For the Well Dressed Man

Suggestions for Palm Beach, Afternoon Clothes in Town, and a Few Hats and How to Wear Them

IN this issue and the previous one we have included a few suggestions for the wardrobe of the man who may go to Palm Beach this winter: gay linen ties (shown in the last number), drawings for fleece jackets, combined with white flannels or tub knickers, as shown in 1 and 2, and hints as to how to wear lightcoloured flannel suitings with mixed tub waistcoats. We wish to point out one especially useful addition to the Palm Beach wardrobe: the slip-on raglan coat in sketch 3. It is a dark blue fleece skeleton-lined raglan, which is loosely cut and hangs in soft folds. A coat of this sort is particularly useful because it does service for day or night. It is always handy to slip on over a dinner jacket or white flannels and is just the right weight for a coat, when one is needed, and equally smart for all occasions. In the sketch a man is shown wearing a doublebreasted dinner jacket which is intended for the most informal occasions only, with this coat worn over it loosely, in a careless manner,— which is the smartest way to wear this sort of knock-about overcoat. In the sketch he is also carrying a stick and gloves, neither of which is especially intended as a suggestion for Palm Beach; but even there a man may wish to wear gloves, when he is motoring, and the man who is used to continental watering places would be lost without his stick.

We especially recommend for Palm Beach wear this year the ties in photograph A, and also the gay printed linen ties shown in our last issue. They are one of the latest importations from England this winter and, though quite the smart thing for town, we suggest them also with tweeds and flannels, in the place of foulard ties, for they come in blue, brown, plum and black and white and are beautifully soft in texture and colour and distinctive in design.

On page 2 of this article particular attention is drawn to the subject of morning clothes, for the second time this season. At weddings of late we have noted how very badly the New York man is turned out in the afternoon. The most usual type of afternoon coat that one sees is of the cut in sketch 5, though rarely ever so well executed. One will grant that this man looks well turned out. His coat is cut very high in the waist and short in the tails, with one button, no braid, very wide lapels (these last represent the most marked change in jackets since the war), and a double-breasted waistcoat, as shown in both sketch 4 and sketch 5, which gives a straight line across the trousers and is a great improvement on the pointed ends of the single-breasted waistcoat one usually sees. With a tail coat, a waistcoat of another material than that of the coat is very smart.

Sketch 4 is a bound short jacket, which is fated to become more and more popular with the younger man, for afternoon dress. This type of jacket is worn now with very light trousers or black and white checks, as in this drawing. Many of the tailors who are turning out this coat in London are binding it with narrow silk tape, instead of the usual silk braid. With this style of jacket and also with that in sketch 6, the trousers may be made with a turn up or not, as one chooses, but they should be made very full, with pleats at the waistline.

The double-breasted jacket in sketch 6 is bound in braid and worn with black trousers with white lines very far apart, and a grey soft hat with a black band and a light waistcoat. This is a combination for town wear in the season, but hardly formal enough for a wedding. It would be correct to wear lunching at the Ritz in Paris in June, or for calling on Sunday afternoon in New York in the season and early spring. With afternoon clothes there are really only two types of neck wear which are quite correct: the bow tie and the puff tie such as shown in the drawing 4. A long tie and turn-down collar are permissible only with a jacket such as the double-breasted one in sketch 6, for otherwise a turn-down collar is not correct any more than it is when worn with a dinner jacket. All the minor accessories which go with morning clothes are really important,—gloves, for example, which should be light in colour,— either white wash chamois or light grey,—and always heavy in quality. No light weight glove is smart any longer. In photograph B we show a very heavy putty coloured buckskin glove, which is heavily stitched in grey silk and which is an admirable glove to wear with morning clothes in the winter. The correct thing for spring is a white chamois glove.

Among the articles we are showing in this issue we wish particularly to point out in photograph I, on the fourth page of this department, the tan fleece fur-lined coat, which is the latest importation from England. It is a doublebreasted belted coat with the new cut of collar which is destined to characterize the ulster of the coming 1921 season. The collar is cut so as to stand, with a deep turn-over which buttons close about the throat like the collars of old military capes or the great coats of the early XIXth century. As we have noted before, fur is now used as a lining rather than a trimming and is disappearing from the collars of the newest and smartest great coats. The fur of this coat exactly matches the material of which it is made. It is cut knee length and the belt, when pulled in, gives the coat a very full flare, as it is loosely cut and stands out at the skirt. It is the last word in a luxurious travelling or motoring coat for cold weather.

In our pages we endeavor to reflect the newest and latest thing which appears in the market for men. The handkerchiefs in K, L, P, and Q, with their applied hemstitched borders, we illustrated early last spring from some shown in Paris. Now they are on sale in this country in similar designs. The newest and latest luxury in watches we show in photograph N of the 'taxi-meter' watch, which is described in the caption.

One of the latest amusements offered to the public in general is the machine which is shown and described in photograph R and which is the clever invention of Mr. Arthur Blanchard of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The possibilities of phrase-making which Mr. Blanchard has offered us through the medium of this innocent-looking little machine of his must have surpassed even his expectation of its piquant possibilities.

Of all a man's problems of dress the hat question is the worst. But this difficulty of finding a becoming hat would be far less tiring, if men would only learn that the first point in fitting a hat is to have it set well down on the head,—in the case of a soft hat, as far down as possible; for nothing throws a man's proportion out so much as to wear a hat perched on the top of his head. A Beau Brummel once said that, if one wanted to see how a hat should be worn, one should notice the first street "bum" one came across, leaning against a lamp post at the street corner. He wears his hat the way it should be worn. Mr. Tom Powers, in the page of pictures of hats illustrates the wearing of clothes carelessly, without taking liberties.