Fashion? Let’s start with clothes that fit…
Coming up to three weeks in Shanghai after spending three weeks in London before that, I am even more amazed at the sort of things that people get away with wearing!
While the top fashion labels correctly point out that they do business suits – and very good quality ones at that – they simply won’t fit you! Speaking with my friends at the Dormeuil store in Shanghai just last night, they can make me a suit for RMB43,000 (about AU$7,000, though less than half the price of the RMB100,000 Zegna), and I’m sure that it will be a very nice suit. But I know that our suits can match them in near every regard… and you will too.
Current fashion trends as I see them:
Suits
- Two-button single breasted suits are very much the current style, and probably will be and increasingly for the next two years. These, of course, show more of your tie and shirt front.
- Double-breasted suits are likely to be on their way back in vogue, possibly even with all three buttons working.
- Single-button single breasted suits are likely to be increasingly acceptable. They are available for the very fashionable already, though will become more mainstream in the coming months, especially the notched lapel variant. I expect that the peaked lapel will remain the domain of the very fashionable – well away from the bulk of my lawyer friends.
- Pickstitching and working buttons are becoming standard on the top quality suits; leaving the bottom button undone is particularly popular to ’show’ the world that it does work – like Zegna.
- Angled pockets are great – with or without the ticket pocket. Personally, I like it, but many don’t. Some like to tuck their flap inside their pocket – that works too, though is a little more stylish than standard at the moment.
Shirts
- French cuffs – square, rounded and bevelled – are very much in demand.
- As cuff links remain one of the few pieces of jewellery a gentleman is inclined to wear, these are becoming more desirable and popular.