Unchained Melody

Another Friday, another trip to the bottle bank. With a pantry rammed with more empties than Lineker’s bar on a Saturday night in Magaluf, it’s a path that’s been well-trodden over the past nine weeks. I suppose it’s been my own way of giving something back during these troubled times. In fact, to all of you…

Long Live The Tie!

A customer of mine who is a surgeon, recently told me that when he was a junior doctor, his mentor advised him, “when meeting with a patient, you should be smartly dressed, clean shaven and smelling lightly of aftershave.” If someone is going to slice open my body with a scalpel, I’d want everything about that person to…

Top Sock

On the 27th of March, I hit 44 years of age. As well as my usual birthday presents of an annual subscription to ‘The Rake’ and ‘Carve’ magazines, I received further literary stimulation in the form of a book titled, ‘Socks: The Rule Book.’ To date, when it comes to colour, I have been rather unadventurous as…

La Dolce Vita.

Fed, heavily watered with a glow of self-contentment about me, it was time for the auction at the Bespoke Tailors Benevolent Association dinner to begin. As part of the “Luxury Goods Package,” three little words ‘had me at hello’ – a bespoke hat.  Digging as deep as any Yorkshireman might dare, I ended up being the successful bidder, and this month headed…

A ten inch rise

There aren’t many professions where you inform a customer that you’re going to give him a ten inch rise in his trousers. The ‘rise’ in the world of tailoring is the difference between the outside and inside leg measurements. In simple terms it’s roughly the distance between the top of the waistband and the bottom…

Doing “The Baz” in Ibiza

I’ve seen that look in my customers eyes before. Desire, longing, want. Every new Bond film spawns a thousand suit fantasies and the latest catalyst for sartorial spending has been The Great Gatsby. God bless The Silver Screen. I remember the ‘Unit 4’ cinema in Shipley when I was a child. A lurid horror-show of…

Wrist Candy

On my twenty first birthday I was given an Omega De Ville watch by my parents and have to say it is one of my most treasured possessions. I’ve spoken with people who have said they don’t bother with a watch as they have the time on their mobile but to me this is madness.…