English branding is bland and suggests a too powerful power of understatement. The English will call a tie company, "Rose Ties" or a name I cant remember in a way that is pleasing but damned difficult to track down on the Internet. I couldnt find Duchamp's online store for a while because everything is Marcel Duchamp. Even Drakes ties is a dangerous name because we have a lot of things called drakes, not least "Drakes Cakes". Harrisons too, or Huddersfield or Fox. AN American company makes sure you remember the name and it is easily searchable.

I'm a fan of Karl. If only he traveled to New York.

^ He should have gone to Specsavers.

"They are a pale brown tortoiseshell (pattern) in a rather large scale. That combined with the rather square, thick nature of the frame makes them an imposing design, but they won’t necessarily be worn every day. Perhaps more accent piece than functional accessory."

"There are a surprisingly large number of variables in the positioning of arms: the angle of the hinge; the angle at which the arm comes out of the hinge (both in-and-out and up-and-down); the curve of the arm at various points along its length (again, curve in/out or curve up/down); the twist of the arm. The first two Sheel had set for me according to her measurements of my face; the latter two we adjusted at least 10 times by heating up the material.

Now any optician should look at arm length etc and fit a pair of glasses on you. They will probably use exactly the same heat system. But I’ve never seen anyone take so much time and care over it – it has parallels with the care that goes into the designs and hand-making of the frames themselves."

How to appear to say something without actually saying anything. Let's translate from Cromps to English:

"I bought some atrocious glasses at 80% off in exchange for featuring the optician on my highly respected blog. Even I think they are too ugly to wear. When buying glasses you need to make sure that the arms don't poke directly into your eyes or fall off.

When I went in to get my glasses the optician made sure that they fit properly; this is an extraordinary achievement on par with painting the Sistine Chapel. Actually this is exactly the same kind of service you get at Lenscrafters, but I would like to suggest that it is somehow much better than the service at glasses vendors who have not given me free or substantially discounted products."

Looks better than the SB he has from them which made him look like he had been rolled up in a carpet.

Don't like the cut of those lapels though and I usually like A&S lapels. A bit too much belly perhaps.

Last edited by meister (2012-02-24 04:32:37)

You can see why he's become such a style guru, he has such amazing insights and practical tips:
- Get a canvased suit.
- Wear a tie and/or a pocket square
- Fit is very important
- Buy good shoes
- It's OK to wear brown shoes
- Button your jacket
- Bespoke suits look good (an odd claim from Crompton)
- Buying a shitload of bespoke suits is "rewarding"
- Being cut by hand is the most important thing about bespoke suits.
- Fit is the most important thing about bespoke suits