Do you still remember your first suit?

[Des Esseintes]

I was in a rather nostalgic mood yesterday. Visiting my parents at our house in Germany for a few days, I spent some time rummaging through the attic and through several wardrobes full of old, disused and stowed away clothing. My digging gained me two wonderful 1950s tweed jackets which, in their first life, belonged to my long gone grandfather and, for whatever reason, had escaped my attention during earlier raids to the attic.

What really came as an emotional flashback in time, however, was suddenly meeting again with my very first suit ever. Strangely enough, my first suit was not the almost proverbial charcoal or navy worsted, nor one of my beloved tweed suits that take a lion’s share of my current wardrobe, but a dinner jacket and trousers, bought for the ball crowning my first series of dancing lessons, some late Autumn day in the second half of the 1980s. I was lucky enough to have been introduced to bespoke suits and jackets rather early in my life, and I wore blazers and tweed jackets at a much earlier age, but this particular suit is an off-the-rack dinner jacket and trousers, bought in a provincial town in Germany, at what was then considered “the” gentleman’s outfitter there. I am proud to say that it is not only of a decent enough make, cut from a proper mid-weight black woolen cloth, but also in a sufficiently classic cut, that I would not hesitate to wear it today, were it not at least four sizes small for my now firmly middle-aged body. A one-button, shawl collar jacket, flat front trousers in an elegantly narrow cut, no dreadful 1980s oversized shoulders or other fashionable frills, just the classic item.

More than the somewhat pointless and vain satisfaction with my apparently pretty well-developed sense of style, at the age of sixteen or so, what really made me sentimental about this sudden reunion with a long-forgotten acquaintance were all the memories this reunion would conjure up: of the girl I met at the dancing lessons who went on to become my first proper girlfriend, of the smell of her perfume, of my old pals from school who went to these lessons with me, many of whom I haven’t seen since I left school for university, of the silly names we would call each other by, and the sillier games we would play back then, of my early nights out in town, …and of my father, complaining that it was a shame that, of all clothes, I shouldn’t have my dinner jacket properly made by his tailor, simply because I had thought of it so late that off-the-rack remained the only option.

It is amazing what stream of memories a simple old suit, or any other old item in your wardrobe, can get you into. My family’s house, fortunately, has ample room for storage, so I have rarely ever thrown a suit or jacket away that had at least a little bit of life left in it, and such acquisitiveness occasionally pays off, not so much because I have a huge selection of clothes at my disposal – I admitted earlier that many of these I would only fit in today if you cut me in half –, but because of the fond memories such random reunions can evoke.

My wife often calls me a “hopeless hoarder” – I felt never more content with this title!

[culverwood]

A dark grey herringbone worsted from Burton in the late 60's. I was still at school but rather than buy one from the school shop I bent the rules as much as I could and went into town to be measured. Every medium sized provincial town had a Burton and Hepworth in those days.

[Cary Grant]

Navy pinstripe... some department store suit from high school.

[Cufflink79]

When I was very young I wore a good deal of blue blazers and dress pants in different colors because of my changing height. When I slowed down in growing a bit around 10 years of age, I was given the gift of a new suit from my mother and grandmother to wear for Easter. It was 1990 and the suit was a DB 1 on 6 in solid navy made by Botany 500.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

[shredder]

I blew my wages from delivering packages on a RTW off-white linen button 1 show 2 DB suit (no ticket pocket ). I don't remember what the label was.

[Costi]

no ticket pocket

What a shame...

[shredder]

Indeed! And it had straight pockets too!!

[Costi]

Oh, that's revolting! Those vile RTW rags...

I don't remember my first suit, but I remember my first tailored garment: it was a tweed jacket. I kept it long after it had become unwearable - it had baged at the elbows and I had outgrown it. I gave it away many years ago...

[kilted2000]

My first (and so far only) suit is a MTM midnight blue dinner jacket with low cut waistcoat.

[storeynicholas]

Another sentimentalist is outed from the attic! When we put away childish things, their familiarity and their sometime-strong meaning for us continue to exert some power over us, so that, when we stumble upon them years later, we are brought up to remember their value. Alas, my father (an attic sentimentalist but outward pragmatist), is given to periodic bouts of 'Let's have a Blitz - and clear out the rubbish'. This, combined with the fact that I have lived in so many different places in my life, means that I am unlikely to have an actual reunion with long out-worn clothes and be delighted with the same strength of recollection that their sight and form and smell and touch evoke. But even he has left a tattered matchbox of my milk teeth, somewhere about the place.

Even so, I do recall my very first suit. I had been, in common with my generation, subjected to short trousers and full hose (folded down at the knee), up until the age of six or seven. Presumably, this was on the sensible basis that little boys are going to scrape their knees, so save the cloth (and I did scrape my knees - the memory of the scent and sting of diluted Dettol, dabbed on with cotton wool, makes me sit bolt upright even now; as well as the memory of the words 'Now, this is going to hurt a bit'; gritted teeth; the shock of cold water; the sight of diluted, flowing blood, leaching and melding with the cloudy anticeptic). But, around this time, I saw my first James Bond film Goldfinger and set about a campaign, against my parents, along the lines that: 'If James Bond didn't wear short trousers, why should I?' I figured this secretly (and rather precociously), because, even though I had no actual Pussy Galore to impress and roll in the hay, there was, at least the prospect of Deborah Cowling or the Gould twins (Helen and Sheila). They are unlikely to be reading this and bear other names now, I am sure; never mine.

Eventually, my parents gave in, since I started reinforcing my arguments from passages in the early paperback editions of the Bond books in the house (they were also, sadly, Blitzed into oblivion). The result was (looking at the picture now) a surprisingly nicely cut, speckled, two piece, Donegal tweed suit. It is illustrated below, from a photograph taken by the man with the gin tan, whom I described recently as having lived to be ninety three. He took the shot with a then new-fangled Polaroid camera (to us a magic box indeed), before my sister and I went to a fancy dress party, disturbingly, unself-consciously pompous, as John Steed and Mrs Peel.

I nearly hesitate to put the picture up; not because the rather smug precociousness of it might offend but because, along with the buttonhole carnation (in a real buttonhole on a three roll-to-two button stance) and the suit and tie, my dear sister too has turned, physically, to dust:

'She may have been too beautiful to live long. I have a thought that she may also have been too good.'

Of the few things that I, unhesitatingly, brought here in our suitcases and did not leave to the storage men, this was included. The umbrella is vastly too big; the hat was stuffed with newspaper and there is a restoration amount of shirt cuff on display - but still - if I hadn't held my arm up, the coat sat nicely and the trousers fell very well and the fine shop that sold it still plies its trade in Truro.

I don't suppose that they thought, for one moment, of the trek that they had begun but, in future, they might offer the option of better fitted shirts, slants on coat pockets - and - a ticket pocket too - well, it is a tweed suit, after all:



NJS

[Costi]

Lovely photograph and post, Nicholas! I couldn't imagine a better response to Des Esseintes's original post. The full-sized bowler and umbrella actually increase the miniature effect of the suit, shirt and tie. Your sister has an enchantingly playful smile, while you look very proud of yourself

[storeynicholas]

Costi - yes! I'd say that I look - very smug. In fact, that very quality reminds me of this, taken of Ian Fleming at an airport, after the success of the novels - he's obviously enjoying the attention -



NJS

[fabrics]

I lost some 14kg in the past 3 months because I follow a strict diet plan; I am 70kg now. 2 nights ago, I was visiting my parents, and my mom told me to clear out some of my clothes. So, I found my very first bespoke suit which was made in 1992. It is a DB, 4x1, in Dormeuil Super 100's blue plain weave. This jacket also has wide arm holes. The suit trousers fit is fine, no alteration is needed; however, the suit jacket requires some major alteration. The tailor agreed to take apart the jacket and resew. As you can see in the picture, the jacket is a bit long, and it is very roomy in the upper body. So, the tailor would take in from the top/shoulders. 17 years ago, I was new to the bespoke arts, and I did not know much. At that time, I recall low gorge suits were the norm in the RTW scenes. Anyway, I think my first bespoke DB suit will be revived with high gorge, which I like. Great! I would show the result afterward.

[Costi]

Fabrics, nice old stuff. Actually I think the fullness in the chest is perfeclty fine as it is, as well as the height of the gorge. It is the current preference for a very high gorge that is a fashion, but if you look at these illustrations, old photographs and not-so-old photographs of elegant men (Prince Michael, for instance, if you click the link below) you will not see lapel peaks sitting on the shoulders.



http://jessa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/ ... l-1912.jpg

I can't really tell because of the angle of the first photograph, but I agree your coat may be a bit on the long side. However, the gorge could not have been any higher since the lapels are are rolled to the bottom buttons and are long enough as they are. If you pull everything up a couple of centimeters, none of the buttons will be at the waist level anymore, so make sure you don't upset the whole balance.
What I would do is bring in the top buttons to make a square with the bottom ones, and here is your look, not eighties at all:


(I think the gorge is a bit too high in the first illustration, if you ask me. I prefer the the height in the next one).


The fullness in the chest belongs there, for comfort and good looks. It's great when an old suit can get a second life!

[fabrics]

So, I visited my local tailor and he has completed the remaking of my First Suit which was made in June, 1992.


LEFT: 1992 DB suit jacket on me in October 2009.
RIGHT: Remade 1992 DB suit jacket on me in January 2010.