A Master Presses

    Sometimes words fail, and not because a few can’t be committed to paper—that never seems to be a problem.  Describing the complex or entirely subjective can be a challenge, but some jagged attempt is always possible.  No—the impasse to which I refer has little to do with ability; sometimes words are just not the best medium.  

    Returning from a recent trip, and despite my well planned packing, I found a linen suit was creased beyond the charming rumples that make wearing the stuff a pleasure.  With a holiday weekend full of invitations approaching, I needed it pressed.  As it happened, I had an appointment with my tailor, Chris Despos, so I brought the suit along with hopes of a tutorial.  What I instead witnessed was a master in his dojo vanquishing wrinkles with razor-sharp focus, speed and a few moments of humor.  

    His iron is old and formidable.  His bench wears a battered padded top.  Other implements—a standard spray bottle, a sleeve board, a shoulder stand, strips of unbleached muslin—are no more high-tech than the principle behind pressing itself.  As Despos puts it: “wrinkles release under pressure, heat and steam—remove one and you aren’t pressing.”  This is why he warns against hanging garments in a steam-filled bathroom—that old routine does little  but fuzzes the nap and puckers the seams.  

    I dislike when crafts or skills are compared to art as I feel doing so cheapens both.  But I must admit the parallels to poetry are obvious: form, structure, intent, beauty, and, finally, imperfection.  “A suit,” Despos says, “should never be perfectly pressed.”   Could have fooled me.

Field Survey

From top to bottom, a good start.

    Now that Memorial Day (in the US) has passed, any of the largely ignored restrictions regarding seasonal colors and materials are lifted.  White, cream, pastels, linen, raw silk, straw—these shouldn’t look out of place for the coming months.  This is particularly true of outdoor occasions, where whatever reluctance might remain in combining some of the above is assuaged by the prospect of standing in the grass with a Pimm’s.  Nevertheless, the garden party—for our purposes, a social gathering that takes place on or in the vicinity of a lawn—presents additional challenges to those who care about clothing and comfort.  

    I understand women have a whole genre of shoes specifically designed not to aerate the lawn, from flat sandals to stubby and flanged kitten heels.  A different concern lurks for men: moisture.  Grass, when green, is wet stuff, even if following several days without rain.  A prolonged stay sole-deep in the foliage can rather quickly soak through a shoe.  I avoid particularly thin-soled or lightly constructed shoes.  A double-soled monkstrap is good here, or, if you must, a rubber sole in the form of white or dirty bucks.  One word of caution: lighter colored leathers and suedes, spectators, and loafers with twill vamps are susceptible to grass stains.  

    That damp grass creates another problem: ground humidity.  I almost melted once at a charity benefit in mid-weight cotton drill trousers even though it was only in the mild mid-seventies.  If it is sunny, the relative humidity on the lawn will increase sharply.  Instead of cotton, a porous, lightweight wool or linen works better.  The former disperses the damp heat, the latter, at the expense of wrinkles, permits evaporation.  The most important aspect to a trouser in these conditions is porosity; any tightly woven cloth is going to allow rising humidity in without providing much of an escape.  The result is like being stewed from the waist down.  

Porosity is when you can see the garden through your trousers.  

    Porosity is important for your upper half as well.  A shirt in a cool-wearing open weave is important.  Royal oxford is a good compromise between comfort and opacity.  Voile is very cool but is fairly sheer—a problem for those with darker chest hair.  Your jacket should be made of one of the previously mentioned trouser cloths.  I say one of because, depending on the formality of the event, you’ll either be in a suit or odd elements.  Lightweight wool, especially something textured like Fresco, goes well with linen and, it could just be my imagination, but odd jacket and trouser combinations just seem cooler-wearing than suits.  

    Finally, if the sun is truly out, a straw hat is indispensable.  This can seem counterintuitive as it is another layer and the inside band might stick to your forehead.   But there are far worse symptoms of an exposed melon: a higher body temperature, the need to squint, sunburn.  If your head feels hot, simply remove your hat for a few moments and let evaporation do its thing; this will afford an opportunity to display your dexterity in the juggling of cocktail, hat and brow-mopping handkerchief. 

Volume Button

Fairly plain matte horn buttons rein in linen--a cloth know for having plenty of character of its own.  

    Choosing buttons for suits and odd coats is no arbitrary task.  The general principle is buttons should harmonize with the cloth they adorn—dark brown and black with dark cloth, pale grey and tan with lighter cloth.  I even have inky blue horn buttons on a navy double breasted suit.  But what if contrast is desired?  Or what if a particularly mottled horn button just looks good on a length of cloth?  Button choice can adjust how conservative or fun a finished garment will be in infinite increments, like a tuning knob on a transistor radio.  I knew this in a vague sort of way, but the concept came sharply into focus on two recent warm weather suits.

    One of these suits has patch hip pockets as well as a patch breast pocket—a first for me.  The cloth is a very handsome light brown, something the merchant has romantically named “Tabac” for its resemblance to Connecticut shade tobacco leaf.  The result is a casual suit, if such a thing any longer registers with people who aren’t clothing enthusiasts, and while this doesn’t bother me, I did want some element to help temper the effect.  Enter buttons. Lighter ones—even something lustrous like mother of pearl—would have been in keeping with the casual cloth and styling of the suit, but restraint won out, and matte horn buttons in a harmonizing shade were chosen.  The suit now clings—by the buttons alone—to some slightly more formal echelon.

The cream and bone tones in these horn buttons bring out the lighter elements of the cloth, including the faint overcheck.  

    Worsted, open-weave wool, commonly known by the trade name Fresco, is a strange beast.  In one sense it is a conservative cloth in familiar blues and grays with limited pattern choice and an almost rough, utilitarian hand.  But a closer look reveals a rich mottling created by the high-twist yarn, an incredible porosity, and a springy resilience better suited to sportswear.  It was the latter rather than the former I wished to emphasize on the other of these two suits.  Once again, buttons suggested themselves as the solution.  Chris Despos and I entertained several options of horn buttons, splashing each across my length of “Derby Gray” Fresco.  It was a waste of time: the clear winner was a highly variegated tan, cream and brown horn usually reserved for odd jackets.  Once installed, the effect was immediate, dispelling any stuffiness of the cloth, edging the suit pleasantly toward the casual side of things.  

    Dialing in the character of a garment with buttons can be an enjoyable aspect of clothing, bespoke or not.  But it can also easily be overthought.  Worse, one can easily become lost in the arcane: where, on the formality scale, do smoked-mother-of-pearl buttons exist in relation to two-hole polished bison horn?  The very best scenario involves a bolt of cloth and bin of buttons.  This might encourage an urge to experiment, but once the novelty has worn off, one learns that buttons can pleasantly contrast, but in most instances should all but disappear.

When the Heat is On

London Lounge's Tabac linen... or is that an actual Connecticut shade cigar?

    I’m weak on warm weather suits.  A love of sturdy cloth has left me with few choices on suit-wearing occasions June through September.  I can usually scrape by on linen or cotton trousers, a mid weight blazer and several cool drinks.  Compromise of this sort can be pleasing, but I have been unhappy and creased enough times to do something in the pursuit of suited coolness this year.  Having a somewhat irregular need of suits in general, I based my selections upon the most extreme but still realistic situations I might encounter.  A fairly good strategy, I think.  

    One of the weddings we are attending this year is taking place on a beach in Mexico.  In July.  In the afternoon.  I’m told some of the men will be wearing guayaberas, as is the custom; while handsome, I don’t think my first foray into this traditional shirt should be at a wedding surrounded by its habitual wearers.  Goodness knows what faux pas lurk.  Instead I will play the visiting northerner in his sole well-cut, albeit rumpled, linen suit.  The idea is that while anybody might wilt in the expected conditions, doing so in linen is perfectly acceptable.  

    Chris Despos and I poured over dozens of linen samples before deciding the ten ounce offerings from the London Lounge had the nicest balance of body, porosity and charming irregularity.  The shade is that of Connecticut shade wrapper cigars—a light, golden brown.  This choice was informed by versatility; with three patch pockets and minimal lining the jacket will wear particularly well as a casual separate.  But I admit a certain timidity in the selection as well.  I love cream linen, but a suit of it on the wrong person (me, for instance) can easily seem like a costume.  Maybe in another decade when what’s left of my hair silvers.  

    At the other extreme, I needed a suit that would handle an oppressive day in the city.  This project poses a greater challenge than the beach scenario.  Whereas linen might rely upon an expectation of some rumpling, a creased and bagged worsted suit is always sad.  Instead, the ideal stays crisp, works from day into evening, and never appears obviously casual nor too conservative.  Inspired from one of my own cloth galleries, I settled upon nine ounce Fresco—a high-twist worsted woven to permit good air-flow while remaining virtually wrinkle free.  The winner is a mottled mid-grey with a very subtle windowpane. 

The Fresco, basted, and still several steps removed from having its daring buttons affixed.  Note the patch pockets.  

    I think this cloth ticks most of the boxes, perhaps leaning a tad conservative.  I decided to alleviate any fear of appearing like a banker by employing two design elements: the hip pockets will be patch (the breast remains welt) and the buttons are perhaps two shades lighter than what might be expected on a gray worsted.  The buttons are purely a lark, but the patch pockets, at least in theory, should help keep the suit cool by eliminating some of the guts normally required to suspend a pocket.

    Patch pockets, minimal linings—these, I suppose, are the tricks that make summer suits fun.  But they all point to something I like to think of as the summer suit conundrum: In a proper swelter, anything more than a modal scarf around the waist is uncomfortably hot.  This might seem dispiriting at first—as if relief is just a mirage.  But I’ve learned to find comfort in the idea that the field is even—from guayaberas to linen to smart worsteds—and that coolness is in the eye of the bespeaker.