Patch pockets, a hunter's tab, a wide notched lapel and a gently roped shoulder on a lilac gaberdine wool. That was the brief for Leng for our most recent suit collaboration. That, and a camouflage lining finished with our limited edition cherry blossom silk pochette. The suit now sits in the window of the Studio of Le Noeud Papillon in Vaucluse.
I posted it up the other night and one of my Instagram followers commented that it was very Miami Vice. It is, it's very Don Johnson, though the way I wear it looks a little more Pablo Escobar. I decided to wear it with a t-shirt, a pale pink one with gold foil and the name of my swimming club on it. It's not that I don't want to wear it with a shirt and bow tie, I do, but I am tired of being so hot in the middle of a Sydney summer that the simple act of tying my bow tie makes me swear profusely. There are those months in our country which come shortly after the spring racing carnival is over, that wearing neck wear is almost as dangerous as not taking my blood pressure pills. It's just as the French say 'trop'.
The lighter wool I sourced from Barrington Fabrics and using the skills of their salesman Aman, I was sent a bunch of options by Whatsapp with their weights listed next to them. To be fair, I should have made it completely unlined but wanting to use one of our pochettes to line the jacket meant that I needed lining in the jacket to which we could affix it.
The process is now very much a smooth one with Leng - my pattern is pretty fixed in his mind and it's merely a matter of me drawing the style I want and providing image references and he's on his way.
And the t-shirt - well, I must be honest, as much as I know a shirt is ten times more elegant, in this particular instance I think it's so well complemented and so much more in tune with the look that I doubt I will be wearing this suit with a shirt until next April. We need more alternatives for looking elegant in the stifling humid heat of a Sydney summer and this for me is one such example. Roll up the sleeves, get a pair of sunglasses with presence, and put the roof top down is you have a convertible.
I have to thank Leng sincerely, he's never turned away from any request I've made of him and he really is a true bespoke tailor, one of the last of the Mohicans able to be dropped a bolt of wool with a sketch and a couple of texts with images and you don't need to say much more. He just gets it. To all those Australian men with a few extra dollars in their hip pockets that can afford to go one notch up from made to measure, consider visiting Leng and watch him turn something that was in your head into a reality. He is the most excellent conduit and it is just such a crying shame that the commissions he receives most often are for a plain navy suit. Where's the fun in that?
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