Thank you Formby. What with the help of my other thread and a bit more questing on the web I now feel that I will be able to recognise a Barethea when I go out on my quest tonight.

Very few of the cloth merchants out here present you with a swatch book so I doubt if they will have ones with matching silks for Dinner Jacket but I will give it a go. The tailor who will make the suit only has satin and has never heard of Grosgrain (thanks for the correction). When I explained that the trousers need to be cut for baraces he said that braces were only for fat men, why would I want to wear them? It is very difficult to explain the intricacies of Dining Suits in pidgin English. It has been obvious to me from the start that this tailor has never made one before. This gives it the additional excitment of seeing if it will turn out wearable. Plus I can tell him exactly what I want. I have spent hours trawling through hundreds of pictures on the web looking for what I want. Obviously there is security in having an experienced tailor showing me the folly of my ways but who knows. I will in two weeks. Fingers crossed.

Kim