Flash Back

In yesterday's post I referenced how I had worked the small check olive sportscoat from Hickey Freeman.

Here is pretty much what I had done, shown with the ecru twill shirt and Navy and Green Tie.  I kept the floral square in the first shot:



Liking the navy introduction I swapped the earthy tones of the square for a navy and green vintage square



Which comes together looking like this:



And here it all is when you swap the green tie for a predominantly navy polka dot tie.



Have a great weekend all!

In a Flash

On my way out of the store today it dawned on me that I hadn't taken any pictures for tonights post. Having had a long day I wasn't in that much of a mood to work that hard at it, so I pretty much pulled what was within arms length of me in the office where I photograph the items.

This is what I came up with. Not too shabby if I say so myself!

Whats interesting here is that in the past I had worked this jacket with a blue shirt and a navy and green tie. Here I used the brown pin stripe shirt to pick off the olive nature of the jacket (a hickey freeman his first sportscoat, and the solid green tie, along with the earthy toned version of the floral vintage square.



With the square detail shown here:

Escapees in Brown

As mentioned yesterday and earlier as well, we can use a pink tie for both navy and brown suits. (Black and gray as well but thats not the subject of our discussion just now.)

As promised, here is the same pink tie with a brown suit. I could have left the blue shirt but felt it worked better with the ecru (cream).

For the the square you can use an earthy toned one like this floral print.



Shown in play here:



Or you can swap for a more visually rich one, like the parasol in brown shown below.



Have a great weekend!

Every Which Way (But Loose)

Its nearly 12Am and I haven't been home for 2 hours yet.  It's been a long day.

Not having been in the store today we will have to content ourselves with the jacket (Burberry), square and shirt that I wore today which you can see below.

The beauty of a multicolored large patterned pocket squares is that one can achieve different looks depending on how its positioned in the pocket and whats visible peeking out.  In this case its less apparent as the background is a strong burgundy,  but you can get the idea.

Here the blue of the square is not visible, so the burgundy and beige of the square picks up the brown windowpane of the jacket.



Here the Slate blue of the square shows nicely highlighting the blue nature of the jacket.



Here is your square detail.  My unbiased opinion?   Magnificent!



PS:  For you old timers that recognize the title of the post, it was Clint Eastwood's "Every Which way but Loose" inspired.  As kids we had a great kick out of 12 Rib's My... and Right Turn Clyde! (Mom didn't enjoy it as much as we did!)

Tie By Tie 23 (Going where others can't)

Woven silks are nice but for colors and designs, its difficult for a weave to go where twill prints go. Thats why you will find many designers using twills to get their designs from the mind onto the silks. (For more on woven silks vs printed see this post)

Here are some of the twills prints I carry, starting with a navy double stripe suit, light blue shirt , burgundy floral square and the navy blue small diamond print:



The square looks quite busy out of the pocket which is one of the reasons that I as well as others recommend you stick it into the pocket ;-)



I happen to have worn that square to a meeting with a supplier today which was pretty much a total waste of time.  One day closer to the weekend though :-).

Cheers!

Tie By Tie 11 (Better Resolving)

Here is a relatively simple and painless resolution one can make this eve of 2010.  Resolve to make a concerted effort to pay attention to your clothing coordination.  This can be accomplished by many ways, one of which is following this blog and asking others (like myself but not limited to) for help so that instead of looking like this (which despite what you may have read elsewhere is just plain... wrong on so many accounts):



You end up looking something like this (Grey/Brown with rust wide stripe suit, Blue Shirt,  Medium Stripe Tie in Blue and Cream with Yellow Floral Square):



With the square detail here:



Or this with the cream twill shirt:



Or the same pattern tie in the brown and beige against the blue shirt:



And for a little more color switching for the burgundy and blue floral square to look like this:



With the square detail here:



Of course, resolving to avoid something like this is also a nice idea ;-)



Thanks for making 2009 a great year for FTWU (this blog)  by following and as the consistently increasing readership stats (and purchases) have shown for approving.  Here's looking forward to an even better and more exciting 2010.

Have a great,  successful and most of all a pleasant 2010.

:-)

Tie By Tie 9b (More Showing Off)

I like this tie.  After using it with the charcoal suit that was out, I thought we should take it one step further and put it to use with a Navy Suit, Light Blue Shirt and complementary Green with silver floral Square:



And then for a little spin on things, lets keep the blue shirt but swap the navy suit for a brown suit to show just how far this tie, with the pink silver and ecru stripe can go.



With a square detail here:



Now, lets bring in the pink shirt which also works nicely with the brown suit.  Swap the square out for, the parasol square in the brown tones and this is what you get, (with a High Res of the ensemble here).  I liked the way this combo came out so much that had I not been lazy I would have used it as the tie shot on the site. (It did help that the flash was higher power and less yellow tones showed on the tie than yesterdays post).



Here is the square detail with the high res here.



Your Thoughts?

Tie By Tie 9 (Showing Off)

When you turn down a long term lease on your property from a major land developer, that usually means that you believe in what you are doing and its potential.  Thats pretty much what just happened here, so you guys are gonna have to help me here and make sure that you keep on buying and keep me in business so that when you look back in 5 years from now, you say, I remember when Jonathan turned down the long term lease from that major land developer, cause he KNEW that he was gonna be big one day...

:-)

Anyway, here is a favorite tie of mine that went relatively unotticed.  The silver and Pink Twill weave woven. Shown here with a blue textured shirt (used for color as I think that we might be better served using a flat woven shirt due to the very textured nature of the tie) , charcoal Grey Suit that was out already, and a floral burgundy square to add some life in the charcoaly mix.



Here is a detail of the square with a high Res to be found here.  I took the high res because it allows for the colors of the square to be seen in all their glory, a truly beautiful square.



Here with a grey shirt.


Here I am just showing off that this tie square and suit works well with pink in addition to the two shirts shown above.

Tie By Tie 5 (The Pin Dot Staples)

As posted before, a classic pin dot should be a staple in every man's wardrobe as they are versatile, and add enough to take a tie from the boring solid to the subtle pattern.

Here you have a Silver Pin Dot Four Fold tie against a Brown Hickey Freeman Sport Coat with a Blue shirt and floral print square (Forgot to upload the close up of the square) .  Granted Silver is not required owning like other staple colors but here the concept is shown that a pin dot can break up the monotony of the solid in a soft way.  Simple and understated yet nice.



For the more adventurous types or the more adventurous side in you here its shown with a pink shirt.  Clearly, this makes more of a statement.

Form and Function

Form and Function.  The two words that architects grapple with, playing the art and the practical side in projects against each other.  Ideally, as the architectural  adage goes  "Form follows Function".

Bringing it home, in matters sartorial layering is important for its practical benefits as well as its aesthetic benefits.

Virtually any layering piece will accomplish the former (function) whereas it takes a little thought to accomplish the latter(Form).

Here is a midnight navy suit, with a light blue shirt, a beige Colombo cashmere vest and a brown and navy cashmere/silk weave tie.  To throw some color in I added a bright red square.



Which is made up of this.



To tone down the square yet still introduce some color, try this floral square which has the burgundy and some of the beige and grey tones:



Made up of this:

Monochrome done better

Looking at the last post I thought that the silver tie while being in the same color family and should therefore work, falls flat as it blends too much in color with the shirt.

Seeking out more contrast to get a little more pop with the tie you get something like this, )a wool solid charcoal grey tie):



True, I had swapped out the square for one with a little more color, but even without the colored square the darker tie does well alone.

Alternagtively here is dark grey (laced with brown and blue) with a splash of blue (the suit also has a splash of blue in there as well) tie.

Not So Simple

Sometimes you come across a sportscoat that looks really great by itself but when you try matching it with something it just doesnt work.  When that happens and it occasionally does, I find that you can use the construction of the jacket to determine what you shirt color should be.

In the case of the sportcoat pictured below, a Hickey Freeman,  you have an olive based jacket.  The dominant color is olive and even the base of the jacket (the color that the olive is against) is somewhat greenish.  So the typical thought would be colors that go with olive.  But that didnt work.  Looking at the lining of the jacket, the buttons and the stitching around the buttons (see the first close up pic) you see a heavy basis for medium grey so that's what I used in the shirt.  Any grey would have done thie trick (and not because grey is universal and therefore worked passively, but because it worked actively.)  You can also see the navy used in the jacket so thats why I felt that the best option would be a Navy pant but heck, this is "from the waist up"  Getch yer pants from another site :-)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="460" caption="Note the Stitching and the Buttons"][/caption]

 The next idea was to take a tie with the green basis of the jacket and thats why I used this one pictures below.  Whats especially nice about the tie is that it offers the contrast against the shirt and jacket and has a Navy and Black Field.  The square was used because it's again, contrasty and yet it has many of the jackets colors, like the blue and the black that works with the Olive and some other complementing colors.  Although I took this picture last its my first choice in the ensemble options.



Which is this stuffed in.  Note the blue in the square that works with the blue on the jacket.



Some other options as far as square was concerned was this square which also works nicely again, complementing yet contrasting all the while:



From these parts:



At the end of the day, what this post should tell you is that you should look within for help on what goes with what.