Enhancing the Fall 2008 suit with the latest from shirts to shoes
The return of a more formal approach to dressing has been a developing story in men's fashion, but running parallel to it has been a growing "fashionization" of classic sartorial menswear. A grey suit is no longer just a grey suit. It now offers another opportunity to prove that God is indeed in the details. But in the universe of options that exist for all men in Fall 2008, some details are clearly more heavenly than others.
I'll start with the suit itself. Let's make it a Zegna, for argument's sake. (After all, thousands of men all over the world do just that.) Which means it will likely be the label's Milano model. According to Marty Grundy, managing director, Ermenegildo Zegna Canada, the Milano accounts for about 35 per cent of the company's business, up from zero two years ago. It has a slimmer fit than the traditional Roma body. The jacket is three-quarters shorter, with a narrower lapel, higher armhole and the natural elongation of a two-button low closing. The sleek trousers look flat-fronted, but they have a darted pleat. They are meant to be worn slightly cropped, with no break on the shoe.
Though the silhouette is streamlined, Grundy claims the Milano has surprisingly universal appeal. For Fall 2008, he recommends dressing it up with a vest: a six-button number that closes high for a hint of the Edwardian influence that has been lurking round the more avant-garde men's styles. Grundy notes a surge in popularity for the three-piece suit.
With a Zegna suit comes Zegna cloth, the result of some of the world's finest fabric research. Micronsphere is a pure wool treated with nanotechnology to be water-repellent and stain-proof. "It makes an incredible travelling suit," says Grundy. "But if you're really looking to dress things up, you're going to go for a fabric we call 15ml.ml15. The yarn is narrower than a human hair. It's like the finest cashmere."
You may opt for your suit in a classic charcoal grey, but, instead of pinstripes, why not try a windowpane check for fall? Purple on charcoal is the most current choice (with pinstripes, it's brown on grey). "And don't forget the lining," counsels Grundy. "Bemberg is a very fine satin lining in stripes, moiré, or, dressiest of all, paisley. So the exterior is fairly contained, but on the inside, a man can be as over-the-top as he wants." We'll come back to this notion of the private pleasure, the luxury that is for the wearer only, because it's a cornerstone of modern dressing.
The appetite for sophisticated detail that means a man now expects working cuffs on his suit jacket also accounts for the renewed popularity of pocket squares - they're bigger, whether classic folded white, or a tucked-in foulard effect - and French cuffs on a shirt. Grundy says the shirt is pure cotton, white or micro-patterned (which has the effect of looking solid white until you're up close). Same with a dress shirt - cuffs and collar will feature the same white tonal effect.
A grey-suit/white-shirt combination, however luxe in fabric and finish, will definitely need the lift of an expressive tie. Again, it's paisley to the rescue. Whether it's a small, tidy paisley or a bold exploded pattern, purple or burnt orange are the shades of choice for fall. (They also provide a major shot of colour as scarves.) When I tell Grundy I've been seeing a lot of knit ties around, he refers to Zegna's "27 Montenapoleone" style, a split-personality tie, with a chicly silk-knit front juxtaposed with a woven wool back.
For Tony Camarata, senior vice president, men's sales, Ferragamo USA Inc., the key to Fall 2008 is also juxtaposition. With the line of suits turning more elegant, there is, by way of contrast, more volume in accessories, including shoes. The heavy, double-soled style popularized by fashion-forward sartorial designers comes to mind, but even more classic styles like the pointy shoe will have a longer toe, maybe even a bump toe. And if the volume is literally being pumped up, shoes for Fall 2008 are also louder colour-wise. "There's a lot more reddish tones," says Camarata, "a darker Bordeaux in dress shoes, and all the gold, silver and pewter metallics you've been seeing in athletic wear." Metallic shoes are paired as easily with jeans as with a suit - that's more of Camarata's juxtaposition.
He also detects an appetite for subtle excess, newness concentrated in hardware details like the buckles on shoes and belts, for instance, or the Ferragamo ganchini (the ornamental hook that is the company's brand identity) in rose gold, to match a man's dress watch.
Camarata's sentiments are echoed by Robert Tateossian, managing director, Tatteossian. "Everything is available everywhere, so our customer is looking for something very unique," declares the jeweller. This fall, he is launching Rare Stones, a collection of 18-karat-gold cuff links featuring precious and semi-precious stones in one-of-a-kind editions. "Cuff links are the easiest way to accessorize a suit," says Tateossian, "but in the current climate, you don't want to be flamboyant. You want luxury, but it's all about being discreet. So there's less bling, more handcrafting. Our stones are carved to give them a three-dimensional texture. It's about using natural materials naturally."
As jewellers go, Tateossian is refreshingly proscriptive with his product: no dogtags, crosses or rings (except for engagement and wedding bands) with a suit. Aside from cuff links, the dress-up item he's endorsing for fall is the bracelet - and, even though he says there's a real trend back to silver, it's not the chunky ID style he's talking about. Instead, Tateossian is promoting a thin braided-leather band with a sterling-silver clasp, to be worn on the same wrist as your watch. Or there's a waxed cord with your zodiac symbol in silver or 18-karat-gold. How's that for an ultimately discreet ID?
And should such an item err a little on the racy side for the average sartorialist, there is the dependable tie bar, no longer particularly favoured in Europe, but a runaway success for Tateossian in the Orient, and a popular gift item in North America. The bestseller for the new season is a muted combination of silver and mother of pearl. "You don't want to attract too much attention to it," says Tateossian. Once again, the pleasure is all private.
By Tim Blanks
