Thome Browne Rules Of Style

Following up on Saturdays rules of style by Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg, here is Thom Browne's take. Long known for his controversial shrunken suit aesthetic he offers a very different perspective:

1) I don’t understand why everybody thinks that dressing casually is so much more comfortable. I’m as comfortable in a suit as I am in anything else.

2) Good champagne—good, not expensive—has been my cocktail of choice for as long as I can remember. I like them all—Bollinger, Taittinger, and others. I also collect champagne coupes; I have more than 10. They’re one of the few things that I collect.

3) Chariots of Fire, Death in Venice, North by Northwest, and The Thomas Crown Affair are some of my favorite films—and they’re all particularly inspiring for menswear. I watch movies all the time but I don’t like to go to the theater. It’s just too much.

4) Guys shouldn’t spend a lot of money on a haircut. I go to Chelsea Barbers in New York, where I pay about $30. The price went up, but I’m very loyal to the woman there.

5) It’s sad that the cell phone is replacing the watch as a time-telling device. I wear a vintage watch that’s really skinny.

6) When it comes to shoes, you don’t really need more than a few pairs of wing tips or oxfords. They’re classics. And I wear only black shoes in the city. Brown ones are for the country.

7) Men don’t know enough about being courteous toward women. You should get into a cab before a woman so she doesn’t have to slide across the seat. And you should always go first into a revolving door so she doesn’t have to push—unless it’s moving, then let her go first.

8) Seersucker and khaki suits are the key to looking put-together in the summer. I also wear shorts year-round. And I would never say never, but I don’t wear sandals. With shorts, it’s wing tips and tennis socks.

9) I like menswear from the late fifties and early sixties. It’s the uniformity and the lack of choice from that era that I respond to. It’s also the last time that there was such a distinct American style. Now it’s all jumbled up and homogenized.

10) I love white linen sheets, but they need to be ironed, so that limits my use of them. Otherwise, I like really good, starched white cotton sheets. They have to be white.