The wife gets to see the inside of cool houses, you get to taste wine and food. Winning.

Growing up, we called it Washington. There couldn’t be another other than D.C. . It’s a great city and we’re happy to bring big city custom tailoring and small town cheer to the Capitol City.

Larry will be in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, November 10, 2010. If you’d like to meet with him, please contact Larry(at)LevinerWood.com or give him a call: 804.928.7946

Larry will be headed for Hampton Roads, Newport News and Virginia Beach this Wednesday (August 11, 2010), bringing beautifully tailored custom suits and a few shirts to clients in the area. If you’d like to make an appointment with him, Larry has a few openings during which he can meet with you to discuss your sartorial needs or thumb through the new fall swatches.

Fall is just around the corner. Start it off by looking your best in a Leviner Wood custom tailored wardrobe. Call Larry at 804.928.7946 or email him by clicking the link.

That brings up a question and a thought. Is the dress code necessary? Does it even exist in our overtly democratic time? And if you’re not wearing a tie, why are you wearing a plain white shirt?

(Click to see larger images)

Consider instead a striped, paisley, checked or other patterned shirt to wear with your blue blazer or suit. Pick out a color from the stripe and add a pocket square in a coordinating or contrasting color. pocket squares add personality, like a tie, at a fraction of the price. They also let you stand out while still fitting in.

Leviner Wood Custom Clothiers and Shirtmakers. Hundreds of patterned shirt fabrics. And we carry pocket squares, too.

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.

Anybody remember that song? Larry is traveling in the Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Newport News, Virginia Beach area today. If you’d like to start the summer right, please give him a call or email and he’ll be happy to arrange an appointment for you.

Email Larry

“Too flimsy. Where is that great crisp cloth that they used to make suits from?” A new client asked me that question earlier this spring. He is a young guy on the rise in our nation’s capitol, and he, like most of us, works in the a/c.

We couldn’t agree more with his assessment. Tropical wools, linens and cottons are wonderfully cool summer alternatives, but they wrinkle and crease. They’re supposed to.  At Leviner Wood, we understand that you like to look crisp all the business day long.

But what makes a suit cool, comfortable and keeps it crisp during our warmer months? The same qualities that you look for in your cool weather suits: weight, finish and construction.

To tell you the truth, the difference between an 8 oz. wool and a 10 oz. wool won’t be readily apparent in our climate controlled environments. Well that’s not strictly true. The 10 oz. will resist creasing more easily. Firm cloth = less creasing. Tweed, springs to mind. But not for summer, of course.

The weave also makes a difference with open weaves creasing and holding the wrinkles more easily. A plain weave will crease, but “recovers” faster. The larger surface area and more compact construction of a flannel (compared to a worsted) makes it even more crease resistant. But even we have trouble recommending the traditional white flannel summer suit for business purposes. Besides, summer in England, or even New England, where they were once popular choices, is significantly different from summer in the Middle-Atlantic States.

So, what are we looking for then? Ideally, a high twist fabric, made from 10 oz. wool, that’s still lightweight enough to make you think cooler. Anything in the Super 120′s to Super 150′s range will feel great and keep you looking sharp. Some fabric mills (Scabal, with their Supertronic fabric,  for example) produce high tech materials that are all wool, but twisted and spun to offer excellent crease resistance, a good drape and make up into a cooler garment. Lighter colors also reflect some heat and light, keeping your thermostat in check.

Take those fabrics and let us make them up into a very lightly constructed (even an unconstructed garment like the Arietta). Eliminating or minimizing the heavier canvassing and padding of the winter suits will keep things airier and lighter to wear. The heavier cloth will compensate for the lack of construction keeping the garment shape and you looking crisp and cool. Think 1/4 or 1/2 lined coats and trousers.

For those of you who travel a lot, a twill suit, minimally constructed is your best friend. So is the steamy bathroom to hang the suit in at your destination. Who knew that with all the humidity around these days that your suit could benefit from a bit more? To really keep going all day, we recommend that you do not drive or fly with your suit coat on and that you hang it up on a good shaped hanger (like those that come with our Sovereign grade suits) with some breathing room around it when not in use. Alternating your suits so that each is allowed to rest for a day between wearings is the 11th Commandment.

First week of June. Not even summer yet. How many days have we seen that hover at or above 90º? If you can’t stand the heat…

Well, we at Leviner Wood recommend getting out of the kitchen and standing the heat in our newest offering: the Arietta. Available in all grades, the Arietta is the jacket (or suit coat) specifically designed for the dog days and is a perfect garment to pack in a carry on.

Unconstructed, this jacket is lined only enough to help it keep its shape. Featuring open “French” facings, no shoulder pads, book folded finished inside seams and a minimal half-back lining to let the breezes through, the Arietta still looks like a traditional fully constructed garment.

It just doesn’t feel like one.

Give us a call and order your summer suits and sportcoats today.

It’s rainy in Richmond, but it’s a sunny morning in Washington DC. Which is where Larry will be today, Thursday March 11, 2010. Please send him an email or call the number on the sidebar if you’d like to make an appointment.

Email Larry