Video: How to Buy a Suit by Jim Chapman - British GQ

In this first of a new series, The Luxury of Less, the GQ columnist and YouTuber, Jim Chapman, looks at buying a suit, bespoke or off the peg. Containing some sound advice, it rightly emphasises the importance of fit over the label. Men are often too keen to buy labels and this blinds them to the fact that what they doesn't fit or suit them.

GQ Editor, Dylan Jones, on luring iconic British brands back to London

Last month, Grey Fox offered tickets to a talk by Dylan Jones, editor of GQ. The event was part a series of In Conversation events in at the new 62 Buckingham Gate, Victoria, London, hosted by Land Securities. 

Led by Land Securities £2 billion investment, Victoria is re-inventing itself as home to some leading fashion and design names including Burberry, Jimmy Choo and Tom Ford. It is hoped that this transformation will make Victoria a place where Londoners and visitors alike want to live, work, shop and socialise thanks to its great restaurants, shops and regular events.

Dylan Jones shared his wisdom on men’s fashion, paying tribute to the capital’s style heritage, while also predicting a bright future for men’s fashion. In 2012, alongside the British Fashion Council, Dylan launched the capital’s first-ever dedicated menswear showcase – the London Collections –  a ground-breaking move for the industry. 

Here, Dylan Jones talks about how menswear has evolved and why, in his view, London is the place to be for menswear.

What drove you to making the London Collections a reality?

I agreed with the British Fashion Council that young menswear brands not only deserved but needed a platform to exhibit their work. Traditionally, they always showed on the last day of London Fashion Week, when all the press and buyers had already left for the Gucci show in Milan, so we bit the bullet and moved it to before Milan, Paris and New York.

Now we use the London Collections not only as a showcase for British designers, but also to encourage some of our big brands to move back to the capital.

As well as encouraging designers to show here, we have created a cultural programme, throwing parties and dinners and making it as interesting as possible. Incidentally, 62 Buckingham Gate would make a fantastic venue for a fashion show!

Why has London proved to be such a good home for the menswear shows?

Why wouldn’t you want to show in London? It has the best parks, the best museums, the best galleries, the best restaurants… it’s got it all. One of the great things that plays so well with international visitors and buyers is our heritage, particularly Savile Row.

What does the future hold for the London Collections?

None of us expected we’d get Burberry, which is now based here in Victoria, to move back to London in just three seasons. We’ve been blown away by its enthusiasm – the scale of its show in Hyde Park was a great statement of its intention to stay. We’re sure we’ll get more British fashion houses to return to the capital next January and, thereafter, it’s simply a matter of building the momentum.

There are a couple of Italian and American brands we’d like to entice to London too. They show in Paris and Milan and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t, but we intend to build a programme that shows we have the ability, interest and attraction here to host these big names.

See the createvictoria.com website for more information.

Pitti Uomo GQ video - style inspiration for the older man

A little over a year ago I began to wonder what middle-age had to offer me as a man in terms of fashion and style. Was I really heading for a life of grey Velcro strap shoes, non-iron shirts and nylon jumpers?

Idly I Googled and found a few fashion sites and blogs. Of these, The Sartorialist stood out and it was his photographs of men of my age at something called Pitti Uomo that gave me ideas of how I could begin to search for a style of my own. Men of all ages can look well-dressed; youth offers no great advantages as the GQ video, linked below, of this year's Pitti Uomo illustrates so well.

The Sartorialist - Pitti Uomo

The Sartorialist

The Sartorialist

The Sartorialist

 I'm still don't know much about Pitti Uomo, although it's obviously a show where fashion designers and retailers show their wares. I know little about this side of fashion. My possibly inaccurate view of this world is of one where everyone has to look devastatingly gorgeous and where models have starve themselves to find work, so what's refreshing about The Sartorialist's photos and those on the GQ slide show is that they show people who are not models and are therefore relatively normal-looking but stylishly-dressed. This means that it is easier to see how clothes affect their style, something not easy on the sterile and unrealistic backdrop of a professional model.

Here is a link to GQ's excellent slide show of this year's Pitti Uomo, just finished. It's interesting how classical many of the styles are, or maybe laymen like me just assume wrongly that fashion people all wear wild and wacky styles. The more classical the style the more it suits an older man (in my view).

Tommy Ton's Street Style: Pitti Uomo Style: GQ.com

Above and below are some of The Sartorialist's pictures that had me thinking a year or so ago -