Izzy recommends the soft-shoulder look for those who can get away with it, a group which, unfortunately for him, doesn’t include David Hyde Pierce (here posing with his recent Tony Award). Unless he plans on mastering the military press at the gym, he needs a jacket with some padding to bring his shoulders closer to horizontal.
Displaying a flesh-colored hand, Valentino proves himself to be at least partly human. Kind of like a reverse Luke Skywalker.
In his Book of the Courtier, Renaissance man Baldassare Castiglione coined the much-needed, and delightful, word “sprezzatura”:
It is an art which does not seem to be an art. One must avoid affectation and practice in all things a certain sprezzatura, disdain or carelessness, so as to conceal art, and make whatever is done or said appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it … obvious effort is the antithesis of grace.
It is, in sum, the art of making the difficult look easy. Needless to say, it applies to one’s life just as much as one’s appearance. But when applied to the latter, it counsels avoiding perfection, even if that means creating intentional flaws—though they must never be seen as such.
Examine the Milanese gentleman above. With his negligently unbuttoned shirt, floppy pocket square, rumpled linen jacket with its sleeves folded back—this, my friends, is sprezzatura on a bicycle.
As a matter of principle, Izzy objects to Jude Law’s micro collar and sliver of a tie. But at the very least they should have been complemented by a shorter jacket sleeve.
A macho boutique might sound like a contradiction in terms, but one new shop in New York is trying to do just that. Part haberdasher, part barbershop, Freemans Sporting Club aims to be all things masculine. Whether they’re able to achieve that, Izzy doesn’t yet know, but he is definitely excited by the fact that they are offering suits tailored by the illustrious Martin Greenfield out of deadstock. According to this article about one of the store’s owners:
Durability of material and shape underpins his decision to use vintage deadstock, most of which dates to the ’40s and ’50s. Unlike Super 180s and other popular high-twist wools, FSC’s vintage stock is often only 70 or 90 twist, and, therefore, much stronger. Greenfield’s son, Jay, explains that “most suits today are designed to be made by machine and glued together,” and the fabric is therefore very light. “Because we make it by hand,” he says, “we can use fabric with more body and shape.”
FSC’s emphasis on durability translates into a crisp, structured suit body that will soften with age, but will always maintain its form. The suits are built around Swiss cotton and black horsehair canvas with black gossamer linings that reveal the basting and other remnants of construction.
Izzy hopes to stop by the shop for a look and feel on his next trip to Gotham.
Looking a bit like a turtle sticking its head out of its shell, Eddie Murphy would have benefited from a higher collar. Also, while midnight blue is an acceptable and sophisticated alternative to black in formal wear, the color of Murphy’s jacket is both unflattering and too light to qualify as such.
Although Izzy has a habit of making fun of the au courant designers, he must confess that ever since he saw Thom Browne’s Fall 2006 collection he has been inspired to experiment with winter whites. Having finally found a sumptuous pair of cream flannel trousers, he is dashing off to the nearest skating rink.
Izzy isn’t sure he’s brave enough to attempt the odd plaid jacket, but offers his kudos to this gentleman spotted by The Sartorialist. And the striking contrast between trousers and shoes also gets a special commendation.
“Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?” were the most famous words spoken by the British actor Ian Richardson. Known in his homeland for playing the villain par excellence, he combined his sharp features with sharp conservative tailoring to become the very incarnation of a what the British call a toff.
Not for amateurs, the double-breasted jacket is a tricky item to wear successfully. Done wrong, it can make a young man look fuddy-duddyish, or the thin man look corpulent. This number from Valentino is an excellent example of a double-breasted jacket pulled off with panache. The secret lies in the jacket’s fittedness, including its waist-suppression, thin lapels at the correct angle, and an all-around proportionality.
Billy Baldwin’s jacket is way, way too long (as are its sleeves). Some hand-me-downs ought to be politely rejected.
From what Washington Post movie reviewer Stephen Hunter writes, the Good Shepherd sounds like it will be a holiday treat for the clothes-minded:
[Matt Damon's character] is from one of those old families — you know, the ones who knew everybody, got the best jobs and knew which wine went with which course. Ever notice their lapels? They never bunched up when they sat down, like yours or mine did. They had drape, and that’s the giveaway right there….
As anthropology and archaeology, the film is first-class. If old WASP high Anglican haberdashery was the dullest, tweediest cavalcade of threads ever conceived, the movie certainly understands this. The suits fit beautifully and look like mud on asphalt, the shoes are both shiny and dull, nobody has the wit to wear a Burberry but only those sacklike London Fog single-breasted raincoats and the little ’50s small-brimmed hat, usually with the tail feather of a Bavarian woodcock in the band. Color? These guys never heard of it!
