While he now calls Richmond his turf, Larry is returning home to Charlottesville (and Lynchburg) to visit clients.

If you’d like to make an appointment or find out more about which Corner Larry called his stomping grounds, give a call (804.928.7946) or email him here. In the meantime dream about mornings at Bodo’s, days on grounds and nights on the Downtown Mall.

No, not that way. The days of the three martini lunch are far behind us. Besides, martinis used to be slightly less than 3 ounces back in the Mad Men era. They’re roughly 8-9 ounces these days. Three has you consuming almost a fifth of gin. Heroic, but it makes it hard to get back to the office.

(Image: Easy and Elegant Life, used with permission.)

Instead, opt for a pick-me-up like the Spaniards do. At least at the weekend. This thing is infused with garlic, but it really does give you a lift. Since onions lend themselves to fermentation, they are traditionally left out of the recipe which was developed in the days long before refrigeration was introduced. If serving as a soup, top it with chopped hard-boiled eggs, some country ham and some chopped onion. Leftovers can be blended with vodka on Sunday morning…

Gazpacho

2 slices of day old bread, or about 3 inches of day old baguette

2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar

2 ripe Hanover tomatoes. (If using a blender, skinned and seeded. If you have a Vita-Mix, just quarter them.)

1 green pepper, cored and seeded, roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 small to medium cucumber, skinned and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons of olive oil

salt and pepper and a little sugar, to taste

Soak the bread in the vinegar, garlic and a little ice-cold water. Add it to the blender and puree. Add the olive oil and the vegetables. Puree. Add ice-cold water until you get a consistency that you like to drink. (If this is to be a soup, you may leave it a bit chunkier, but less so than salsa.) Adjust the seasoning with the salt, pepper and sugar. Transfer to a pitcher and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Chill for at least three hours in the refrigerator. Do not add ice.

(Lot 2865 from the Sotheby’s auction catalog of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.)

“I wear this one less often, because of its cut which suggests rather the fashions of an earlier age.” So said The Duke of Windsor in A Family Album.

He was referring to a navy fur-lined overcoat with an Astrakhan collar made for him by Simpson & London Ltd. in 1934 and seen above. It reached almost to his ankles and fell in pleats down the back below the waist line. Fashionable man-about-town that he was, he knew that this coat, although perfect for a bitterly cold day in New York, had no real place in his wardrobe after the 1950′s. Fashions had changed, as he so rightly noted in his memoirs.

The Duke of Windsor continued to wear many of the suits and hats that he had commissioned in the 1930′s and 1940′s. He had more suits, jackets and trousers made up in the 1950′s and I imagine continued right up until his death. He was a clotheshorse after all, and he was very stylish.

The point of all this is that when your clothes are cut with an eye toward enduring style, they will last you forever. Lapels will narrow and widen. Skinny suits will come and go. Pleats will be back. The great secret in creating custom clothing is that you can follow the vagaries of fashion — when it suits you — and ignore them when they don’t.

In other words, Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers are here to make you look good all the time. Own your look, be precisely tailored, work with us to create clothing with enduring style and you will never have to pack away a fashionable mistake again.

(July 5, 2010 - Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images North America)

Are you as struck as we are with this photo taken during the Queen’s recent visit to Ground Zero? This is the middle of a heat wave on the East Coast. Yes, the officers of the NYPD are in Dress Blues, as is appropriate. Yes, the Secret Service wore dark suits, as is expected. Yes Prince Phillip wore a beautifully cut navy blue suit and a pocket square, which comes as no surprise.

But look carefully at the photographers in the press section.

There is a cameraman wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie. In our professional opinion, it is a custom suit and shirt. You try hoisting a television camera up to your shoulder without the jacket riding up to your ears. Nigh on impossible.

Unless you are wearing a well-cut and beautifully tailored custom suit from Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers. In which case the scye of your suit will let your jacket move with you as does the cameraman’s. Leaving you looking more like the on-air talent and less like a sweaty tourist with a nice camera.

(Spot cleaning will only take you so far. Image: DoctorMacro.)

We’re particular about our ties aren’t we? To most eyes one pinstriped gray suit looks pretty much like another. But a great tie… well, that’s something else. A great tie will garner compliments. A great tie will get a second appraising glance. A great tie will get worn. A lot.

The problem is that ties are a luxury item. Think about it. They serve no real purpose other than purely aesthetic. Cinched too tight, they are tourniquets around the neck, binding non-existent wounds. But they are signifiers of social status aren’t they? We know a good tie when we see one. Subtly patterned, woven, or printed, they are made of silk, wool, linen or cotton. All of which are fragile. Silk, in fact, is delicate. And if you wear silk enough, it wears out.

Don’t you hate it when you look down and see that your favorite tie, this beautiful bit of “damn I look good in that tie”,  is getting a little … fuzzy around the end?

Why would a tie get fuzzy?

We here at Leviner Wood don’t shy away from tackling the tough questions and we’ve been all over the internet and through the sartorial library looking for an answer. Nobody wants to come clean on this one.

Is it that the silk is inferior and makes for a poorer quality tie that is more likely to fuzz up? The way that cheaper, shorter fibers make (your favorite) cashmere sweaters pill?

Dunno. But our educated guess is that the way that certain ties are finished is to blame. Wovens and other textured ties seem particularly prone to the disease. Harder finished ties, not so much.

So what can you do about it?

1) Learn to untie your tie. Just as you tied the tie in the first place, reverse the procedure and untie when you are taking it off. Pulling it off stretches the fabric, the slipstitch, the lining and the stitching. Untying your tie will lengthen its lifespan.

2) Hang it up to release the wrinkles and, if you can, roll it (starting at the thin end) and store it in its own compartment.

3) Give it a rest. Like good dress shoes, a fine tie should not be worn two days in a row; if you can help it.

4) If it’s dirty, spot clean it (test on the thin blade first), don’t have it drycleaned and then pressed. And use a professional service like “Tiecrafters.” Yes, you will pay for shipping both ways. Yes your tie will benefit from the spa treatment.

5) When the end begins to get fuzzy, shave it. Use a safety razor. Or use a match to singe off the fuzz. Do this with extreme care.

6) When you burn the edge or it begins to fray, take it to a reputable alterations tailor and have it shortened by 1/4″ – 1/2″.

7) When it’s had it, turn it into a belt with a pair of stainless steel d-rings. Cut off about 6″ of the damaged end, stitch the ends around the d-rings. Wear with frayed khakis or linen trousers.

Maybe it was catching part of “61*” on HBO last night or “Stealing Home” in late spring or leaving for the beach, but somehow we’ve got summer shirts on our minds here at Leviner Wood. And why are we thinking of summer shirts? Because all we see at the pool or on the sidewalk are t-shirts and polo shirts.

Nothing against the polo shirt…

U.S. National Archives, image 04-0125a

… but we’d like to see a return of the short sleeved sport shirt. Something you could toss on over a pair of weathered Nantucket Reds, beat up khaki shorts, your swim suit, or under a blazer and still look decently dressed.

Ideally, we’d create a shirt with a button down collar that also has the button through the back of the collar, a locker loop, one patch pocket, and tails long enough to tuck in if you had to. Madras would play a big part of the ideal summer shirt. The coolest wearing cotton, madras used to bleed when washed creating all sorts of interesting and unique patterns and colors. the new stuff is color fast, but still appropriate and still cool to wear.

Just ask these college students, ca. 1965

Need a couple of the ultimate summer shirts? Give us a call and we’ll pick out some madras. You’ll wear them for years to come.

(Tom Ewell trying to keep his cool in a summer suit)

You hear it a lot, especially the further north you get of the Mason-Dixon line. The complaint is usually from a woman and usually goes something like this: “Unless you are a GQ model or an elderly Southern Gentleman, stay away from seersucker and linen suits.”

There’s a reason that seersucker, linen and cotton poplin suits are associated with the Old South. It’s hot here during the summer months. Before air-conditioning, it must have been brutal. The Army switched to khaki cotton from the wool cavalry twill, the Navy donned whites and the average Joe pulled his cotton and linen suits out of storage, all in an effort to beat the heat. As the picture illustrates, the practice continued through the 1960′s even in New York. In Richmond, it wasn’t unusual to see cotton and seersucker suits until the late 80′s.

Today, we live in climate-controlled environments, but that doesn’t mean that we need to forsake our warm weather clothing. Seersucker, cotton and linen may be best reserved for casual Fridays or non-client days, but they still have their place. The trick is to make sure that they fit and, in the case of linen, are constructed with fabric weighty enough to withstand wrinkles. It sounds counterintuitive, but heavier linen in the 12 oz. range, will resist wrinkling better than lightweight cotton and will wear cooler to boot. The trick to wearing seersucker is to have it made up with as little padding as possible and in an unexpected silhouette — double-breasted for instance. Cotton and linen versions of the suit should also rely on a cut that is flattering to you. Nothing skin-tight, as is today’s fashion, since it defeats the purpose of keeping you cool. Nothing too billowy as it defeats the purpose of making you look good.

The difference between a Leviner Wood custom garment and the $199 off-the-rack special is astonishing in terms of cut, manufacture, fit and the way it’ll make you look. You can live with a few wrinkles when everyone around you looks as if they’re about to melt into a puddle at your feet, can’t you? As Tom Ewell demonstrates above, the guy who keeps his cool, gets all the attention.

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With July 4th cookouts looming in the near distance, we at Leviner Wood have a few things brewing. That is, we’re thinking of things brewed. Especially if we’re going to be manning the grill. To a man, we know that the grill gods must be placated and the only way to do so is to make sure that we stay frosty with a cold beer in hand. The grill gods like beer.

Now, as all-American as those red,white and blue cans look, we know that you can do a bit better. So while you’re branching out into the independent brewery offerings, we thought you might like to know what style beer goes with the meat you’re burning.

Sausages, especially bratwurst: pilsners, pale ales, amber or darker lagers.

‘Burgers: amber ales, pilsners, Bass Ale.

Hot Dogs: lagers

Chicken: lagers or pilsners

Steak: brown, dark ales and highly hopped ales

Dry-rubbed bar-b-que like ribs: Oktoberfest beers

Bar-b-que in general: if you can find it, a smoked beer like Rauchbier is a perfect match. Rogue Brewery puts out a smoke ale.

Game, like venison, rabbit, boar, etc.: dark ales, porters, stouts, dopplebocks

Lamb (including burgers, although we’d recommend a Shiraz, too): brown, pale, or dark ales, porters or stouts

Mexican foods: pilsners, lagers, porters (with mole), wheat beers. Lighter styles like Negro Modelo are good for washing away chile oil lingering on the tongue.

Chicken Salad: ales or wheat beers

Ice Cream: fruit lagers, lambics.

My friends, did ya ever have one of those days? Like when you tip the waitress’ tray and two full beers drop onto your boss’ head and shoulders? Or the time the paper plate broke under the weight of the cherry cheesecake and sent the whole gooey mess into your supervisor’s Jimmy Choos? What about the evening at the Chinese restaurant and the pot of hot tea that flew off into your colleague’s lap… ?

Socializing at work can be downright dangerous. Especially to your custom suits and shirts. So what’s a guy to do, aside from switching to white wine, champagne or lite beer? Herewith, the Leviner Wood handy-dandy guide to saving the day.

1. Act immediately. Waiting is what causes stains to set in. Blot up any excess with a clean napkin or cloth. Begin to treat.

2. Always blot, never scrub which can weaken or break delicate fibers.

3. Never apply heat until the stain has been removed. This includes hot water.

4. Carry a packet of on-the-go stain remover, SHOUT! wipes for example, hand sanitizer, or moist towelettes. They’ll work in an emergency.

5. Plain soap and water or liquid dish soap and water will work on small stains. Best not to use it on a silk tie though. Apply, let sit for 30 minutes, rinse.

Common mishaps and what to do about them:

1. Liquid on your tie. Take the back blade of the tie and lightly rub the spot. It will transfer to the back blade of the tie. Bowtie wearers don’t have to worry about this.

2. Ballpoint pen on a shirt. Use denatured (rubbing) alcohol and a cotton swab to blot the marks out. Spraying with hairspray or blotting out with hand sanitizer also works well. Apply, blot, reapply until the stain is gone.

3. Red wine, coffee, etc. spills on a suit. That old stand by club soda, used immediately, will work to take out the spot. Apply, blot, repeat. It may take forever, but it will work. Take the suit to the drycleaners when you can and let them know what spilled on the garment.

4. Blood on a shirt. The OxyClean pen works wonders. At home, soak immediately in cold water and OxyClean powder. We’re assuming this is a small amount of blood on a collar from a shaving cut. If it is a lot more, you’re best bet is to take it to a drycleaner. One recommended by your attorney….