I Read Three Old Style Books
And now I want a bristle brush.
Good morning! Welcome to the first of a recurring series where I’ll be tracking down and reading old, often out-of-print men’s style books, just in case there are useful or interesting nuggets to be found amidst the visual diagrams of what separates a trilby from a fedora from a homburg hat. Alan Flusser’s monolithic Dressing The Man will surely come, but today, we’re starting with three slighter releases. A Gentleman’s Wardrobe (1987) by Paul Keers, Esquire’s The Handbook of Style (2009), and Flusser’s Style and the Man (1996).
Reading each of them over the past week, I found that much of the material had either aged poorly (advice about office dress codes, say) or consisted of tips you’ve likely heard before, for instance that a navy suit is the most versatile. What follows are the parts that still felt interesting, helpful, or just funny to me. For brevity’s sake, I’ll be shortening the books each came from to AGW, EH, and SATM respectively. Let’s begin…
Tailors use a shorthand—“the drop”—to summarize our body shapes. It refers to the difference between our chest and waist sizes: An athletic “drop eight” means a trouser size eight inches smaller than the chest. Off-the rack suits are typically made to fit a more conventional 6-inch drop. (EH)
A lot of terms to do with summer fabrics derive from the Persian language. Khaki comes from khak, which means “dust.” And seersucker comes from shirushaker, which translates to “milk and sugar”—a reference to the smooth (milk) and rough (sugar) weave of the fabric. (EH + AGW)
The word “bespoke” comes from the moment the customer reserves the fabric they’ve chosen for their suit. That fabric would then “be spoken for.” (EH)
Dry cleaning our suits too much breaks down their fabric over time. (Ideally, we would only do so once a year.) The solution in the meantime is to own a bristle “suit brush,” which lifts dust, dead skin cells and debris from the fibres before they lodge forever. (EH) [Note: They’re all typically inexpensive—people seem to like Kent ones like the CC2.]
Lesser cashmere blends are often coated with an emulsion that imparts the soft hand of top quality cashmere, but also gives the fabric a greasy residue, and eventually wears out completely. Rub your fingers together after handling, and you’ll know if your potential purchase has been similarly treated. (EH)
You only need one set of shoe trees, to use overnight on whichever pair you wore that day. (EH)
If you’re going to a suit store intending to make a purchase, bring a dress shirt whose fit satisfies you. The collar height and sleeve will help the tailor alter your jacket correctly—typically, they’ll want your jacket to reveal half an inch of shirt, and half an inch of collar. (SATM)
Also, bring the items you’d normally put in it—your wallet, your glasses, your phone—and put them in the pockets while you’re trying the suit on. (SATM)
The “Savile Row Fold” guarantees your trousers won’t slip off your hanger. It works like this (EH):
