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Now and Then

The influence of the past is with us always. Books like Cally Blackman’s “One Hundred Years of Menswear” are particularly good at tracing the evolution of the suit especially.

After a satisfying few hours with the book (a few factual errors notwithstanding), it got me thinking about my time with Britches of Georgetowne, the basis of [...]

Richard wrote me recently to ask:
Could you please go into detail about the monogram etiquette for men’s shirts – front pocket, exact placement of (top of pocket, bottom of sleeve), cuff monogram, traditional color (black, blue, gray), order of letters, size of letters, etc.? Also, is there a certain style for a certain age [...]

Taking the Measure of Elegance of A Suit

Well, now that we’ve navigated the minefield that is smart casual, I’d like to turn our eyes to the ever elegant suit.

What’s that? You’ve seen some dubious suits lounging about? Hmmm… What is it that makes a suit more elegant than the other that languishes, unworn, in the back of the closet?

Fit, obviously.

Colour? I would [...]

Luxe, calme et volupté.* That sounds wonderful. In today’s world, I find that there is a disturbing lack of all of the above. Maybe it’s the speed at which we live our daily lives, multitasking during each measured moment of the day and well into our nights. Whatever the reason, I think that we’ve lost something that our parents and grandparents took for granted. Not just an ease in society or how to throw an intimate dinner for six or write a thank you note, but an everyday elegance. Easy and Elegant Life is my attempt to define what makes up an elegant existence and to pass along a few easy (and inexpensive) ideas for bringing back a little elegance to our everyday lives. Here you will find ideas for living, decorating, entertaining and dressing with an easy elegance. Not just my ideas. To help point the way, I intend to seek out all sorts of people -- professional lifestyle experts and those who seem to have been born elegant -- asking them what they believe constitutes elegance and how we can best achieve it. So to those whom Honore de Balzac called “elegantologists” I dedicate this site and the good fight. * From “L’Invitation au voyage” by Charles Baudelaire. The whole line reads: “Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté/ Luxe, calme et volupté.”

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