Gentry style

Finding good shoes – that is, classic but stylish, in fine leather with high quality dyes and an artisan’s details – is harder than it ought to be. In these days when most high-end designers reckon they’re also shoemakers (pointless buckles all over the place, endless amounts of rubber, intentionally distressed features) it’s important to spend a little extra and get the real thing. Ever in the service of men’s style, we’re going to do a few occasional articles about shoemakers we like – that is, shoes you can trust, probably love, certainly wear for life.

If you don’t know Bontoni, you should. Less well known than Berluti and John Lobb, Bontoni is the last word in discretion, which may be a little surprising since they’re Italian. So far, they’ve mostly relied on word of mouth, but this particular mouth is pleased to spread the word, so get in there early before everyone else does. This third-generation, family-run business doesn’t rely on glossy advertisements and they don’t employ teams of press agents, which is just as well since the craftsman at their bottega in the Marche region of Italy make only about 12 pairs of shoes a day, not quite the numbers needed for global domination. But that’s what we like about them…that and the fact that the shoes are handcrafted, and combine simplicity with sophistication. Even better, they’re a bit secretive about the handcolouring that gives their shoes unique, rich, deep shades and colours. A little mystery is always nice in a shoemaker.

They really are beautiful. If you’re in New York, you can pick up a pair of ready-to-wears at Bergdorf Goodman; if you’re in London, you’ll have to wait until next year.

Since Cowley Manor launched as a chic country house hotel and spa, it has been Gentrystyle’s preferred detox getaway. As we all know, there are two trends in recent years that we all ought to be wary of – the rise of pseudo-fashionable boutique hotels the world over and the return of the chintzy country house hotel. Too often, boutique hotels disappoint with bad soft furnishings, and country house hotels disappoint with bad food and too many old people. Happily, Cowley Manor, outside Cheltenham, has hardly put a foot wrong in reinventing the English country house for the 21st century – its bespoke soft furnishings are impeccable, its guests still have a spring in their step.

Cowley Manor has a varied history. The picturesque church which sits adjacent to the main house has been there since the 13th century, and while the original manor house was established there in 1695, it was eventually pulled down. The current house dates from 1860, overseen by the architect George Somers Clarke. (A bit of London trivia: Somers Clarke isn’t nearly as well known as many other (more…)

The rarified art of bespoke men’s tailoring, epitomised by Savile Row, is popular again – on the internet.  Vegard in Norway is looking for a suitable jacket to hunt in: would an Ulster be appropriate? An anonymous correspondent has a pressing need for a knitted silk tie with a pointed rather than straight-ended blade: where can he find one? And “Couch” would like to know if alum tawed pigskin would be suitable for making a pair of bespoke shoes.

Obscure requests, maybe, but all three men receive answers and advice from their enthusiastic peers. They, and hundreds of others, are members of a burgeoning community of gents who meet online to debate, in sometimes obsessive detail, the minutiae and history of fine bespoke dressing.

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Or is the hype about the hype keeping us from seeing the real picture? The collateral benefits of this loopy, vulgar, and altogether overheated New York & London art moment. 

I love art and the art world, but lately, I can see why the Gavin Brown gallery has a new Website called NewYorkIsDead.biz. The site’s creators say that “nothing’s moribund; energy still abounds. But its timbre is strange.” Just how strange can be seen, as never before, when the bullshit machine runs at full steam; students charge $25,000 for paintings; the M.F.A. (as Daniel Pink notes) is the new M.B.A.; and “the system,” as David Hammons observed, “is making people offers they can’t refuse when it should be making them offers they can’t understand.”

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Last year Gentrystyle heralded the arrival of Thom Browne’s collection ‘The Black Fleece’ at Brookes Bros.  What we really admire Thom for is his reinterpretation of the suit.  Thom dresses like an insurance adjuster circa 1957, eats the same breakfast every day, and wears pants that are way too short. He’s also an award-winning, cutting-edge men’s designer who’s going to save the suit from extinction.

He lives a quiet life,” says menswear designer Thom Browne. He’s describing his muse, who is imaginary but fully realized. “He kind of does his thing and he has his life, and ­everything is very understated. His house is very lived in, but in a good way. It’s not interior-decorated or anything like that, but it is decorated. He’s health-conscious, but not too. He eats well, but he’s not preoccupied: He will have cream and butter, and he will drink. And he’s nice.”

Browne, who won this year’s Council of Fashion Designers of America award for menswear designer of the year (an honor that in recent years has gone to Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Helmut Lang, and John Varvatos), is sitting on a leather sofa at Soho House, a block from his studio. He’s wearing a gray tropical-weight wool suit that looks like it’s been tossed in the dryer. There are about four inches of ankle visible on each leg, and he’s not wearing socks. The jacket is teeny-tiny, too, and his narrow gray tie is tucked neatly into his trousers and secured to his shirt placket with a flat horizontal clip. The buttons on his button-down collar are undone, and everything is narrow, narrow, narrow. His features are symmetrical, his hair buzzed flat; the effect is equal parts fifties, military, and midwestern.

But in a world populated by men who seem incapable of moving on from the baggy T-shirts and jeans of their adolescent wardrobe, Browne’s strictness feels entirely fresh. He has no formal ­fashion-design training; still, in the five years since he started his line, he’s become a force in advancing the geek-chic, too-tight, hip-to-be-square aesthetic that is popping up everywhere from Wes Anderson movies to the runways of Milan. And he’s managed to do something traditional menswear manufacturers were starting to give up on: He made the suit cool again. Even the behemoth Brooks Brothers is starting to show narrower cuts.

“Thom’s suit is the new expression of the suit,” says Tommy Fazio, men’s fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman. “He’s ­really influencing everyone. I see his shape echoed throughout the market. But no one does it like Thom. And in the store it’s gotten to the point where guys just come in and say, ‘Where’s the Thom Browne?’ You hear it as much as ‘Where’s the ladies’ room?’ these days.”

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