Cary Grant and classic simplicity - Recreating the Look

It's been a while since I added a post to the Recreating the Look series. Here's a very cool Cary Grant ordering a meal on a train in Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Naturally, he's dining with a beautiful woman (Eva Marie Saint). Grant's distinguished grey hair is echoed by the silver of his immaculate suit and tie. A plain white shirt helps keep the look clean. 

This photograph could have been taken at almost any time on the last fifty years; the look is a masterpiece of classic simplicity. The suit (which may or may not have been made by Kilgour of Savile Row) is generally reported to have been a subtle blue-grey Glen check (Prince of Wales check), a cloth that never shows up properly in photographs. The tie is said to have been grey with very fine polka dots, rather than plain.

As usual, I've found some products at different prices to enable you to recreate the look. The intention is not to exactly copy, but to give a similar style. You could finish it off with some brown Oxford or Derby brogues with burgundy socks and a subtle dove-grey textured silk pocket square that doesn't inject too much colour into this understated style.

The suits I've selected are off-the-peg, but you may prefer bespoke or made to measure for a perfect fit. I've spoken to Susannah Hall, tailor, who could make a suit for you from £850 depending on choice of cloth and style. Prices elsewhere for a tailored suit can rise to several thousand pounds, depending on the level of bespoke and the tailor you select

M&S Sartorial check suit £299

Richard James grey birdseye Hyde suit £795

Oliver Peoples Gregory Peck sunglasses

John Lewis Oxford shirt £35

Burberry £275 Mr Porter

M&S silk textured tie £17.50

Marwood tie and tie pin £280 - Mr Porter

For more in the Recreating the Look series click here. If you have any looks you would like me to recreate, please get in touch.

Suppliers

Marks & Spencer

Richard James

Oliver Peoples

John Lewis

Mr Porter

Marwood

Desirable objects 2 - Harris tweed tuck box and steamer trunk

I remember, all those years ago, being packed off to school with my tuck box full of cakes and sweets to see me through the first few days of the new school term. I therefore couldn't resist showing you this Harris tweed tuck box and steamer trunk from John Lewis. It's nostalgia - indulge me please - mixed with an unquenchable thirst for Harris tweed.

I'm grateful to Mossman Trunks for drawing my attention to these - I assume they make them, but I haven't yet ascertained that. [Edit. They are made by Mossman Trunks here in Great Britain - see website here].

John Lewis KIN Range - contemporary and competitive

I make no apologies for covering another John Lewis range in the same month. John Lewis seems to be hitting the nail on the head with classic menswear with enough of a twist to be interesting and wearable by the 40 plus man.

February saw John Lewis launch KIN – the department store’s first ever ‘lifestyle’ brand, designed by the John Lewis in-house design studio. The range spans menswear, womenswear and childrenswear and provides 'contemporary, fresh and affordable high quality pieces with a distinctly Scandinavian minimalist feel'.

The colours are almost exclusively blues, greys and blacks - a move away from the splashes of colour that other collections display, but you can find colour elsewhere.

KIN’s formal counterpart, KIN tailoring, has been designed to provide men with quality, clean-cut tailoring at a competitive price. I'll spare you the technical and (for me) impenetrable descriptions of 'buggy lined jackets, high-notch lapels and AMF stitching' and suits including 'a geometric pindot and tonics in midnight and grey', because all you need to know is that prices are reasonable and, from my inspection at my local John Lewis store, the quality and styling seem excellent for the price range. 

A Grey Fox reader recently write to me to say that he was pleased with his purchase of a KIN linen double-breasted blazer (£129, see below), so that is good enough recommendation for me.

KIN and KIN tailoring is available in select John Lewis stores and online, with prices from £19.50. Here are some images of my favourites from the collection -

Navy suit jacket

Linen DB jacket

Cotton knitted tie

Cotton blazer

Canvas gym bag

Cotton mac

Oxford shirt 

Silk knitted tie

Denim selvedge jeans

British weatherproof fabrics 1 - Ventile

I've mentioned British Millerain (a waxed cotton fabric) and Ventile (a closely woven water resistant cotton) before. No doubt as a result of our love of outdoor sports, whatever the weather, many of these waterproof fabrics are British-made. To many consumers, cotton has advantages of breathability and quietness over artificial waterproof fabrics.

Ventile was designed in the UK before the Second World War, when the search was on for a waterproof material made from cotton. It was used for hoses and firebuckets and then developed for Royal Air Force survival suits (for which it is still used). Here are examples of how Ventile is now used for outdoor clothing.

Ventile Private White VC mac

Nigel Cabourn Mallory jacket with Ventile patches

S.E.H Kelly Ventile mac detail

Dark green Ventile rainproof mac from S.E.H. Kelly

Nigel Cabourn Ventile Everest parka

Nigel Cabourn Ventile Everest parka detail 

Orvis Ventile shirt

Nike Ventile anorak

Nike Ventile anorak (detail)

Westwinds Airdale Ventile jacket

Joe Caseley-Heyford at John Lewis Ventile mac

Brooks Bicycles + John Boultbee, Ventile Blackwell cycling jacket

Hilltrek Ventile cycling jacket

Can I buy a pair of British-made denims? Joe Casely-Hayford at John Lewis

After many years' service, my jeans are ragged and threadbare. These scars have been earned, not applied at the factory like so many designer denims. They were nothing special, but I liked them, and they lasted a reasonable time. They will now be worn for chores before ending their life as dusters and rags.

Sic transit gloria denimi

As I've just had a Made and Designed in Britain month I could hardly sneak off and buy new jeans made in China or Turkey. Then I remembered I'd seen Made in England jeans at John Lewis, who are making a good effort to sell British products - I wrote about their Harris tweed jackets a few weeks ago.

Their Joe Casely-Hayford for John Lewis Raw Selvage Jeans, Indigo, have sold out online at the time of writing, but can be found at a few branches. They are strong and tightly-woven, a rich indigo colour, nicely cut (reasonably slim-fitting) and long in the leg, so even daddy-long-legs like me have plenty to turn up. Most importantly, the fly is a zip and the waist isn't going to be somewhere around your knees - so these are jeans for grown-ups. I now have six months of not washing my new jeans while I let the raw denim map itself to my lifestyle (or whatever). See here for more information.

If you miss these, how about some Welsh jeans? Stay tuned; I'll be looking at Hiut Denim shortly.

If you're an older man unsure about wearing jeans, read my thoughts here and then just buy a pair. Jeans were here before any of us and no generation has an exclusive right to wear them - just do so stylishly!

(All photos by Grey Fox)

Harris tweed jacket at John Lewis & Co - British manufacturing

In March I posted about a limited edition Harris tweed jacket I had bought from John Lewis. Recently browsing in my local branch, I found another successful interpretation of this classic, made from the famous tweed from the Outer Hebrides.

The John Lewis & Co range uses "British fabrics and manufacturers where possible, often making use of long-established techniques", according to their website. It's good to see the larger stores supporting British manufacturing, and selling the products for reasonable prices. With production costs rising in China, let's hope this is the start of a trend among larger suppliers.

The jacket has a contemporary slim cut, an attractive chambray lining and Corozo nut buttons (made from the very water-resistant tagua nut). Looking online, there are several versions, each varies slightly in details.

All photos John Lewis

While I love it and wear it frequently, I had a few minor concerns about the the jacket I previously reported on (here). Hopefully these problems have been sorted out with this range; I didn't notice anything amiss with the example I tried on. At prices around £225 these should be snapped up quickly. Available online (at the time of writing) [link removed as out of stock]

Harris tweed jacket - British fabric and British manufactured

Earlier this month I reported on a Harris tweed jacket from John Lewis (see here). I found one in my local John Lewis store and after trying it on over several visits (do other men take as long as I do to decide on a purchase?) I bought it, impressed by its look and cut. I own other Harris tweed jackets, which are hardly modern in cut, being long in the body, wide over the shoulders and baggy in arm and chest.

This, the John Lewis and Co Harris tweed work-wear blazer, is quite different and subtly applies a modern twist to a very traditional garment. The slim cut and modern shape blends successfully with the traditional dogtooth check tweed, which is a mix of glorious moss greens, bright blue, charcoal grey and orange/brown (the photo below shows these colours most accurately, but is still too blue). The jacket has a handsome deep blue lining and geography teachers' leather elbow patches.

For £299 I now own a jacket which was manufactured in this country and (according to the John Lewis website) was produced as part of the John Lewis and Co. range (see [link removed]) in a limited run of 20 only!

I only have two gripes, firstly the buttoned tab at the collar is far too tight to enable the collar to be closed against the elements. Secondly, the "working cuffs" don't work as the buttons have been stitched across the buttonholes - hardly signs of John Lewis's claimed "meticulous attention to detail". However, overall this is a jacket that should have sold out quickly as it would have cost much more from an established design label. 

There are other cheaper jackets in the range, but not all are Harris tweed and they do not specifically claim to be British-made, which suggests to me that they are not, nor are they claimed to be limited editions.

There is, at the time of writing, one other limited edition British-made Harris tweed jacket in grey herringbone on JL's website -[link removed as out of stock]- pictured below. Start panic buying now!

A modern take on a very traditional Harris tweed jacket

In my search for middle age style I'm always on the lookout for modern takes on traditional clothes. The traditional tweed jacket is generally not well-tailored; it's usually a bit sack-like in cut, a little long in the body for today's taste and (for me) too wide across the shoulders. This limited edition Harris tweed jacket from John Lewis is cut short, slim and slightly waisted, but comes with traditional features like leather arm patches, dogtooth check fabric and flapped pockets. As such, it's ideal for all ages, as it combines traditional and modern styles so well.

It's good to see British design and manufacturing being supported by a large retailer. The jacket is [was] available on-line [link broken, sorry] for a reasonable £299.

All photos John Lewis