• Given recent debate on this site about the odd waistcoat (see Simon’s posting on the topic), it’s interesting to see a yellow option on Will at A Suitable Wardrobe. • And here’s where you can see the selection at London’s top formalwear outlet, Favourbrook. • Great thoughts on the pros, cons, ins and outs of blazer [...]

A lot is written about suits on men’s style pages. A heck of a lot in fact. And it is hardly surprising that it should be so; many of us require, for professional, occasional or aesthetic purposes, a suit at some point in our lives. My first suit came before I was seven. I looked [...]

It’s rare that traditional menswear retailers are genuinely innovative. A few designers have their odd quirks, and many fluctuate with the (fashion) seasons. But a precious small number actually change the way people look at jackets, shirts and trousers. Paul Smith has original quirks. His suit linings were the first thing that made him popular in [...]

Although I am a man who would scarcely converse on an encounter made in a department store men’s room, a recent experience in a toilet at Selfridges made me reconsider. A brief moment, passing through the swing doors into the department store’s rather basic and disappointing facilities, provided the light bulb; I passed a gentleman [...]

Every now and then I come across a company that is truly unique and catches my eye. It could be the products or marketing approach. Sometimes it’s their buzz factor or ability to hit the market with the right thing at the right time. In the case of Smart Turnout, it started with a watch [...]

• First, a short mention for Paul Newman – style icon. For some people this form of style was best represented by Steve McQueen. For me, it was Newman. Go watch Cool Hand Luke. • Oh, and while you’re there, and in reference to previous postings on this site in reference to customer service, there’s a [...]

“Good afternoon, sir, can I help you?” “I hope so. You see I’m trying to find a last that fits the shape of my feet and I have to say I haven’t had much luck so far. “They’re quite wide across the ball of my feet, and also quite shallow – I have rather fallen arches. As [...]

Over the last few weeks I have become very accustomed to bad news. Not so much that it ceases to be bad per se, but that with each wave of fresh woe, my acclimatisation improves and my panic recedes more quickly each time; lines fall in front of my eyes, red figures tick at a [...]

God, it makes your blood boil. Splashed all over the front of City AM (the free business paper in London), Sartoriani is claiming to be selling “The finest bespoke shirts in the world!” Where do they get off? Their shirts are not bespoke and I can’t imagine what criteria they have for saying they are the [...]

I have always been intrigued by the stories of artists who rest very easily on a previous period of titanic greatness; musicians who write that one great album and then escape to a beach house on St Barts; novelists who churn out the ‘most important book of the age’ and then disappear, quite intentionally, to [...]