Structure and canvassing.

delicious_scent said:

The former I think, I didn't even know that the structure of the breast plate would extend up that far, I always thought it extended only to the chest.

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Perhaps this is what @Peak and Pine meant? The canvas does look like it would extend over the shoulder in this diagram:

delicious_scent said:

Figuring out regional styles can be confusing in the modern era. Neapolitan is easy for me, I associate it with a 3 roll 2, spalla camicia sleevehead, and no padding in shoulder slope.

The one in the OP is tougher to figure out. It looks like a mix of italian and english.

I asked Mr. Shattuck how he'd describe his cut and he said he learned from English and Italian.

"My one customer says northern Italian with the fit of an English suit. But people will interpret differently. I know the fit is not Italian. The cut is not Italian. But possibly the lines might be Italian. "

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Since Mr Shattuck is the creator of the garment, we must go by his words! The lines did look Italian to me, hence my comments on that aspect of the jacket.

Ultimately, personal preferences are what drives the details of cut, fit and line. And that of course, is within the broad framework of a tailoring house's or tailor's general style. To take a different level of analysis, can a jacket or suit be created that borrows from two general approaches to tailoring? Can one, say, create a jacket that has elements of Huntsman as well as Anderson & Sheppard? I imagine one can. It seems to me that Mr Shattuck might be aiming for a fusion of the elements of both English and Italian styles. To my way of thinking, this approach might be called experimental tailoring.

If one goes farther along this path, one can see far more dramatic mergers and variations on style. To take one example that I'm familiar with from the old country, the standard Indian closed-collar (or tunic-style rounded collar) jacket that is part of a contemporary Indian suit can be seen as a merger of two very different styles: The cut of the long, tight-fitting and often calf-length, coat known as a sherwani, with a Western style suit jacket. This is the jacket that Nehru actually wore, and it has often been confused with the shorter version that is now part of the Indian suit, which is called a Nehru jacket in the West.. The sherwani has a rounded collar, a column of ten or fifteen close-spaced buttons and large quarters, with snug fits on the shoulder and chest and no pockets. This is tamed a bit and converted into a shorter jacket with four to five buttons, regular Western style quarters, and the customary pockets with flaps. I see this approach as a way of making the classical Indian style adapt to Western modes of dress. And I think such marriages of different styles can be quite elegant.

A good example of a sherwani:

delicious_scent said:

Experimental tailoring indeed, old regional markers to describe cuts can get confusing, but it does provide a baseline.

I'm confused by the 2nd paragraph though. Are you saying Western Suit+Sherwani=Nehru jacket?

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No. "Nehru Jacket" is a confusing and incorrect term given by Westerners to the shorter jacket with rounded collar that forms part of an Indian suit. The Indian name for this jacket is galbandhi (literally, closed around the neck). The original long jacket worn by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first PM, is a proper sherwani. And western suits, for our purposes here, are what we wear in the west of course (a jacket with lapels, plus trousers).

The jacket of the Indian suit is actually an adaptation of the sherwani in much the same way that the dinner jacket (tuxedo jacket in America) is an adaptation of the tail coat. (The story is that the old Duke of Windsor, the chap who abdicated, told Scholte, his legendary tailor, to cut off the tails on his dinner jacket, thus inventing the modern version). If you take a sherwani and shorten it to the length of a western suit jacket ( and use fewer buttons), you effectively have the jacket of an Indian suit.

One other fine point: The trousers that are worn with an Indian suit look very much like those worn with a Western suit (In fact I have worn a charcoal grey jacket from an Indian suit with standard grey flannels, and got a lot of positive comments on this outfit). However, with a sherwani, you do not wear standard (Western-style) trousers. You wear a kind of long pants that are very light cotton (ruffled a bit sometimes). These are cut close to the leg, but are also loose because of the ruffles. In India, these are called pyjamas, funnily enough. They are also worn with a lighter cotton upper garment called a kurta. I think the picture I posted of a sherwani has the chap wearing this kind of trousers. I'll check.

Because there are no neckties involved in wearing a formal Indian suit, one way to add a small flash of colour is to wear a plain or paisley-patterned pocket square, with some colour, tucked into the breast pocket. Nehru's solution to brighten his sherwanis, was to place a fresh-cut rose in one of the top buttonholes. He was famously fond of roses. Some Indians wear a gemstone or diamond at the centre of the round collar, probably fixed to the edges of the collar in some fashion. I would consider that affectation too arriviste and flashy or else appropriate for a villain in a Bond film. The old money in India would probably frown at such extravagances!

I just realized I have written a short essay! Maybe I should start writing a blog on all this stuff...

delicious_scent said:

Experimental tailoring indeed, old regional markers to describe cuts can get confusing, but it does provide a baseline.

I'm confused by the 2nd paragraph though. Are you saying Western Suit+Sherwani=Nehru jacket?

Click to expand...

No. "Nehru Jacket" is a confusing and incorrect term given by Westerners to the shorter jacket with rounded collar that forms part of an Indian suit. The Indian name for this jacket is galbandhi (literally, closed around the neck). The original long jacket worn by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first PM, is a proper sherwani. And western suits, for our purposes here, are what we wear in the west of course (a jacket with lapels, plus trousers).

The jacket of the Indian suit is actually an adaptation of the sherwani in much the same way that the dinner jacket (tuxedo jacket in America) is an adaptation of the tail coat. (The story is that the old Duke of Windsor, the chap who abdicated, told Scholte, his legendary tailor, to cut off the tails on his dinner jacket, thus inventing the modern version). If you take a sherwani and shorten it to the length of a western suit jacket ( and use fewer buttons), you effectively have the jacket of an Indian suit.

One other fine point: The trousers that are worn with an Indian suit look very much like those worn with a Western suit (In fact I have worn a charcoal grey jacket from an Indian suit with standard grey flannels, and got a lot of positive comments on this outfit). However, with a sherwani, you do not wear standard (Western-style) trousers. You wear a kind of long pants that are very light cotton (ruffled a bit sometimes). These are cut close to the leg, but are also loose because of the ruffles. In India, these are called pyjamas, funnily enough. They are also worn with a lighter cotton upper garment called a kurta. I think the picture I posted of a sherwani has the chap wearing this kind of trousers. I'll check.

Because there are no neckties involved in wearing a formal Indian suit, one way to add a small flash of colour is to wear a plain or paisley-patterned pocket square, with some colour, tucked into the breast pocket. Nehru's solution to brighten his sherwanis, was to place a fresh-cut rose in one of the top buttonholes. He was famously fond of roses. Some Indians wear a gemstone or diamond at the centre of the round collar, probably fixed to the edges of the collar in some fashion. I would consider that affectation too arriviste and flashy or else appropriate for a villain in a Bond film. The old money in India would probably frown at such extravagances!

I just realized I have written a short essay! Maybe I should start writing a blog on all this stuff...

delicious_scent said:

Experimental tailoring indeed, old regional markers to describe cuts can get confusing, but it does provide a baseline.

I'm confused by the 2nd paragraph though. Are you saying Western Suit+Sherwani=Nehru jacket?

Click to expand...

Here is Nehru, walking near the White House with that other man we all remember, the one with Trad clothes. Nehru, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, wore English suits early on, but mostly only wore Indian clothes after he began to fight for India's freedom. All of my points about the narrow trousers, the long sherwani and the rose are illustrated here:

drpeter said:

No. "Nehru Jacket" is a confusing and incorrect term given by Westerners to the shorter jacket with rounded collar that forms part of an Indian suit. The Indian name for this jacket is galbandhi (literally, closed around the neck). The original long jacket worn by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first PM, is a proper sherwani. And western suits, for our purposes here, are what we wear in the west of course (a jacket with lapels, plus trousers).

The jacket of the Indian suit is actually an adaptation of the sherwani in much the same way that the dinner jacket (tuxedo jacket in America) is an adaptation of the tail coat. (The story is that the old Duke of Windsor, the chap who abdicated, told Scholte, his legendary tailor, to cut off the tails on his dinner jacket, thus inventing the modern version). If you take a sherwani and shorten it to the length of a western suit jacket ( and use fewer buttons), you effectively have the jacket of an Indian suit.

One other fine point: The trousers that are worn with an Indian suit look very much like those worn with a Western suit (In fact I have worn a charcoal grey jacket from an Indian suit with standard grey flannels, and got a lot of positive comments on this outfit). However, with a sherwani, you do not wear standard (Western-style) trousers. You wear a kind of long pants that are very light cotton (ruffled a bit sometimes). These are cut close to the leg, but are also loose because of the ruffles. In India, these are called pyjamas, funnily enough. They are also worn with a lighter cotton upper garment called a kurta. I think the picture I posted of a sherwani has the chap wearing this kind of trousers. I'll check.

Because there are no neckties involved in wearing a formal Indian suit, one way to add a small flash of colour is to wear a plain or paisley-patterned pocket square, with some colour, tucked into the breast pocket. Nehru's solution to brighten his sherwanis, was to place a fresh-cut rose in one of the top buttonholes. He was famously fond of roses. Some Indians wear a gemstone or diamond at the centre of the round collar, probably fixed to the edges of the collar in some fashion. I would consider that affectation too arriviste and flashy or else appropriate for a villain in a Bond film. The old money in India would probably frown at such extravagances!

I just realized I have written a short essay! Maybe I should start writing a blog on all this stuff...

Here is Nehru, walking near the White House with that other man we all remember, the one with Trad clothes. Nehru, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, wore English suits early on, but mostly only wore Indian clothes after he began to fight for India's freedom. All of my points about the narrow trousers, the long sherwani and the rose are illustrated here:
View attachment 42741
View attachment 42742

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A colour photo of Nehru plus a photo of the great actor Roshan Seth, who played Nehru in the film Gandhi:

Here is Nehru, a natty dresser, in a western suit, along with Lady Edwina Mountbatten with whom he had a long affair (reportedly with the knowledge of Lord Louis Mountbatten, India's last Viceroy). Mountbatten was also Independent India's first Governor-General, during the Transfer of Power phase.

delicious_scent said:

@drpeter

Ahhh I see. I can't seem to find anything on galbandhi aside from a song reference, which is why I was confused. It sounds like the contention with the term "Nehru jacket", for the shortened vest-like jacket, is because Nehru wore Sherwanis as you mentioned, not galbandhis.

Not a fan of either. I think it tries to be formal and fails. The rounded Mandarin collar on both garments are inherently casual to me, but it's married to a long, structured, closely cut suit. It doesn't frame the face very well. They also look stifling and I'm not a fan of the resulting silhouette.

I vastly prefer kurta pyjamas. They're casual, and there's nothing wrong with that. I like ones with a spread shirt-collar because they frame the face, and the looser kurta silhouette works better with looser pyjamas as well, so it's more comfortable too.

Since India invented pyjamas, ironically I think kurta pyjamas would look more put together and less sloppy than actual western pyjamas worn outside the house.

I wish Kurtas came with collars like this though, it'd work best considering they're a casual garment, and I'm a sucker for a nice collar roll.

Maybe some action back details as well like you see in an overcoat

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I suppose we both have our preferences, influenced I'm sure, by our backgrounds. While I quite like both Indian and Western style suits, I do not care much for the sherwani style because I don't think it would look very good on me. As for the rounded collar style, I can understand how it can feel constricting, but for me, this has not been an issue unless the weather is very warm. I also think the situation and context matters: Living in the West, I wear Western suits when suits are called for, and dinner jackets on the few occasions when that level of formality is appropriate. I tend to wear the Indian suits at gatherings or ceremonies that have an Indian tone, or where a number of Indians are gathered. By the way, Indian suits are not formal in the sense that they are comparable to black or white tie. I think of them simply as a dressier set of clothes, much the same as I would think of a regular suit. To me formality means black or white tie. But they are formal relative to the casual kurta pyjamas, just as a suit is formal relative to slacks and a sportcoat, or casual jacket.

I do possess a mandarin collar style tuxedo which I picked up for fun, to try it out. I have not worn it on any occasion whatsoever, so it languishes in my closet. One of these days...

I do like your idea of modifications to Indian suits. One area where all sorts of things have been tried is show business in India. Lots of variations in cut and style, including Indian and western style suits with all kinds of decorative things added. I would not wear those things, but the folks in show business do, and that's part of their profession, it seems! It happens here as well. Check out the clothes during the Oscars!

In the final analysis, life and context make the selection of dress appropriate in a very different way. The rules that governed dressing in India had a variety of political aspects that made many people move away from Western styles of clothing and dressing -- Nehru is a prime example, Mahatma Gandhi an even more striking one. Gandhi dressed in suits when starting a legal practice in Durban and later Pretoria. But once he got back to India to start the work of winning freedom, his clothes changed dramatically. One or two pieces of homespun cloth wrapped in the manner of the ordinary villager or peasant, eventually replaced the suits and ties, and even the kurtas and dhotis. It was a political statement as well as an identification with the least amongst one's brethren. To me, coming from the old country and aware of its history, Gandhi's dress was the most apposite of clothes, and therefore the most elegant. Autre temps, autres moeurs, I daresay.

This principle has been stressed in a very different context by Bruce Boyer. He remarks that traditionally, American presidents wear a simple suit of conservative cut, and mostly white shirts and conservative plain or repp ties. There is little adornment, and while the suits themselves might be tailored, they are usually grey or navy and fairly plain. Extravagance is eschewed because, Boyer declares, it would be unseemly for a leader in a democracy to be wearing flashy clothes.

I won't get started about dressing in South India -- it's another world altogether!

delicious_scent said:

I don't think a Sherwani would look good on me either, I agree there. I'll go further and say I don't know who they would look good on.

I find most people wear the Indian formal suits strictly at indian gatherings, so I also agree they're more formal than a kurta pyjama.

Though I've worn a slubby blue kurta pyjama at a wedding before and I feel like you can kind of get away with it.

The award shows are indeed very flamboyant, my mother watches them and the clothes they wear are fascinating.

I don't understand actual tailoring capabilities in India though. I sent my father pictures and measurements of my suit in Punjab, and the tailor there replicated the suit decently enough.

I sent my mother my actual safari jacket and no tailor bothered to even try to copy it, that was in Haryana.

One is a 3-dimensional garment, the other basically a shirt with extra pockets, so I was baffled.

Not familiar with the french proverb unfortunately. I don't understand it.

Clothing is language, I enjoyed reading your dissection of Nehru vs. Gandhi and to draw a parallel to American presidents.

Curious to see pictures of your mandarin collar tuxedo. Out of curiosity, I flipped up the lapels completely of a sports jacket I own, and it basically turned into a mandarin collar.

I know basically nothing about south india or south indian style, so I'd be curious to read it, and I think it deserves its own thread.

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Thanks for the information on your attempts to get pieces replicated in India. I have found that working with Indian tailors remotely is not very successful. I've had tailors send me finished pieces that were damaged (runs in the cloth).

The French phrase autres temps, autres moeurs means "other times, other customs". LOL, I thought all Canadians spoke some French.

I am glad you enjoyed some of the pictures of Nehru, and also the discussion on him and on Gandhi.

I am rather poor at taking photos and sending them digitally. I often have to use a camera, then transfer the SD card to my computer to upload the picture. I do not use cell phones except in a road emergency or a power outage, and have not used mine to take pictures. But if you google Mandarin Collar Tuxedo, you can see images of the item that is very much like mine. I picked up mine on eBay aeons ago, from a seller who dealt exclusively in formal attire.

Flipping up the lapels of a sports or suit jacket is actually a lesson in the origins of this type of jacket. All jackets were tunics once, especially in the military. The rounded collar was standard (even today, US Marines have tunics as part of their dress uniforms). In order to get some air, soldiers would unbutton the top buttons of their tunic and fold back the flaps, and those were the beginnings of lapels. Most items of male clothing can be traced back to military or sports wear. The dark blue blazer's association with Navies is well known, for instance.

As for South Indian dress, yes, that's another thread. Some other time.