plain woven or printed silk, and particularly satin. Navy can be used easily in any of those materials for a variety of situations, from evening to day wear; but black is not as versatile.

Instead, start with a knitted silk (as shown above) or a grenadine. Both can be worn with suits, but come into their own with tonal combinations of sports jackets and trousers. In the outfit this photo comes from, the black sits well with a patterned grey jacket and charcoal trousers.

That black tie could also work with my brown tweed, or possibly navy Thom Sweeney, but in both cases a navy grenadine would be better. It would, however, perfectly suit my Rubinacci donegal – which is no coincidence; both that and the Calvo jacket above have black in their weave, which is always a good first step is assessing colour combinations. 

In the image below, Mats at Trunk avoids the issues of a black tie with a similarly monotone outfit, made up of cream Incotex chinos and a grey Piombo jacket. He also demonstrates how formal a black tie can be – navy would not have been as smart.

A blue shirt is another obvious way to mitigate the risk of a black tie, and it would have softened Mats’s look (while losing some of its impact). 
 

 
As you would expect, a black grenadine is more formal than a knit, but not as smart as a normal woven tie. Grenadine would have added a touch of formality to my Calvo de Mora combination above (as would replacing the silk hank with white linen) and would also have been more suited to a suit. 

On that note, black ties work particularly well with brown suits – reflecting the fact that black shoes work well with such dark, muddy tones as well. Sean Connery favoured the combination in Goldfinger, as did Yul Brynner. 

Which brings us to the last risk. A significant issue with wearing a black tie is that it can seem a little dull if another area of dress – probably the shoes – is also black. Traditionally, men have rarely worn brown ties for similar reasons. Bear this in mind, and just ensure there is enough interest going on in the rest of the outfit to compensate: a striped shirt perhaps, an unusual suiting, or an Oxford with a fetching Foster’s fade. 

* There are two types of grenadine tie, comprising larger and smaller textures. I generally prefer the larger, called garza grossa by the Italians that weave them, over the finer, called garza fina or piccola. The latter are, as you might expect, more formal.

D’Avino is a small Neapolitan outfit run by cutter Fiorenzo Auricchio (above). He has no website, an abandoned blog, and little used social media. Email is the best contact option.

But he visits London regularly, usually twice a year at least, and from my experience over the past two years I am happy to recommend him as the finest of the visiting makers here. He is the zenith of perhaps three tiers of visiting shirtmakers I have used satisfactorily: 

• D’Avino. Every piece of handwork you could ask for, to the highest level. Much of it purely aesthetic, with no practical advantage, but a work of art. Starts at €300. 
• Luca Avitabile. My most commonly used maker. Visiting every month or two; introduced here on Permanent Style and now with a big London client base. Only the practical handwork, and not finished to the same level as D’Avino, but still good. Starts at €220. 
• Simone Abbarchi. Too early to write about him and recommend him fully, but great value for money for Italian bespoke shirts with no handwork. Based in Florence, comes to London and New York twice a year each. Starts at €120.
   

 
With all three, there are two reasons I use them:

• Value for money. Better make than any English shirtmaker (in that there is no handwork, which I find a practical benefit in), and a lot better than the bigger Italian brands with shops in London, eg Kiton.
• Style. Italian bespoke shirtmakers are particularly good at collar shapes (and the collarband shape – just as important). As I’ve found to my cost with several British and other shirtmakers, there is little attention paid to style in this sense and it is particularly wanting on open-necked shirts.

Fiorenzo, as I say, is the best. Here I am being remeasured to check a couple of things, in the Ugolini workshop in Florence. 
 

 
Shirts, perhaps even more than suits, are an evolution of taste and fit. I say more than suits because you are unlikely to have many variations of shirt style, while you might have lots of different suits/jackets. Two collar shapes normally suffice (eg spread and button-down), with perhaps two different cuff styles. Working with a shirtmaker, then, is about perfecting the body shape, button position, and those few style permutations. Here, with Fiorenzo, we are increasing the height of the collar slightly and raising the third button, to match that of my Avitabile shirts.

I’ve included a few more shots of Fiorenzo’s latest shirt for me here, to illustrate the fine detail and quality, which you don’t always get with Italian makers. 
 

Sleeve and shoulder – often an area that is rough with other makers

Where (hand-attached) collarband meets shoulder

The beautifully neat, hand-rolled bottom seam

 
Main photos: Luke Carby

 
I am in Paris tomorrow, and one of the highlights will be catching up with Jean-Claude Colban of shirtmakers Charvet. 

A scholar and a gentleman, Jean-Claude is both one of the most knowledgeable people you will ever meet in the industry, and one of the most self-effacing.

At least it seems that way. Jean-Claude speaks so softly, with such modesty of tone, that it’s easy to miss the occasional phrase such as ‘but of course, we make the finest shirts in the world’. They slip in, almost unnoticed, and you find yourself nodding in agreement even if, as with me, you don’t necessarily. 
 

 
Jean-Claude has been my source of truth for matters relating to shirting cloth for several years now, and as such you will often find him quoted in The Rake, the Financial Times or How to Spend It. He will set us right on denim and chambray (the former, essentially a matter of indigo dye, but culturally a twill weave and certain weight and finish – the latter, merely a contrast in blue and white threads) as well as silks, cottons and cottons that feel like silks.

There are few places in the world I am so fond of, where the aesthetic is not actually, largely, to my taste. The ties are often too bright or have too much sheen; the velvet jackets and dressing gowns equally. There will always be something – travel slippers, or handkerchiefs – which will catch my eye, but really I go for the erudite, the eloquent Mr Colban. 
 

 
Siniscalchi is one of the world’s best-known shirtmakers. Based in Milan, it has made for celebrity and royalty alike since it was founded in 1948. It is also, however, bizarrely expensive.

We visited Alessandro (Ale) Siniscalchi at the workshop following our event at Pitti in January, where Ale was a guest. The company was founded by father, and Ale does all the patterns and most of the cutting today, with his lovely wife also involved in the business.
 

 
At its peak, Siniscalchi employed 14 shirmakers; today there are six, with one embroiderer working from home. The quality of that embroidery work is stunning, with incredibly fine renderings of family crests and personal symbolism (above).

The quality of other work, such as the hand-sewn buttonholes, is not as fine – I’ve seen better finishing at other shirtmakers, and they charge a lot less than €700 (Siniscalchi’s starting price for a shirt – there is no minimum). This is merely judging the making rather than the fit, of course, as I haven’t commissioned anything myself.
 

 
Elsewhere in the make, Siniscalchi attaches the collar and sleeve by hand, but everything else is by machine (save the attachment of the gussets). The collar normally has a floating lining, with occasionally a (stiff) fused lining when requested.

The shirtings on display are impressive: a stock of around 500 bolts upstairs and the same in the basement, all available for the customer to try – draping the cloth across themselves to get a better sense of colour.
 

 
Ale also commissions his own cloth, and provides certificates of authenticity for them. Other makers, apparently, have been known to offer unlabelled bolts that turn out to be cheap Chinese versions of the English or Italian mills.

Siniscalchi has a few other idiosyncrasies, such as stiff but very thin collar bones, and inventions such as the shirt-cum-boxer-short, where the customer steps into the short before buttoning himself all the way up, like a onesie.

Not that convenient for going to the toilet, perhaps, but it does create a nice clean shirtfront in a more pleasant way than the tails that button under dress shirts, or ‘shirt suspenders’ that someone started pedalling again recently.
 

 
Zampa di Gallina (‘chicken feet’) is a menswear site set up recently specialising in Neapolitan makers. At least one of them has a connection to Naples, so it’s nice to have slightly more local retail, particularly for those of us buying in Europe. 

The brands on offer range considerably in price and make, and are something of a mixed bag. 

The most eye-catching is the ready-to-wear shirts from Anna Matuozzo (above). A well-known bespoke shirtmaker who has previously eschewed RTW, Anna is now offering these shirts to the same quality as bespoke, except of course for the bespoke fit. Each is made to order, and takes around a month to make. 

The level of work is very good: all the functional handwork you’d expect (hand-attached collars, sleeves etc) plus showy details like pick stitching around the collar band and shoulder seams. However, other work you might expect for the price (€280) is missing, such as a hand-worked side seam and bottom edge. It is of course also RTW, so no bespoke fit.

There are also two cheaper lines of RTW shirts, Sentiero and Avino, with just the functional handwork. (Confusingly, Avino is different from my bespoke maker, D’Avino.) Avino also does different levels of make, and this is the lower end – as you’d expect for €140. Some, such as those stocked at Brio in Beijing, are a magnificent make, with more of those hand details than Matuozzo.
 

 
The ties are EG Cappelli and Calabrese. I like Cappelli ties, even if they do have a tendency to be over-pressed. It is also a shame that the seven-fold construction, though nicely done, does not extend all the way up the tie. It is the way most seven folds are done, with only three folds above the keeper, but I prefer a true seven fold in that respect. Thick in the knot, flyaway in the blades.

There are Talarico umbrellas, which we all know, and the Omega gloves are nicely made. I can’t recommend the Calabrese handkerchiefs (below) from what I’ve seen, however. Most are digitally printed and as a result don’t have enough penetration of the silk; they are also too small for a silk or silk/wool hank (33cm). 

I don’t often do breakdowns of online stores, but hopefully this is a useful guide to a new entrant. 
 

 
Last month we had a book launch at the Brio menswear store in Beijing. It’s worth running through a few more details of the shop – because the stock is interesting, and because it is part of a pleasing trend in more specialist tailoring and craft stores opening.

Brio was founded by George Wang, an ex-banker who used to work in Hong Kong. An active Style Forum member, he regularly travelled to Italy to have bespoke suits made. George left the industry in 2008 and, like so many ex-bankers I hear from around the world, decided to pursue his dreams in menswear. The shop, Brio, opened in Beijing in January this year. 
 

 
Brio is slightly more high-end, on average, that other stores such as the Armoury. Where the Armoury has both Carmina and Saint Crispin’s shoes, for example, Brio stocks Edward Green and Stefano Bemer; it lacks more of the ‘entry-level’ shoe or suit. 

In shirts, Brio has Avino and G. Inglese. Avino does a good functional Neapolitan shirt: hand-inserted sleeves, collar and shoulder seam, but machine elsewhere; it makes Liverano’s shirts among others. The other brand, Inglese, is a big step up. Everything is done by hand (though of course often reinforced by machine) – as above plus the side seams, bottom edge and sleeve gauntlet. There is also decorative pick stitching around the collar, shoulder seam and gauntlet. 

George has a range of Rota trousers, and being Rota has been able to specify some personal aspects to the make and carry them in some interesting cloths: there are two shades of washed denim among the whites, creams and browns. 

The tailoring is by Dalcuore, a Neapolitan house founded in the 1960s that does both RTW and bespoke. Dalcuore has done a few bespoke trips to Beijing already (pictured below) but Brio also carries a good range of their RTW jackets with unfinished sleeves that can be finished in-house.

In fact Brio’s on-site tailor might be one of the smartest things about the shop, at least for the Chinese market. It means George can deal with any further alterations on things made by visiting tailors (such as Dalcuore and Ambrosi) and quickly alter anything else for customers that aren’t prepared to wait for the full bespoke experience.

Other stock includes Schiatti casual jackets, Cappelli ties, Sozzi socks, Liverano scarves and Talarico umbrellas. The umbrellas are all imported personally by the guys when they travel – like many things, including Bemer’s wooden shoeboxes, getting such things into China is not easy.

There are also Martinenghi bags (which I wasn’t such a fan of) and Giacometti hiking boots (also labelled under Walles, or Marmolada). 

It’s early days for Brio and for the Beijing audience in general. Although keen, most of the customers are young enthusiasts rather than bigger spenders.

But these things can change remarkably quickly. I remember fondly walking into Leffot in New York the week it opened, and a colleague swearing to me no one in NY would spend 1000s of dollars on shoe brands without advertising or big branding. I’ve managed to visit Steven at Leffot every year since around the same time, and it’s wonderful to see how wrong my colleague was.

When I visited, trouser maker Salvatore Ambrosi was there for his second visit to the store; Dalcuore had just left; and Ann Ryley from Begg had been a couple of months earlier. It’s early days, as I say; but the signs are good.
 

  
Simone Abbarchi is a Florence-based shirtmaker that has made for my friend Tommaso Capozzoli for a long time. He has always said that they have a very good relationship between price and quality, and he’s right. 

Simone’s made-to-measure shirts start at €120. That’s pretty much the price of the mid-market ready-made shirts readers talk about, from Pink, Hilditch & Key or others. (There is also a less-offered bespoke option which starts at €150.)
  

  
Simone’s are of course all made to specific measurements, so the fit is a lot better, and they have the Italian collar construction that so many readers will like: lightly fused lining, which curls around the collar of a jacket when the neck is undone, and yet sits stiff enough with a tie when the neck is fastened.

(As with other Italians, this stiffness usually requires the use of collar bones; although if you go without collar bones you can also have the ‘sprezzatura’ look of a collar that curls at the corner, perhaps cheekily outside of the jacket lapel.) 
 

  
Simone’s shirts are so reasonable, in part, because they have no handwork. The buttons are sewn on by hand, but that’s it. As I’ve discussed before, I prefer a hand-attached collar and sleeve, but you pay more for that – around €220 in the case of Luca Avitabile.

The made-to-measure offering involves no paper pattern, and you should expect small aspects of the fit to be not as good (as for all MTM, it’s about 2D changes rather than 3D). But this is far less important on shirts than tailoring.

Bespoke, as with other makers, does involve a pattern and also has a fitting on a partially made shirt. MTM shirts are usually finished and sent straight to the customer. 

For anyone that hasn’t looked into this area before, it’s worth reading my breakdown of D’Avino shirts, which presents these three names as three tiers of construction. 
 

  
Another good thing about Simone (or Gianluca Cocchetti, who works with him and is pictured here) is that he already visits both London and New York. He has a good few clients in both locations, and so comes over twice a year to each – February and September for London, and March and October for New York. 

He doesn’t have a minimum for an order, and will usually do two fittings for a first shirt, but can just do one. If you’re unlikely to travel to Florence, perhaps best to just do one, and accept there might be tiny things you’ll change next time. 
 

 
I commissioned a grey brushed-cotton shirt from Simone earlier in the year in Florence, have had the fitting in London, and will write about the final shirt in a couple of weeks. (The cloth selection is also very good, particularly in Florence.)

For anyone just getting into bespoke and MTM shirts, or indeed looking for a much better alternative to the British/American high street, hopefully Simone will be a great choice. 
 

  
When friends ask me about looking after their clothes, it always strikes me that their questions come too late. They’ve trodden down the heel cup of a shoe, and want to know if it can be repaired; a suit is looking old and grimy and they want a good dry cleaner.

Looking after clothes is about pre-empting such problems. Small things every day (or as often as you can) make a big difference.

The most obvious area is shoes. So few men brush their shoes at the end of the day, yet it actually saves work if you want them to look good. Brushing removes the little scuffs acquired through daily wear, and means you don’t have to polish them as often.

Using a shoe horn, of course, stops you bending over the leather around the heel cup, which will eventually split and break. Shoe factories all say that is the most common repair they have to make.

Shoe trees retain the shape of the upper; a little cream every month or so stops them drying out. All small things, but with big results. And frankly, if you’re buying any of the shoes we mention here on Permanent Style, which will cost between £500 and £4000, it’s nothing more than intelligent to invest time as well as money.

Brushing suits is a hard one. I often find it a chore, but I try to keep it up because I know the vast majority of dirt is atmospheric – just settling on the shoulders and lapels and in need of a quick brush off at the end of the day.

Shirts are the hardest garment to maintain. Stains will happen, and it’s one reason I’d always recommend spending less on them proportionately than suits or shoes.

But a decent knowledge of stain first-aid is a big help. It normally comes down to blotting until most of the sauce/coffee/beer is soaked up, then wetting it and blotting again. And again. (Different solvents are good for different stains, but water is usually a good first resort.)

Hanging suits up; giving them plenty of room in the cupboard; hanging your ties and folding your knitwear. It’s not too much to say that 90% of looking after clothes is just daily good practice.

Stick with it, and feel smug later.

Image: Zachary Jobé