The London Lounge

I have long been attracted to double-breasted peak lapel waistcoats and am thinking of commissioning one with my next suit. I am less fond of peak lapels on single-breasted coats and think that they are insufficiently conservative for me to wear to work. I would wear the vest in non-work settings. My impression is that DB peak-lapel vests are considered most proper with peak lapel SB coats, but are they proper with notch lapel coats?

I am also a bit reluctant to commission a DB peak lapeled waistcoat since waistcoatmaking seems to be something of a dying art. Are there tailors in NY or London who do this particularly well?

Doug:

Ideally you want to create a counterpoint between the styling of the coat and the vest of a three-piece suit. If the coat is double-breasted and has high gorge peak lapels, the vest should be a collarless single-breasted model with a six-button stance and four welt pockets. Ideally the vest shouldn't be visible unless the coat is unbuttoned. It's an elegant design that looks best with high rise brace trousers with double pleats.

If the coat is single-breasted and has high gorge peak lapels, there are three different ways you can go with the vest. A double-breasted model with peak lapels that have a fair amount of belly. The button stance is low with three per side in a keystone pattern. and there are two welt pockets.
Or you might prefer a collarless single-breasted model with a six-button stance and four welt pockets. Or you might prefer a single-breasted model with high gorge peak lapels, a low three- or four-button stance and two jetted pockets. The last possibility permits showing a generous amount of tie.

What you should avoid is putting a vest with notch lapels under a coat with peak lapels. It's a mix of styles that doesn't work. Save the notch collared vest for a coat with high gorge notch lapels.

JMB

Contrary to popular misconception a waistcoat with double breasted styled collars and a coat with step collars may be matched. You see it a lot in older fashion plates. Where this recent thing about matching collar types like this arose, I have no idea.

Sir, your wish may have been granted.

I would like to refer to pages 75 and 76 of my favourite sartorial bible The Suit - A Machiavellian Approach To Men's Style by Nicholas Antongiavanni where it is mentioned that double-breasted vests, which must have collars, are correct only with single-breasted jackets. If the DB vest has peak lapels, the lapels of the jacket must match. If the DB vest has shawl collars, the jacket may have notch or peak lapels.

According to my own interpretation, as a corollary of the last rule, the notch lapel of an SB jacket matches with a shawl collared vest, if it is DB.

I bespoke last year.



Sans coat



Closer up, with coat buttoned. Interestingly the material is so open weave that the flash went right through and reflected from the light shirt.



I am rather fond of this suit...the roughness of the fabric notwithstanding. The fabric is 13/14oz Minnis Fresco. My tailor commented that it hangs like iron.

A single button peak lapel jacket w/o slits; doesn't that make it a stroller, Sir?

pchong wrote:I bespoke last year.
...<snipped>...

HappyStroller wrote:Sir, your wish may have been granted.

I would like to refer to pages 75 and 76 of my favourite sartorial bible The Suit - A Machiavellian Approach To Men's Style by Nicholas Antongiavanni where it is mentioned that double-breasted vests, which must have collars, are correct only with single-breasted jackets. If the DB vest has peak lapels, the lapels of the jacket must match. If the DB vest has shawl collars, the jacket may have notch or peak lapels.

According to my own interpretation, as a corollary of the last rule, the notch lapel of an SB jacket matches with a shawl collared vest, if it is DB.

I often take Mr. Anton's prescriptions with a grain of salt. DB vests need not have collars; nor do they need to match the jacket lapels.

HappyStroller wrote:A single button peak lapel jacket w/o slits; doesn't that make it a stroller, Sir?

pchong wrote:I bespoke last year.
...<snipped>...

Ah yes, coupled with an appropriate stripped trousers, indeed it can be.

And I get stick for cuffs and sloping pockets.........
NJS

This is an interesting subject to me. Thanks to all the respondent, and further thanks for the great pictures!

storeynicholas wrote:And I get stick for cuffs and sloping pockets.........
NJS

No, no, no; merely a gentle hint of judicious questioning as to the unversal application of some of your usually well-founded dicta, expressed, one hopes, in the most inoffensive and academic tone.

Frog in suit

Frog in Suit wrote:

storeynicholas wrote:And I get stick for cuffs and sloping pockets.........
NJS

No, no, no; merely a gentle hint of judicious questioning as to the unversal application of some of your usually well-founded dicta, expressed, one hopes, in the most inoffensive and academic tone.

Frog in suit

Hee hee - I know, mon cher Grenouille - just joking - I put up a badly taken photo on MA's book review thread of the slope of the coat pocket and also of the cuff. You will see from this that the pocket slope is not a diagonal slant - which, I agree would look terrible - just a gentle falling away and the cuffs - I just like them - definitely the Ian Fleming influence - although, maybe, strangely, he has Bond mock them in OHMSS. I say, 'strangely' as ILF used to have them and many of Bond's tastes are his own. So far as the pocket slope is concerned, I seem to recall that it was the cutter's idea - just to make a very conservative coat a little more sportif. The ticket pocket (not shown) likewise - and you will recall the photo of Ed VII in a formal top coat with a ticket pocket (as you commented on it in another thread). Back on this thread's subject, I have had several SB step-lapellled city suit coats with DB waistcoats incorporating DB lapels and all my DB suits have had SB waistcoats with no lapels - I feel that they would just tend to lumpiness - especially with heavy flannel.
NJS[/i]

No, no, no; merely a gentle hint of judicious questioning as to the unversal application of some of your usually well-founded dicta, expressed, one hopes, in the most inoffensive and academic tone. Laughing

Mon cher Froggie

Judicious questioning? I suspect you know how temperamental these sun bronzed, astrakhan clad Britzilians can get. Probably was overcast for half an hour at the beach today. Meanwhile here…snow!

Well, the sticking has not even begun. And if you guys want to follow
along, you will have to get a copy of NJS’s book and pay close attention.

For example, there is this matter about SB coats and vents (p. 41)
such that an SB, by convention, "can have either none or one." Now the
convention must be in Chicago and attended by the Cattlemens because a
single vented SB is what we find on hacking coats (used for riding horses) in the UK though in the States it is used correctly on any coat. Someone we know has a hacking coat, slanted pockets addiction? Hacking chuddies are about to become a fashionable item in London so get yours sewn now!

Now what about an SB coat without a vent that is not a DJ? We will need Sator to do a
carbon dating analysis of any specimens we might find of that model. SB single vents
are a Yank thing. A proper SB has two.

Mr. NJS has a lot of explaining to do that is for sure and I think its
time we start a thread for a nice little conversation with him. Don't
you think? Stay tuned.

M Alden

MA

Armed for the fray!! There is actually (speaking of sticking) a whack of material that didn't see the light of day in the book, owing to publisher's word counts and illustration counts but, out of abundance of caution, I shall first line my chuddies with a copy of December's Esquire magazine!
NJS

I note the cited view that if a SB coat with notch lapels is worn with a DB waistcoat, the waistcoat should have shawl lapels (or perhaps no lapels), and that a DB waistcoat with peak lapels is properly worn only with a SB coat with peak lapels. I don't understand the logic however. The waistcoat is worn under the coat, so the lapel configuration only shows when the wearer has taken the coat off. Secondly, the notch lapel still has sharp angles, so I don't really see the fight with a peaked lapel waistcoat.

Below is a link to a very smart coat and waistcoat combination in a very A&S looking style (worn by Alistair Sinclair, UK Air Minister in 1941). This is what I have in mind commissioning. From the look one cannot tell whether the waistcoat is SB or DB.

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... n%26sa%3DG