Gentlman's accessories: Ties, cufflinks, shoes, etc

I've slowly become obsessed with wanting to dress up and go out with the missus, however, my wardrobe is lacking in the accessories department. I'd like to get a personal tailor and have a custom suit done in the near future, but I think accessories are higher on the list since I don't have much. I've got about 6 ties, 2 of which are eyesores, the others are darker neutral tones which I like. I've also got some nice Calvin Klein dress shoes but I don't have a lot of dress shirts.

Do any of you have preferences as to what brands you'll buy (budget permitting)? For example, some of you may be partial to stuff like Calvin Klein, DKNY or Kenneth Cole, whereas, others may prefer older, classic gentleman brands (of which I know nothing about). Where do you shop for your dress clothes? Do you wear cufflinks? Are you a half-Windsor or full-Windsor man? I figure since we're all into traditional wetshaving, other grooming pursuits like wearing a nice suit fit nicely with our ritual.

EDIT: I know there's a gentleman's essentials thread, I was more interested in where people buy their stuff, what brands, etc. I'm a complete novice at this so any tips would be helpful.

If you're like me and on a tight budget, I get my main articles as inexpensively as possible. For a suit, I would check out Mens Wearhouse. They have some great suits in stock and will tailor it and press it for the lifetime of the suit. Dress shirts and ties are tricky. I have purchased amazing shirts and ties at Kohl's that were comparable with the quality of DKNY and CK. For cuff links, why not purchase a pair with you initials on them from Things Remembered? Finally, to complete your outfit, get a pocket square. This is where you can splurge a bit (if you wanted to). Silk is the most common choice and really completes your outfit. I would suggest a plain white pocket square for now, as it will go with any suit, tie and dress shirt combination.

Shoes are interesting. I would suggest investing a decent amount of money in them. You can always get a new heel, sole and polish a pair of shoes that are of reasonable quality. Check out places like Famous Footwear if your on a tight budget. If not on a tight budget, you can't go wrong at Macy's, Nordstroms, etc.

Check these sites for ideas:
http://permanentstyle.blogspot.com/

http://www.kinowear.com/blog/

http://artofmanliness.com/2009/03/31/best-mens-style-websites/

Good luck with your wardrobe building journey!

Your budget will have a lot to do with it, obviously, but Brooks Brothers is worth a look. It's good, classic-type suits, ties, shirts, cufflinks, etc. It's not fashion-forward or trendy, but it's a solid source for business attire and business casual staple items.

This is a vast subject. Here are just a few tips from someone who wears a suit and tie to work every day:

Forget about the brands that you mentioned: Calvin Klein, etc. This is just mass-produced mediocre stuff.

For shirts, I use execshirts.com. If you order several, they do a fantatstic deal where they send you a free shirt and you tell them how to correct all the measurements (collar, shoulder, sleeves, chest, etc) From then on, you just order more perfectly-fitting shirts, custom-made. Many fabrics, styles to choose - I recommend Egyptian cotton.

For casual shirts, Thomas Pink. Especially their linen/cotton blends. Nothing feels better against the skin.

The Execsuits.com operation is excellent in my opinion, but you need to be careful and order 100% wool. You send them a suit jacket that fits you and they take it from there.

Cufflinks and ties are very personal items. Most of what you see in stores is horrible, but use your own taste and jusdgement. Here is an excellent source of beautiful ties: art museum stores. Some of my favorite ties come from the National Gallery store in Wasington, the Corcoran, the Metropolitan in NY. They have online stores. Inexpensive.

I buy vintage silver cufflinks on ebay. Have gotten some beautiful original art deco ones for a song. You just have to be patient and use auctionstealer, always.

Shoes. I can't recommend custom made. You just can't get good arch support. Go with Ecco. Rockports have sadly deteriorated.

A man's watch says a lot about him. When I meet someone who sports a Rolex, Tag Heuer, Panerai, or similar, I immediately subtract 10 points. I wear a IWC Mark XII, but I'm an old hand. Your call on all these things, of course.

Good luck.

All of my professional attire comes from Brooks Brothers.

One more thing. Half-Windsor knot, of course. Unless you work in a casino, in which case you can safely add another half.

moshulu said:

This is a vast subject. Here are just a few tips from someone who wears a suit and tie to work every day:

Forget about the brands that you mentioned: Calvin Klein, etc. This is just mass-produced mediocre stuff.

For shirts, I use execshirts.com. If you order several, they do a fantatstic deal where they send you a free shirt and you tell them how to correct all the measurements (collar, shoulder, sleeves, chest, etc) From then on, you just order more perfectly-fitting shirts, custom-made. Many fabrics, styles to choose - I recommend Egyptian cotton.



For casual shirts, Thomas Pink. Especially their linen/cotton blends. Nothing feels better against the skin.

The Execsuits.com operation is excellent in my opinion, but you need to be careful and order 100% wool. You send them a suit jacket that fits you and they take it from there.

Cufflinks and ties are very personal items. Most of what you see in stores is horrible, but use your own taste and jusdgement. Here is an excellent source of beautiful ties: art museum stores. Some of my favorite ties come from the National Gallery store in Wasington, the Corcoran, the Metropolitan in NY. They have online stores. Inexpensive.

I buy vintage silver cufflinks on ebay. Have gotten some beautiful original art deco ones for a song. You just have to be patient and use auctionstealer, always.

Shoes. I can't recommend custom made. You just can't get good arch support. Go with Ecco. Rockports have sadly deteriorated.

A man's watch says a lot about him. When I meet someone who sports a Rolex, Tag Heuer, Panerai, or similar, I immediately subtract 10 points. I wear a IWC Mark XII, but I'm an old hand. Your call on all these things, of course.

Good luck.

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thanks for the tips.

the men's shop I went to today specialized in high-end suits, rather than the mass produced stuff you find at Macy's. they had a nice black/pinstripe suit by Burberry I wanted really bad. It was marked down from $900+ to $450. I'll check out execshirts.com for sure. if there's one thing I don't have in abudance it's dress shirts.

Moshulu is absolutely correct: You have to dress so that a little bit of your personality and originality comes through.

Good luck!

moshulu said:

The Execsuits.com operation is excellent in my opinion, but you need to be careful and order 100% wool. You send them a suit jacket that fits you and they take it from there.

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This is an interesting idea for when I get my next suit. I'd need to find a good local tailor first though since my current suits have all had half-assed Men's Warehouse tailoring. Does anyone have any advice on how to track down a good tailor?

Cufflinks have been an area of trouble for me. I had one nice brushed titanium pair that I loved, and of course I lost them (to add insult to injury my girlfriend told my mom offhand not realizing my mom had given them to me as a gift). I have others with some light coloring to match certain shirt and tie combos but these turned out to be junk. Now all I wear is a pair my girlfriend bought me, but I mostly just steer clear of French cuffs altogether.

I am fond of the Pratt knot for ties for some reason. Otherwise half-windsor. I was never able to make a 4 in hand knot come out all that well. Full Windsor seems pretty large for any tie and shirt combo.

I dress pretty conservatively, so this stuff may not be to your taste.

I like cufflinks and have lots of them of all sorts of price ranges and styles.

Brooks Brothers and Ben Silver ties.

Allen-Edmunds, Alden, and Church shoes, but generally on sale and I have had some for a very long time. I liked Rockports and Johnson and Murphy in the past. Quality seems to have slipped all around.

I have never understood the need for custom-made shirts. John Molloy in "Dress for Success" a long time ago suggested that if one were going to skrimp anywhere shirts were the place to do it. That said I have a good number of Thomas Pink shirts. Also Brooks Brothers. I am liking the all cotton non iron BB shirts.

I would go with linen rather than silk pocket squares at least for white, although I am starting to have quite a number of silk pocket squares in various colors.

cstrother said:

I am fond of the Pratt knot for ties for some reason. Otherwise half-windsor. I was never able to make a 4 in hand knot come out all that well. Full Windsor seems pretty large for any tie and shirt combo.

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not tried the Pratt knot, but then again, I'm only familiar with a few. I can do a full windsor no problem. I made the mistake of making a 4 in hand knot for my wedding and it looked sloppy. now, everytime I look at my wedding photos I cringe at how asymmetrical my tie was. I'll have to teach myself the half windsor. the full windsor looks ok to my eyes, but without comparing it to the half I don't know if a big knot is what I really want.

how do some of you feel about cuffed pants versus non-cuffed? I personally like cuffed because of how they drape over my shoes. I don't like my pants too tight or too baggy -- I guess having a good tailor would solve this problem. is there some general rule of thumb regarding pants?

I will ramble on here a bit, but what you should really do is to spend sometime on the fora over at http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com.
Folks have strong opinions and some offer a great amount of authority and tradition for their positions, expecially those into "traditional" dressing. It is a whole lot of fun and very informative, at least to me. I would take some of it with a grain of salt. But I think the goal is to dress the way you want to. If that means violating some "rule," then violate it, but you will feel more confident knowing when you are supposedly violating some or another's supposed rule.


The Windsor is clearly the most symetrical of tie knots, but is relatively large. The width and thickness of the material of the tie make a difference in how large the knot turns out, of course, but I think the general thinking is that the Windsor is better suited to wide spread collars, that say smaller button-down collars. Of course, fashions change with time and location. Seems to me for a while, British TV would have some wealthy young guy wearing a highly styled double-breasted suit with an extremely spread collar and a tie with a knot the size of a baseball. Now, have a look at what somewhat like Daniel Craig is wearing and collar and knot size all seem moderate, and his suits are single breasted. A Windsor collar is a widely-spread collar, but search on the net for it and you find contemporary British shirt adds with such collars paired with ties with very modest knot sizes. And Inspector Morse always seemed to wear moderate in all respects single breasted suits with standard collars and ties with moderate knot sizes.

The four in hand is inherently asymetrical, but perfectly acceptable as a tie knot in all respects as far as I know. I guess, see above, I would not use it with a widely spread collar, but I would think it perfectly fine for any other purpose. And it is just not going to be a symetrical triangle no matter what you do!

I think of the Prat or Shelby knot as smaller than a Windsor or even half Windsor but more symetrical than a four in hand or even a half Windsor, and it seems easy for me to tie for some reason. Some write ups on line seem to think of it as relatively large though. Not as large as a full Windsor, of course. I guess I will have to check into this more closely so I know what I am talking about.

Cuffs or not cuffs, eh? A question of no small controversy, and the rules of thumb are not all that easy to extract from the literature, such as it is. I can give you what I understand the absolute conservative line to be as well as my preferences.

First, for black tie/tuxeado, and I assume for white tie, too, although I sure am not the one to have had any experience there, the slacks are never, ever cuffed. They are always finished straight across.

Second, some will say that if suit trousers have pleats they should always have cuffs--be turned up in British parlence. That is, if the trousers are pleated they should never be finished just straight down. This was a new rule to me as of a couple of years ago that I was surprised to hear, but it makes sense to me that it would be a hoary old, respected rule.

For suit and other trousers without pleats, I am told the British rule would be never to have cuffs. (I am not British and I do not live in England, but lots of what is thought to be traditional rules of men's dress supposed come out of England.) However, I think in the States cuffs with non-pleated trousers are absolutely traditional coming from two sources--Ivy league universities and the American military--although I could not just now find anything about the military and trouser cuffs. In any event cuffs on non-pleated trouses are absolutely acceptable in the States. I much prefer cuffs myself on anything but jeans.

Some will say that one should not have cuffs if they are relatively short. To me those people are incorrect and this is a baseless rule. To me suit trouser bottoms look unfinished with no cuffs, and I am not going to notice how tall you are. I also think they make the trousers fall better.

I actually do have a couple of suits with pleats that are not cuffed and am wearing a suit with flat front trousers today that does not have cuffs. I would prefer that both had cuffs, but one does not bother me more than the other. But like I said, so are going to think that the pleated trousers without cuffs are simply incorrect!

I suppose one exception to all of this might be if one were wearing very light slip on Italian type shoes and the Italian style was clearly not to have cuffs. This is going to date me, but in the early 80s when folks were wearing Bally shoes and Italian cut suits, I think cuffs ddi not go so well. But to me, if someone is wearing, say, wing tip shoes, their trousers ought to have cuffs. And certainly if they are wearing khakis and "penny loafers" thouse khakis need to have cuffs. In fact, khakis need cuffs I would say. When some rapper is wearing Dickies (love Dickies, by the way) doesn't he have cuffs? I think Tommy Hilffigger a while back not was genius in combining street with preppie. I think he always had cuff on his trousers.

Anyway, check out AskAndy. Those folks are going to know better than I do and are willing to go on about it at some length! Have fun though.

Very thought provoking post, cstrother.

I honestly never gave cuffs a second thought, but going through my wardrobe I realized that none of my dress pants/slacks have cuffs. I suppose on jeans and khakis they're fine, but I couldn't see myself wearing tailored pants with a cuff.

ClubmanRob said:

Very thought provoking post, cstrother.

I honestly never gave cuffs a second thought, but going through my wardrobe I realized that none of my dress pants/slacks have cuffs. I suppose on jeans and khakis they're fine, but I couldn't see myself wearing tailored pants with a cuff.

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Funny, I'm exactly the opposite. I don't have cuffs on jeans or other casual pants, but I always have my suit pants cuffed.

Shirts, I really like spending a bit extra for shirts and ties. I mean, a blue suit is a blue suit is a blue suit, and unless people are up close, only tailoring to fit your frame is noticeable. Most men would not even know what functioning buttons are for, or pick-stitching. I find that the textures on my shirtings and the ties I wear get more comments and attention, that and keeping my shoes polished.

Shoes: Allen Edmond Captoes and I did get some Johnston Murphy Melton Captoe for $60 but at full price, Id find Park Avenue by Allen Edmonds on sale or wait. One black, one brown and a penny loafer for sportscoats and you have a nice, nice start. Alden Cordovan if you can afford it, or even go to Great Britian for Trickers, Churchs, Lobb or Green.

Shirts: Brooks is good and Joseph Bank has a great deal on their non-iron. But when there are sales, I like Zegna shirts and Armani (well at $300 or so, they can be had for 70% off at times here in Memphis and I did buy one at 50% off). Ike Behar makes a good shirt, but I do not like my Paul Frederick. I am unsold as of yet on Charles Trywhitt. But my staple is Robert Talbott. I also try to get those at half price so I pick up two or three at a time. With over 30 dress shirts, and half of those white and half of the remaining amount some sort of blue, you can see I dont really need shirts but can wait for the big twice-a-year sale.

Ties: Talbott Best of Class. Yeah, pricey at $135 but sometimes on sale, and if not, one or two a year. I buy like 4 or 5 ties a year, so something is always rotated in and something out. Maybe one at full price, and the others usually half price. I try to like other brands, but Ferragamo is too much of a print, and Brioni and Kiton topping around $200 a bit out of my price range. I have one Charvet, and Zegna sometimes, their patterns are weird (but their suits and shirts, the fabric and buttons and all, worth it). Armani ties are so so and Hugo Boss does some nice ones. I dont really wear the regimental ties like Brooks or Ben Silver is known for, mostly going for paisleys.

Cufflins: I have one John Hardy pair, three Talbott pair, two Thomas Pink pair, one Col. Littleton pair and assorted others. Like a post above, one pair came from a museum shop, some sort of computer cut pair. I love the enamel work on the Talbotts and if I could afford one line ($295 or more) I would get that. I get the Pinks off ebay for 1/3rd of the cost new.

Ties:

thanks cstrother, thanks sam for all your wonderful insight. it was a lot to read through but I feel a little more informed now.

ClubmanRob said:

Very thought provoking post, cstrother.

I honestly never gave cuffs a second thought, but going through my wardrobe I realized that none of my dress pants/slacks have cuffs. I suppose on jeans and khakis they're fine, but I couldn't see myself wearing tailored pants with a cuff.

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<Very thought provoking post>

Thanks, but as usual, I do not have a single original thought on this subject!--or shaving, or scents, or scotch. Maybe on tequila!

I guess I should also say that I have nothing again having the bottoms of my jeans rolled up in a cuff. When it comes to jeans I am pretty much stuck in a Levis 501 button front mode.

Obsessed said:

Your budget will have a lot to do with it, obviously, but Brooks Brothers is worth a look. It's good, classic-type suits, ties, shirts, cufflinks, etc. It's not fashion-forward or trendy, but it's a solid source for business attire and business casual staple items.

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ClubmanRob said:

All of my professional attire comes from Brooks Brothers.

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+1 makes three for Brooks Brothers.

You may also try Paul Frederick. I believe they are only an online storefront. They have great quality but not as pricey as Brooks Brothers in some areas.

Consider fitting trousers worn under a coat/jacket for suspenders (braces); your trousers will hang better and the waistline will look smoother.