#man 1924

[heinfienbrot]

Carlos Castillo.

[beyondfabric]

Double trouble courtesy of Man 1924.

Ph: Beyond Fabric

[gezzasmenswear]

Tweed on a spring-like day. Still feels cold, though!

[freshthoughts2020]

[woollenhulls]

Trunk Clothier’s Casual Brands

I mentioned a while ago that Trunk Clothiers in London has a great selection of Boglioli and Caruso suits, and a sharp sense of what models are most useful to customers today. While menswear on the internet can get a bit obsessive about quality hierarchies, the Trunk guys know that the survival of contemporary tailoring depends on versatility as much as tradition.

Caruso’s self-labelled tailoring can be hard to find, but it has a well-earned reputation as the “Volkswagen of menswear” because it makes fantastic products for so many other brands. Boglioli is more well-known, and its range of luxurious (if quite short) unstructured jackets have been all over the internet for some time. These two brands alone provide a fine selection of lightly structured and wholly unstructured suits and jackets.

But Trunk also hosts a number of other tailoring brands on the more casual end which you may not have come across. It’s also worth noting that these casual brands are a fair bit cheaper than the more traditional tailoring options: in the £200--£400 range often rather than the £800--£1000 of Caruso and the like.

Venetian Barena makes incredibly soft wool and cotton bouclé jackets, which feel more like sweaters than tailoring.

It’s a matter of taste how far you want your jackets to mimic sweaters. Canali’s Kei range is supposedly named for the “K” in knit, but their jackets still have canvas and still feel like tailoring. Some of the Barena jackets don’t drape so much as wrap around you, and I find myself asking why I wouldn’t just pick a chunky cardigan instead. But if comfort and casual versatility are your priority, they’s definitely worth considering.

Man 1924 is a small brand from the north of Spain, whose current head Carlos Castillo you may well recognise from this photo by Scott Schuman. Man makes relaxed cotton and linen jackets and trousers.

The cuts are fairly generous, and the designs simple and suited to hot weather. Some have said that Spanish tailoring is less fussy than Italian; I think it’s a bit of a generalization, but might hold true in this case. The Man 1924 stock at Trunk nicely combines some quite conservative patterns (herringbones, checks, even a dogtooth) with casual fabrics and cuts, making them better fit a younger frame and a warmer day.

Finally, there are some interesting pieces from Italian brand Aspesi, which began as a shirtmaker before branching out into a range of basics: trousers, sweaters, outerwear.

What’s a little unusual (and may disturb the more sensitive menswear traditionalist) is the inclusion of synthetic fibres in their jackets. This Samuraki Cotton Shirt Jacket is a cotton/polyester blend, which is extremely lightweight and slightly wrinkly. More surprising is the Nylon Gene Jacket, a wholly synthetic (nylon/polyester) jacket which has been garment dyed (dyed after construction) to create a piece that looks superficially like a soft cotton piece, but instead of the fading and curling of cotton, it has that slightly soapy feel of synthetics. This makes it stronger, quicker to dry, and lighter to carry: a jacket for days that are both flooded with sun and pouring wet within a few hours.

[thepopinjay]

Remember when everyone talked about sprezz? Anyways, here’s a picture I like.

[gezzasmenswear]

Out comes the green tweed

[gezzasmenswear]

It's the last chance to wear the safari jacket before the weather turns cold again