In the past few months on Permanent Style, we’ve shown a few outfits that are a little more unusual than perhaps typical: a notch or two further along the subtle/showy scale.
The Art du Lin suit at Pitti probably falls into that category, as does this evening outfit with Bucherer. Both are stylish ways to wear tailoring, but they’re not really office wear – and not everyday clothing at all for most people.
One reason is that I’m interested how tailoring can find a new outlet as evening or occasion-wear – times when you have an excuse, if not necessarily a need, to dress up. As fewer and fewer people wear suits to work, this feels like one of tailoring’s biggest opportunities. It’s something we touched on last year looking at cocktail attire.
A nice aspect of this trend is that it can give traditional materials a new lease of life. A mohair or solaro suit has long been too unusual for most people day-to-day, but when you want something just that little bit unusual, they become relevant again.
For me, chalk-stripe flannel falls into that category. It hasn’t been common in business clothing for a long time, but it remains a beautiful heritage cloth. Wearing it as an elegant option in the evening is a great way to revive it.
That was one reason I wanted to make a navy chalk-stripe flannel with Fox Brothers – one of three collaboration cloths we launched earlier this month.
For me, this suit is something I’lll wear regularly in the autumn and winter, much as I already wear my brown single-breasted chalk stripe. But I’m a menswear writer poncing around Mayfair. I’m not the typical reader.
More readers, I think, will find it useful when they want to wear a suit to an event or dinner party and a navy business suit seems, well, too business. This chalk stripe, particularly in a double-breasted cut, feels far removed from the office today, and it suits being worn with less corporate things as well.
Examples of these things are the tops I’ve shown it with above: a heavy western shirt from Husbands and a black collared knit (the PS Dartmoor).
I particularly like the look with denim, as the dense Fox flannel has many things in common with that robust cotton. The jacket could almost function as a coat here, and I think I’ll often wear it this way in the winter – flannel suit and denim shirt, with options of vest, scarf and hat to layer for the weather.
I’ve also tried the suit with my Bryceland’s sawtooth westerner in a dark denim, and that’s a great combination, perhaps even better than the pale blue. They’re all good with a belt too, in fact I should probably have worn one of my Ludens belts with this outfit, as an extra point of interest.
That blue denim shirt can create – for me – also a day-in-town outfit. The black knit above, however, is something I’d probably keep for evening.
I love black knits under tailoring – it’s something I showed last year with my brown chalk stripe, and with that Art du Lin in the summer. I wasn’t sure it would work as well with navy, but as I deliberately picked with the darkest of navy flannels – something Fox didn’t already offer as a chalk stripe – it seems to work well with black.
And the chalk stripe does look great with a regular and tie, if you want to wear it that way (below). I like a thinner stripe for the shirt, and then a block of dark colour for the tie. It’s a long time since I’ve talked about things like density of pattern, but they haven’t stopped being true.
The shirt is my old blue/white cotton/linen from 100 Hands, and the tie a black knitted silk.
Other things the navy chalk stripe looks great with are beaten-up caps, for a bit of high/low feeling (below) and pops of complimentary colour like red in the PS Watch Cap (above).
As for wearing the jacket separately, that would be one more notch along the spectrum but it can work for those that like more unusual looks. I’ll explore it in a separate post, alongside wearing the trousers separately too.
I should say, I know there will always be people whose personality and style suit these more fashion-y looks – people like Niyi perhaps, who I know would wear it very well. It’s just less me and less the core PS reader, so we tend to focus on it less.
Menswear is a broad church these days. You need to maintain a little focus to remain useful.
The collaboration cloths we’ve done with Fox have sold well, but interestingly this chalk stripe has been the most sampled and least ordered. Hopefully these images help with people’s questions, but if some remain please do ask below.
The full details on the collab can be seen in the launch article. The cloths are available through the Fox website and to tailors through their normal channels.
The suit was made my Sartoria Ciardi, in the same double-breasted style as I had in pieces like my grey corduroy jacket. The only difference here was that I asked Enzo to make the lapel roll a little lower and more open, which i think balances his slightly pointy lapel style.
The trousers are also considerably fuller than Ciardi have done in the past. If I compare them to the first suit they made for me, there’s a full inch more in the thighs. Another data point on how things have changed (moderately) in the intervening six years.
Other clothes shown are:
- Suede/alligator Sagan loafers from Baudoin & Lange
- Black calf Piccadilly loafers from Edward Green
- Cap from Ralph Lauren via Crowley Vintage
- Tie from Tie Your Tie in Florence
