The Suit Experts: Articles on Luxury Menswear

Kingsman The Golden Circle

It’s official: between Wonder Woman and Kingsman 2: the Golden Circle, the accessory of the year for 2017 is clearly the lasso. If you’re wondering how to literally and figuratively carry this off, well, so are we.

Fortunately, thanks to the September 22nd return of our perfectly and plentifully accessorized old favourites, the Kingsmen, we have a myriad of other choices to pull a perfectly suited look together.

A storied and secret British spy group devoted to do-goodery, the Kingsman are headquartered in the back of a tailor shop by the same name, modeled after the Savile Row tailor mecca Huntsman. In this second in the series of movies, they meet their American counterparts, the Statesmen, who politely compliment them on their English nattiness while staying loyal to the American Western look of jeans, a sport jacket or jean jacket, and a pearl-snap shirt with a Western yoke.

Let’s unpack some of these looks, shall we?

The most striking, of course, is Eggsy’s orange velvet dinner jacket. That’s not the easiest look to pull off, and his lingering fondness for orange is one of Eggsy’s class indicators, not yet smoothed away by Harry’s patrician supervision. The jacket is available in the original orange cotton velvet or a more traditional midnight blue colour and less dazzling wool faille from Mr Porter, who has once again combined forces with Kingsman to produce a collection. The exchange rate currently puts this dinner jacket at $2,165.02 CDN. We at Claymore Brothers can produce a custom tailored suit of similar quality for considerably less; and yes, we can even do it in orange velvet if you can carry it off.

The classic Kingsman suit is back and basically unchanged: double vents, double breasted, peaked lapels with custom buttonholes on BOTH lapels. We are fans, and we would love to see a comeback of this great update on the classic British Drape suit. Eggsy shows off a snappy chalk stripe (be careful with these: don’t want to look like a gangster) while Harry sticks to classic navy and a nice pale grey. Our custom suit selection offers fabric from the same mills as used by Arianne Phillips, the film costumer, so you can be sure that your Kingsman style suit from Claymore Brothers will be up to snuff.

Fun new accessories from the Kingsman crew include a very Louis Vuitton-looking briefcase that just happens to also be a machine gun, your standard transparent bulletproof umbrella shield/gun combo (a frequently requested product on Kickstarter, apparently), and a billiards table that converts into an armory.

It’s on the Statesman side that things get a little wilder. They have belt buckles which are actually whiskey flasks (too bad this one isn’t real) and cowboy hats designed and produced by Stetson, probably the most famous creator of cowboy hats in the world (and the original creators of the Indiana Jones fedora). These hats feature a pinched crease, probably the most popular option, leaving you plenty of height without making you look like All Hat, No Cattle.

They have puffy down vests to keep you warm while riding the range, even if you ride it in a Range Rover rather than on a mustang. There are beautiful and understated brown Western boots from Luchesse, a Texas company which has been turning out cowboy boots for almost 150 years. These particular boots are ropers, meaning they are not as tall as the cowboy boots everyone thinks of, which makes them easier to wear for those who are wide in the calf, and also gives a smoother line under jeans. And you ALWAYS wear them under your jeans; never, ever tuck your trousers into your cowboy boots. One is not a Cossack, for god’s sake!

American business wear is less formal than English business wear, and in this movie the best example of that is the Donegal tweed jacket sported by Agent Jack Daniels: Codename Whiskey. It’s a single-breasted, fairly narrow cut with a Western-style yoke, elbow patches, and pocket trim of alcantara, a synthetic suede designed to stand up to repeated wearings without deteriorating or requiring special cleaning. The jacket features double vents for ease of movement, notch lapels, and large, patch pockets worn with jeans, because this is ‘Merica. We won’t lie, this isn’t an easy look to pull off, particularly if you don’t own a ranch with at least 1,000 acres, but on the right man at the right time, it could be charming.

The jeans sported by Channing Tatum and the other Statesmen are classic straight-leg cuts in either a stonewashed, faded finish or a crisp, dark indigo. The official models are produced by New York’s Jean Shop for the Mr Porter collection, but we’ve studied them and are certain you can find a pair that will work for you from any of the classic brands. Jean jackets to match, of course, from the beautifully-named Freedom Workshop, with Sherpa trim. For truly cold days, the Statesmen wear shearling jackets, no doubt having shot and skinned the sheep themselves. 

The Kingsman Cologne, we regret to report, is just a movie prop, although a few years ago a men’s cologne called Statesman came out; it is not associated with the movie. But as long as the whiskey really exists, we will console ourselves with that.

We wish we could tell you the lasso is going to make it big offline as well as on, but short of novelty club nights we just can’t see it happening. Nonetheless, we will keep practicing. Our day will come! 

Bonus: that time Eggsy met Archer:

0 comments

Leave a comment

All blog comments are checked prior to publishing

Start Customizing

Select a fabric and make the perfect suit. We'll show you how to get measured, or measure yourself.