Notes on cloth, construction, occasion, and the art of dressing well.
Alternating your formal ensembles throughout the week, laundering your dress shirts on a regular basis, and hanging up your suits after each use will greatly increase the lifespan of your wardrobe without too much effort or attention. Even by keeping more than one pair of each component of your formal wear on hand, you'll be able to reduce the normal wear and tear on your clothes to a very minimal and manageable level.
With so many finer details that go into perfecting one's formal ensemble, we've all had the tendency to overlook some of the more important components that can make or break an outfit. While there's no magic number regarding how many pairs of shoes you should keep in your wardrobe in order to minimize premature wear, having more than one at the very least is a good start. There are things you can do yourself to keep your shoes in top-notch condition and prolong their shelf life so having to replace them becomes less of an issue.
As winter approaches, one of the greatest benefits of formal wear is that it tends to be more conducive to chilly environments. While overcoats are generally associated with modes of formal dress, this is far from exclusive. Overcoats can also come in handy for those more casual outings, even if they were designed with formal attire in mind. If you've come to familiarize yourself fairly well with formal wear, you'll know that wool has many intrinsic benefits as a material for suits and overcoats thanks to its wicking properties, helping you stay warm in the winter and comfortable even in the summer.
Throughout the bulk of the 20th century, it was hard to even think about formal attire—or any attire—without thinking about the sort of watch to correctly pair with it. While a watch is certainly not a required accessory in the realm of formal wear, it almost never hurts your overall presentation. Just as visual presentation goes a long way in how a watch ultimately pairs with a given set of formal attire, so does how the watch functions in terms of placement. While important, the specific design and unique attributes of your watch will always matter less than overall proportionality.
This month, we’re thinking about the difference between a suit that fits and one that belongs to you. Notes on cloth, construction, occasion, and the quiet details that make it personal.
— ENZO
Earlier this year, we discussed some of the many different ways a gentleman can fold his pocket squares to bring out the best in his personal style. The blanket fold is a popular choice for casual nights out, and although its appearance seems complex, it's actually quite easy to do. The spiral staircase fold follows some of the same steps as the three-stairs fold, the main difference being how it is formed at the very end. While pocket squares shouldn't be seen as a quick fix to an outfit that is lacking in other areas, they do have the innate ability to elevate your personal style with class and subtlety.
The finer details of one's formal attire come in many forms, all of which serve a functional and stylistic purpose. The cuffs on your dress shirt, trousers, and jacket are no different in this regard, functioning as endpoints of your clothing articles and providing subtle accents to your own personal style. Although many gentlemen don't put too much stock into their cuff styles, the good news is that you have choices when it comes to trousers, jackets, and especially dress shirts. The most important aspect of choosing a cuff style that's right for you rests heavily on how it looks with the rest of your outfit and how practical it is for your personal taste.
Throughout a good chunk of formal wear's history, tie clips have been seen as more or less an afterthought, even somewhat of an unnecessary gimmick that neither adds nor takes away from a gentleman's overall ensemble. Tie clips, in their modern form, can trace back their origins to stick pins and tie tacks that became more popular in the early 1870s. While tie clips of all forms effectively serve the same purpose, not all tie clips are the same in terms of how they function.
