British style, refined for the modern gentleman.
Good taste isn't bought, it's inherited — usually at the bedroom mirror, ten minutes before a wedding. Ten lessons every father should hand down, from the nipple rule to the truth about cheap scarves.
Somewhere between the joggers and the gilet, a generation of fathers has started dressing properly again — not for the office, but for the school gate, the park and the Saturday brunch. We consider why, and what to wear when your audience is eight years old and holding a scooter.
No garment is seen less and matters more than the sock. From Mersey boat socks to ribbed wool for winter boots, we make the case for upgrading the layer that keeps the whole outfit honest.
A £120 boot that shrugs off November will serve you better than a £300 dress shoe worn twice a year. We put leather, suede and rubber soles to the test against pavements, cobbles and the occasional spilled pint.
No British coat earns its keep on a hanger. It earns it slung across a sticky pub bench, folded onto a kitchen chair, or balled up as a cushion on a park wall. We examine what that daily indignity demands of fabric, weight and cut — and why the best coats are bought with the beer garden in mind.
Barbering in Britain has grown up. We speak to the men behind the chairs about why the haircut you choose after forty matters more than any garment you'll buy this year — and how to get it right.
Wealth whispers, as the saying goes — and in Britain it tends to whisper over the hum of a decent pub. This piece dissects the specific tells that separate genuine polish from expensive-looking failure, and offers a practical route to looking well-heeled on an ordinary high street budget.
Come the first properly warm Saturday, the nation's beer gardens fill with men dressed identically: sage-green polo, shorts of indeterminate length, and sliders worn without irony. We examine how this unofficial uniform came to be — and what the discerning gentleman might wear instead.
The true measure of a British outfit isn't how it photographs — it's how it survives a night on the tiles. We make the case for clothing designed with lager, drizzle and last trains in mind.
No other accessory works as hard, or as quietly, as a well-chosen scarf. From lambswool for the January gale to a cotton twill for April drizzle, here is how to buy, knot and wear the one piece of neckwear British weather genuinely demands.
The home-working years were kind to our waistbands and cruel to our wardrobes. As the office reasserts itself, we argue for a middle path: no suits, no hoodies, and no more pretending joggers were ever a personality.
The varsity jacket, the chino-and-loafer combination, the whole collegiate performance — much of it washed up on our shores and quietly failed to find a home. We ask why, and why the British gentleman should feel no shame in choosing a Harrington instead.
Somewhere between the Harrington and the suit jacket sits the casual blazer — a garment most British men own, few wear well, and almost nobody exploits properly. We make the case for the unstructured, washable blazer as the hardest-working item a gentleman can hang in his wardrobe.
Before you spend another winter wearing a jumper that pills by Boxing Day, it pays to understand what you are actually buying. We put the three great knitwear fibres under the microscope — and explain how to make each one last a lifetime.
Runways flatter; beer gardens do not. We argue that the true measure of British menswear is how a jacket copes with drizzle, spilled stout and a crowded doorway in Soho — and which fabrics, weaves and cuts earn their round.
From Teddy boys draining their denims in the bath to today's selvedge revival, jeans have charted every shift in British masculinity. We trace six decades of denim and explain how to choose the one pair worth keeping for the next ten years.
Between June and September, the average British gentleman will face church services, marquees, garden parties and the races — often in the same fortnight. Here is how to build a three-piece capsule in fabrics engineered for our weather's mood swings.
Before a handshake is offered or a word exchanged, your footwear has already given its verdict. We argue that shoes are the most honest part of any British man's outfit — and rank the rotation that earns its keep.
On a rain-slicked platform at Clapham Junction, nothing betrays a man faster than the sad arc of a broken £3 brolly. We examine the unspoken hierarchy of British rain gear — and how to climb it without saying a word.
Facial hair is a negotiation between geometry, industry and intent. We consulted a London master barber and sifted the evidence to help every man decide what — if anything — should grow between his sideburns.