Shirts

Digital print finish?

shortsleeves, polyester mix, breast pocket (pref 2 with flaps), jazzier the better.

T-

white or light blue with suit, depending on whether charcoal or navy, pink or blue if office casual

cut away collar with a tie - yeah, I still wear a tie occasionally for hearings, party-and-party meetings, some clients depending on their culture (banks no, insurance underwritiung market yes, brokers no, fintech no and no suit either, in fact just my pants and even then reworn inside out).

Short cutaway collars don't work properly if no tie as the length of the collar point is too short to stand up so you get one side falling down even with one button undone and certainl with two. A standard collar or less cutaway works well with a casual open shirt as the points hold the button track straight. True, but you may not have noticed this.

Now beginning to regard double cuffs as unnecessary and de trop, save for the smartest events and a black tie dress shirt or morning suit. At a desk, decent cufflinks are annoying as they clank on the desk when typing. Silk knots are not ok. Thing of the 90s and generally shit. A single button cuff can look sharper than a scruffily ironed double.

Slim fit.

Standard fit is now designed for fatties.

Super slim is for gym weirdos 30 years younger than me.

Today I am in a powder blue shirt, cutaway collar, a fine (non noughties) woven tie with pink and silver blue, a grey sharkskin super 150 lightweight wool suit with a crease down the trousers you could cut yourself shaving with and a pair of black shoes that I bothered to polish at 6am. I have some meetings and an evening event necessitating this. I wander round the office among the midrifs, arsecracks, stretch fabrics and Vanns and I look like a holographic projection of the past and am scaring the youth and baffling the rest. You complete weirdo, they say. Fine.

I have a white handkerchief in the pocket by way of aggravating emphasis too

A testatment to somebody becoming their father while the new generation looks on baffled (same as it ever was)

Hair

I still rather like a double cuff as I have a few pairs of nice gold cufflinks but only if you are wearing a suit and tie and I so very rarely wear a suit and tie (or even a suit) now.

My shirts are white or blue, either block blue or a fine blue stripe. Always made for me to a reasonably slim fit (I am a fecking weird shape) and always in a mid weight nice quality cotton.

I have to say that now that I am old, and a little shapeless and grey and have the money to have nice suits, it is fecking annoying that suits and ties are basically no longer worn. A well cut suit is by an absolute country mile the most flattering clothes for people so afflicted.

Indeed so

just put one on - never mind that nobody seems to

Jellymonster12 Oct 23 13:14

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Hair

tick

Since covid I have moved away from doublecuff and cufflinks. Dress codes have changed, at least outside of trad law and IBs. So a more casual shirt from Budd now. Plain white, pink or blue my preference. No chest pocket of course.

No chest pocket of course.

where do the biro and darts go?

Wot mutters said.

Plus:

- Collar points need to be long enough to sit under the lapels of your jacket. That rules out most high street offerings, sorry.

- No to collar stiffeners.

- If you are going tieless, best really to go for a button down collar, but with some structure to it and in a business-appropriate fabric (so not a floppy RRL oxford cloth button down).

As in most things sartorial, the Italians do shirts better than the Brits in my opinion.

Dress codes have changed, at least outside of trad law and IBs.

I'd say they have changed in trad law save for trad trad (the Highest Church Chambers or Slaughter and May).

No to collar stiffeners? I think that's controversial talk. But when read in conjunction with your tieless point I can see what you're getting at. But just wearing a standard shirt with no "bone" in the collar means you have a curvy wavy scruffy look and that is not ok. Either it's a tidy shirt or a casual one. There is no room for muddy middle ground here.

Collar stiffeners are required to stop your collars looking like sandwiches left in a meeting room til 8pm (or Linklaters sandwiches when they are served)

I still judge a tie knot and the polish on shoes.

I don't write off the person but it tells me something's adrift.

If you can't get that detail right then whither the rest of life's details? How's your written work? Will you every make a proper job of your advice?

Polo if meetings

White shirt double cuffed if doing management shite

Davos202112 Oct 23 13:58

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Polo if meetings

meetings on horseback with mallets and helmets. Like it.

Today I was in a Navy Blue Richard Anderson suit, a Luva Avatabile shirt in a light blue stripe - Thomas Mason, a pair of Edward Green loafers and a Budd tie. Not in that order. People looked at me like I was a convicted rapist.

Wot GeoffL said.

Depending on the collar construction, if you don't wear stiffeners (fnarr) then the collar ends can curl up and that looks terrible.

"People looked at me like I was a convicted rapist. "

So no different to usual?

I misread RKnee's post as claiming to have worn green loafers.

This sort of thing sprung to mind and then I passed out

https://www.wlzcxy.com/?product_id=236307688_63

We are not architecture. In matters of the cloth, straight lines must be shunned and their advocates imprisoned.

A good collar will roll, gently, over the tie (four in hand; dimpled appropriately) before plunging decisively into the lapels.

With a good chest and shoulders most open-necked shirts look ok, collar stiffeners or not.

One thing I’ve noticed is how older men with sagging jowls and spare chins cling religiously to tie wearing. They just can’t get away with the open-neck look.