Style by Sam.
The questions that never come up at a fitting because they feel too small to ask, and then get asked in the doorway on the way out. Belt or braces. What colour socks. Whether brown shoes are alright with navy. Which colours actually suit you, as opposed to which ones you have been buying.
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What is Style by Sam?
A set of plain answers to the everyday questions of dressing well: which colours suit you, what to do about socks, belts, braces, ties, pocket squares, shoes and patterns. Written from thirty years of the same questions being asked at the bench in Vaughan, and free of the rules that only ever applied somewhere else.
The ones worth remembering.
Match the trousers, not the shoes
Socks continue the line of the leg down to the shoe. Matched to the trouser they disappear, which is what you want. Matched to the shoe they cut your leg in half at the ankle.
One family of leather
Belt, shoes, watch strap and bag in the same family — all brown or all black. Not identical, because nothing ever stays identical, and nobody sees them side by side anyway.
Change the scale
Two patterns sit together happily as long as they are obviously different sizes. Two patterns the same size fight each other, and the man wearing them looks busy from across the room.
The tie answers to the lapel
A tie should be about as wide as the lapel it sits against. Get that right and the pattern can be almost anything; get it wrong and nothing rescues it.
Ask the small question.
Suit trousers are cut for one or the other, and the waistband tells you which. What each does to the line of the trouser, and when to wear each.
Match your trousers, not your shoes: the rule that never fails. The alternatives, when the novelty pair is a mistake, and the length nobody mentions.
Two things decide it: whether your colouring is warm or cool, and how much contrast you carry. How to work both out in a mirror, in daylight, in five minutes.
Six shirt and tie combinations for a navy suit, drawn on the same suit: white with oxblood, sky blue with navy, pink, a Bengal stripe, silver for a wedding and an open collar. Plus the one to avoid and the shoes that go with it.
Six shirt and tie combinations for a charcoal grey suit, drawn on the same suit: white with oxblood or silver, sky blue with navy, pink with oxblood, a pencil stripe and an open collar. Plus the one to avoid and why charcoal wants black shoes.
Six shirt and tie combinations for a mid grey suit, drawn on the same suit: white with navy, sky blue with oxblood, pink, a Bengal stripe, a green tie and an open collar. Plus light grey for weddings, the one to avoid, and shoes.
Six shirt and tie combinations for a brown suit, drawn on the same suit: white with a green tie, sky blue with gold, ivory with oxblood, a blue oxford with navy, a Bengal stripe and an open collar. Plus the one to avoid and the shoes.
Six shirt and tie combinations for a black suit, drawn on the same suit: white with a black, silver or oxblood tie, sky blue with navy, tonal charcoal and black, and an open collar. When a black suit is right, the one to avoid, and the shoes.
Brown is right more often than men think. The two occasions black is genuinely required, what goes with navy and grey, and the old rule that no longer applies.
The one accessory rule worth keeping, what 'match' actually means when nothing is ever an exact match, and the three other pieces of leather most men forget.
A tie is judged on three things and none of them is the pattern. Match the width to your lapel, pick a knot that fits your collar, and end it at the belt.
One fold covers ninety per cent of occasions, and one rule prevents the only real mistake. What to buy first, and why it should never match your tie.
One rule does most of the work: change the scale. Why two patterns the same size fight, how to bring in a third, and the safe way in if you would rather not.
What makes a Chesterfield a Chesterfield, why a polo coat is camel, and which coat actually covers a suit jacket. The men's overcoat styles side by side: length, front, cloth and where each one belongs.
Style is what you do with a wardrobe. The wardrobe itself is a different subject, and most of it starts with cloth held against your face by a window.
- The fabric library · two hundred cloths, and the only place a colour tells the truth
- Custom suits · measured and fitted by Sam, alterations in the price
- Custom dress shirts · your collar, your cuffs, kept on file for the next one
- All the guides · cost, fit, fabric, weddings, care
Bring the small questions.
Nobody has ever been made to feel foolish for asking one. Bring a shirt you already own and a tie you actually wear, and half of this gets answered by holding things next to each other on the bench. The first appointment costs nothing.