Last week Esquire published an article praising King Charles’ mid blue pinstripe suit that he wore on an unseasonably warm day at a reception celebrating organizations that help people with cancer. This suit turned out to be the same one he wore to visit the set of No Time to Die on 20 June 2019. King Charles also wore this suit for official photographs by Hugo Burnand in 2023 a month ahead of his coronation. It has become the most iconic suit of the eighth decade of King Charles’ life.
Embed from Getty ImagesKing Charles has been a longtime Bond fan—he visited the set of The Living Daylights and attended multiple Bond film premieres. Like James Bond, he has also owned a number of Aston Martins—a 1969 DB6 Mk2 Volante, a 1986 V8 Vantage Volante and a 1994 Virage Volante. When I first wrote about Daniel Craig’s Prince of Wales check suit in No Time to Die based on photos taken at the time the King, then Prince of Wales, visited the set, there was significant interest in the King’s suit.
For decades the King was known to prefer double-breasted suits, but for the past decade he has largely reverted to single-breasted suits, a change that began in the 2010s before he became King and is not related to, as some have suggested, becoming King or the Covid-19 pandemic. He recently wore one of his old double-breasted suit in a grey Prince of Wales check when meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, but this is a rare occurrence. His most recently suit commissions appear to be single breasted.
The King’s suit on the No Time to Die set is made of a mid blue lightweight tropical wool with a white chalk stripe. Despite what Esquire writes, it is not linen. It may not be crease-resistant like traditional medium- to heavy-weight English wools, but it has the dry look of English tropical wool and the drape of wool. The light weight and mid blue shade gives the suit a more Italian look than the heavier wools in darker shades of blue typically used in English tailoring, but the lack of sheen means that the wool is likely from England. The shade of blue is elegant and not too vivid, as was the trend in the 2010s. It’s also a flattering shade on the King and makes him look younger and healthier than a grey suit does. It’s possibly one reason why he’s wearing more blue suits than he used to.
Embed from Getty ImagesWhile the King uses multiple tailors, this suit was made by his most well-known tailor Anderson & Sheppar. Anderson & Sheppard hold a Royal Warrant as a tailor to the King. Daniel Craig is also a fan of Anderson & Sheppard and has used them in his personal life, notably for the pink dinner jacket that he wore to the No Time to Die premiere. The King has been wearing tailoring from Anderson & Sheppard for the majority of his life, although he went through a phase of wearing structured made-to-measure suits from Turnbull & Asser.
Esquire claims that the King’s suit is Neapolitan-inspired, follows the soft Neapolitan trend and ‘looked as though it had been plucked straight from the pages of a Brunello Cucinelli lookbook,’ but it’s classic Anderson & Sheppard. Neapolitan tailoring was originally inspired by the soft English tailoring of Anderson & Sheppard, and they made it even lighter for Naples’ hot weather, but King Charles is wearing the original. What makes the King’s suit look lighter than the typical Anderson & Sheppard suit is the unusually light weight of the cloth, but it has the same soft construction as most suits he’s worn throughout his life.
Embed from Getty ImagesIan Fleming mentioned Anderson & Sheppard in his 1961 novel Thunderball when describing Count Lippe’s clothes. Fleming wrote of Lippe, ‘He was an athletic-looking six foot, dressed in the sort of casually well-cut beige herring-bone tweed that suggests Anderson and Sheppard.’ The phrase ‘casually well-cut’ can be used to describe exactly what King Charles wears. It’s likely that Lippe’s suits would have had more drape—folds at the sides of the chest—than the King’s suits have, more like what the Duke of Windsor wore.
The King’s suit jacket still has a traditional Anderson & Sheppard drape cut and soft structure, with a soft extended shoulder, natural sleeve head, a little drape in the chest and two fisheye darts on the front without a side body. The suit has a tremendous amount of shape, a mark of a talented bespoke tailor. The soft shoulder is an iconic part of Anderson & Sheppard’s style, and this suit’s lighter cloth translates to a softer look than the same type of shoulder in the typically heavier and stiffer English wool. The shoulder also breaks in with age and gets softer, but this suit already had a lived-in look in 2019 when it was fairly new. The jacket has three buttons down the front, and the soft construction allows the lapel to roll over the top button when only the middle button is fastened. Anderson & Sheppard suits are not cut to be a three-roll-two like Daniel Craig’s Tom Ford suit is—it’s in the nature of the soft, lightweight canvas.
While Anderson & Sheppard is one of England’s most prestigious tailoring houses, its soft drape style is not a quintessential example of English tailoring and was not even invented by Englishmen. It was originally created by a Dutchman, Frederick Scholte, and a Swede, Peter Gustav Anderson. Despite its international origins, it has long been associated with English tailoring but as an alternate and more specialty style. The standard British tailoring style is instead the one defined by the military and equestrian tailors, which is stiff and structured with a defined shoulder line. The underlying silhouette of Daniel Craig’s Tom Ford suit jacket on the set of No Time to Die has these traits, despite it not being British. With more fullness in the chest and a longer skirt—like that of a typical Tom Ford suit—Craig’s suit would look more typically British than the King’s soft suit. The English bespoke suits that Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore wore as James Bond all fall somewhere between the stiff military style and the soft drape style, with each tailor combining different elements of the opposite ends of the Savile Row spectrum.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe King uses other tailors—Gieves & Hawkes, Dege & Skinner, Malcolm Plews, Meyer & Mortimer, Samuel Brothers, Thresher & Glenny also currently hold royal warrants for tailoring. These tailors all make in a military style, which have strong shoulders that contrast with the King’s typical style from Anderson & Sheppard. Malcolm Plews and Meyer & Mortimer specifically hold warrants for being the King’s military tailors. For the King’s daily suits, it appears that he purposefully chooses to dress far from the military style, and the soft Anderson & Sheppard style gives the King a more relaxed and down-to-earth look and feel than a military style of tailoring would. His choice to wear Anderson & Sheppard suits may be for public image, it may be for comfort, or it may be for both. He also has used Steven Hitchcock, who started his career at Anderson & Sheppard and whose father John Hitchcock was the King’s cutter there. Steven Hitchcock’s style is derivative of Anderson & Sheppard but has unique traits of its down.
The King’s suit has a classic English fit with a full chest, a fitted waist, a full skirt, full sleeves, a long jacket length and full trousers. Combined with the soft construction, the suit has a very comfortable look to it. The sleeves are pressed with a crease like the trousers are, possibly to make the full sleeves appear trimmer. Compared to Daniel Craig’s closely fitted and short suit, the King’s suit looks rather full. The long jacket length and full break at the trouser hems could be seen by modern eyes as being oversized, but both follow traditional English styling. Daniel Craig’s suit looks uncomfortably small in comparison, and it makes him looks puny next to the King. The King’s fit and cut may be more relaxed than Daniel Craig’s, but it looks more refined. Daniel Craig would have benefited from a fit halfway between the King’s and his own.
The King’s suit has classic English details that follow his usual preferences as well as Anderson & Sheppard’s house style. They include medium-narrow lapels with a high but steep gorge, rear double vents and four cuff buttons. The jetted hip pockets have the facings cut in the same direction as the body so the striped match through the pocket. The hip pockets are low to line up with the jacket’s bottom bottom, and the top of the vents approximately lines up with the pockets. The King has always preferred jetted pockets without flaps, which allow him to easily rest his left hand in the pocket. The jacket is cut with a medium-low button stance, which is flattering and balances the long jacket length. The jacket’s buttonholes unusually contrast with the cloth in a lighter shade of blue than the body of the cloth, but they are a tasteful choice and don’t pop in a distracting way.
The suit trousers have a wide, tapered leg with turn-ups. The King rarely exposes his waist, but these trousers likely have his usual single forward pleats.
Embed from Getty ImagesKing Charles is dandier than James Bond, and some would argue that his style is more sophisticated. Bond rarely wears more than one pattern at a time, while the King frequently combines three or four patterns—the latter when visiting the No Time to Die set. Bond’s style, even when wearing English bespoke tailoring, looks far more accessible than the King’s because of the simplicity in wearing fewer patterns. For the King, dressing is an art and he wears stylish combinations without looking too studied. For Bond, dressing well is about neatness and simple elegancy while still appreciating the finer points of dressing well.
The King’s shirt is white poplin with a pale blue chalk stripe that has three times the pattern density as the suit’s cloth so the stripes play well together. The shirt is from Turnbull & Asser, a shirtmaker who James Bond had a long relationship with before Tom Ford took over for Craig’s last four Bond films. As the Prince of Wales, the King granted his first royal warrant to Turnbull & Asser in 1980. The collar has a wide spread, a low band and about half an inch of tie space. It resembles their popular Regent collar but it could be the slightly narrower Windsor collar or a variation on either collar. His shirt has double cuffs worn with gold and topaz cufflinks. The sleeves look too long, possibly because the cuffs are too large, so he’s showing too much shirt cuff. The King likes to show a lot of shirt cuff, but this is more than he usually shows.
The tie is dark blue with what appears to be a motif of light blue boats and white palm trees. The small four-in-hand knot reveals the shirt’s collar band, something the King is never afraid to do, but it works well with the low collar band. His ties are often bespoke and are designed to tie a very small knot, perhaps in an effort to look less ostentatious than certain other members of his family. His puffed pocket square is an off-white silk with a large, thick navy grid, and each box of the grid is filled with 25 small navy squares. His shoes are black quarter-brogue oxfords with a mirror shine on the toe cap.
Embed from Getty ImagesEvery item of the King’s outfit except his shoes are both blue and white, an elegant and appropriate pairing of colours for a James Bond-related outing. To add a pop of colour he wears a Dianthus Devon Wizard, one of his favourite flowers, in his jacket’s lapel buttonhole. The magenta flower effectively provides a relief from the variations on blue and white and draws the eye to the face.
Very well researched and written article. I understand the sleeves being pressed with a crease is a military tradition, and so is the mirror shine on the toe cap.
One thing I really admire about Charles is the way he manages to coordinate the colour and pattern of his shirt, suit, pocket square and tie in ways that are pleasing. I’ve tried to do the same but I always find it too difficult. The mix he has really shouldn’t work but it does.
HM The King’s suit is by Steven Hitchcock, who has made his civilian (non Scottish) clothing for ages now (apart from that brief phase when he switched to MTM Chester Barrie suits from T&A, and I believe some Gieves bespoke in the early 2000s). You can tell by the very traditional A&S drape cut, compared to the stuff they tend to crank out now. (Also, if you’re a customer of Steven Hitchcock, you can see HM’s work in progress suits there.)
One very cool thing about these traditional A&S cut three buttons is that they eventually become 3-roll-2, but naturally with wear rather than basically a two button with a purely aesthetic top button as the Ivy League and Neapolitan looks favour (as do some Tom Ford models).
His A&S coat pattern was cut by Colin Harvey (whose innovation was a traditional Anderson & Sheppard drape cut, with a sidebody added for additional flare) and his trouser pattern was cut by John Hitchcock, who was still senior trouser cutter at the time. After Colin Harvey left, instead of head cutter Dennis Halbury taking over, Mr. Halbury assigned his undercutter Thomas Mahon to the then-Prince of Wales, as Mr. Halbury was about to retire and he wanted to ensure a longer relationship.
When Thomas Mahon and Edwin Deboise left A&S to form Steed, John Hitchcock became the coat cutter as well but I don’t think he made much for the Prince before he took his custom to Hitchcock the Younger’s independent firm.
So if you want the King Charles cut today, you’re best served by Thomas Mahon (Redmayne) or Steven Hitchcock for single-breasted. I believe Steed will also do the Colin Harvey cut on request.
As for the pressed sleeves, this is one of the things HM favours that is carried over from military uniforms, as his father did before him. You can’t actually do it with just any sleeve (I tried, as a teenager); it requires a 50/50 sleeve construction (a bit old fashioned today) rather than the usual 60/40. It’s the same reason his DB suits are cut to button all buttons, as are even these soft 3 button coats (in a recent photo ahead of the opening of Canadian Parliament, HM is shown with all three buttons fastened, military style).
Thank you for the insights! Anderson & Sheppard told me that this suit is theirs. Perhaps this came before Steven Hitchcock started making suits for the King?
Those traits about the A&S lapel roll is something I admire about it. It seems genuine compared to certain other versions of it. The way it’s done on Daniel Craig’s Tom Ford suits is unnatural on such a stiff suit.
It’s *possible* but I would think it unlikely. (I am of course open to correction.) Not ascribing malicious intent here; I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the staff member in question just wasn’t familiar with other drape tailors, kind of like how the Bond guy at T&A’s NYC office assumed Roger Moore’s cocktail cuff shirts were T&A rather than Frank Foster.
It’s true that the lack of drape in modern A&S wouldn’t affect HM’s pattern because it was cut by Mr. Harvey (just like how Bruce Boyer’s coats still look A&S but new customers’ coats don’t), but I can’t really recall seeing him in single-breasted suits in his A&S days. Mahon and Deboise left in 1999 or so, and by 2001 Prince Charles had shifted his A&S-style custom to Steven Hitchcock, commissioning suits (including a dinner suit) and an overcoat. At the time he was still wearing double-breasted suits, and the Hitchcock commissions were so.
The photos I’d seen of him in single-breasted suits (again, excluding Scottish traditional dress) were those of him as a young man in John Kent coats cut like those of his father (who I did see in person and whose tailoring was impeccable). It wasn’t until far more recent suits that I started to see him in single breasted as an older man, and those were in the exact cut of his Steven Hitchcock suits.
I agree. I’d like to get a jacket from Mahon someday and it would either be double breasted or 3 button; a two-button wouldn’t show the unique qualities of the old A&S cut in the same way.
I reached out to Steven Hitchcock, and he confirmed that his father cut this suit at Anderson & Sheppard.
I came across photos of the King wearing a dark grey suit in a similar but different cut on a recent trip to Northern Ireland. I suspect this suit was made by Steven Hitchcock, as it’s much more his style. It has a little roping at the sleeve heads and a slightly stiffer structure with a more pronounced lapel roll. It has gauntlet cuffs too. Have a look: https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/39-photographs-of-charles-iii-of-great-britain-and-nis-visit-to-limavady-in-co-derry-5043668?page=2
Interesting that you feel that way, Matt. I see value to both kinds of lapel roll depending on how the rest of the suit is cut. The A&S way, which Mahon went into detail about, also includes the top buttonhole being sewn the traditional way instead of how Tom Ford does it. I think the latter works better as a definite roll to the second button on a more structured suit.
There you have it! Steven Hitchcock would know best.
The single-breasted suits that Le Chiffre shared look much different than the blue striped suit, and I suspect they must be the suits Steven Hitchcock has made. They certainly resemble his style. I’d even say they’re the kind of suits I’d choose to wear myself, resembling a softer version of Roger Moore’s Cyril Castle suits.
Excellent insight!
Thomas Mahon has done a video on how he constructs his 3-roll-2 jackets. The canvas is cut on the bias, giving the chest a certain amount of stretch. This causes the top button to naturally roll over rather than merely being a 2 button jacket with a non-functional buttonhole cut into the lapel.
https://youtu.be/Dr1zBTsTwHA?feature=shared
(One more point I forgot to mention in my previous comment: when Mahon and Deboise left, A&S switched to using a block pattern. That wouldn’t have necessarily affected a pre-existing customer like HRH who had a pattern already, but it might speak to other changes at the company that could cause customers to leave.)
A block pattern ; you mean a standard pattern they alter for the customer but they don’t create a new pattern from scratch ? It sounds like made to measure to me and not bespoke, but maybe I am wrong about what a block pattern means ?
No, a block pattern is just a starting point. At a bespoke operation, it will still result in a personal pattern. Many excellent bespoke tailors use block patterns.
However in the case of achieving the A&S look, A&S had a totally unique drafting system (still practiced by Mahon and Deboise) of basically drawing up the entire thing freehand from their impression of the customer, with some measuring tape at most.
The king’s suits are masterpieces of tailoring. Thank you for this article!
Matt,
With respect to the tailors with royal warrants mentioned, most of them are actually not for doing tailoring for the King himself but for other services to the royal household. For instance, Loake Shoemakers had a royal warrant from the Queen for providing shoes to the palace staff. I believe some of the military and other tailors listed as having warrants from HM King Charles are similarly for tailoring for staff and military units related to the Royal Household.
I do not believe that Meyer&Mortimer actually supplied tailoring to HM King Charles himself, rather their Royal Warrant relates to a veteran organization at Windsor Castle.
That’s right. Some of the warrants have some specificity, like Gieves & Hawkes is for ‘Outfitters and Livery & Military Tailors’ and Henry Poole is for ‘Livery Tailors’, suggesting that these are all for staff. Malcolm Plews is ‘Bespoke Military Tailors’ while Meyer & Mortimer is just ‘Military Tailors’, suggesting the former is the one who tailors the King. Samuel Brothers and Dege & Skinner just have royal warrants for ‘Tailors’ like Anderson & Sheppard have, but perhaps they just do military work as well.
The reason multiple tailors have warrants for military uniforms is that HM The King has positions in various regiments, in addition to his own service in the Royal Navy, and in many cases the uniform of a particular regiment is made specifically by one tailor. I remember this from when I was considering a military career myself.
The reason Malcolm Plews and Meyer & Mortimer have separate warrants is that Mr. Plews semi-retired to work from home, though he’d meet some clients at M&M (but with a strong tie to them, as Paul Munday considers Plews to be one of his main teachers), and then Paul Munday at M&M also got a warrant for making uniforms. Since Mr. Plews is an independent tailor and Mr. Munday is the head cutter/owner of M&M, his warrant is listed as the shop.
I hope that clarifies.
Thank you, that’s very helpful!
Kamal,
That is a great point about the fact that different tailors do the uniforms for different units. However, I do not believe that Meyer & Mortimer do any uniforms for the King himself. They have a very detailed page about their warrant on their website:
https://www.meyerandmortimer.com/royal-warrant
It makes clear that their warrant is for supplying uniforms to the Military Knights of Windsor. Things could have changed though. I will ask Paul when I see him in June.
Hi Brandon,
I think my two points got crossed. My impression is the same as yours. My point (re:M&M) was that Malcolm Plews was there and made HM’s uniforms, but since he was semi-independent, this necessitated another warrant for Paul Munday’s uniforms rather than both being made out to M&M as a firm.
And then yes different uniforms can come from different tailors.
The canvas cut on the bias also helps contribute to the 3-roll-2. Button stance in many English soft tailored suits. Great article.
I think the double breasted suits (mtm T&A apparently) king Charles used to wear looked much better and much more balanced on him. Here the jacket has an almost sack look. Both the king and Craig have too pronounced x on their jacket’s waist. Craig’s trousers are too tight and short, but the king’s seem to be sagging a bit. There’s no winner here… For such an obvious PR event, I would have expected the king to be better dressed. The medium blue shade of the suit doesn’t go well with the black shoes as well. Dark brown would have worked much better.
I was doing some research and found some examples of much better single breasted suits king Charles wore.
The first is a blue single button with roped sleeveheads, gauntlet cuffs, with more structure in the chest. Could it be by Steven Hitchcock ? I see we have some experts here, so I am all ears !
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/realestate/king-charles-condo-nyc.html
The second is a solid black/midnight blue 2-button that looks pretty flattering on him. Looks soft but still with a defined silhouette. Lapels have some belly. I saw him wearing a mid grey semi solid in the exact same cut, but couldn’t find the proper link. Anyway, maybe Anderson & Sheppard ?
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/09/king-charles-camilla-queen-consort-return-london-buckingham-palace-after-queen-elizabeth-death-first-national-address
The King used to wear double-breasted suits from both Anderson & Sheppard and Turnbull & Asser. They had very different cuts, noticeably in the shoulders, chest fullness and pocket placement. I don’t think the jacket here has a sack look at all. The pronounced fullness in the chest is quite the opposite. For the King, brown shoes are for the country. He wears black shoes with blue suits and burgundy shoes with grey suits. I quite like his approach. Burgundy shoes would go nicely with this suit, better than brown would.
I would guess that both of those suits are from Steven Hitchcock. The lighter blue suit especially looks like his style. Both are some of the best single-breasted suits the King has ever worn.
Yes, and HRH King Charles tend to wear blue ties with blue suits, and red ties with grey suits. For the last few years, the mid blue SB white chalk stripe suit seems to be a particular favorite, and he often matches it with blue Hermès ties featuring playful motifs , which I understand are gifts from the PoW’s children.
Why would black shoes not go with a blue suit?
I’m also not sure what would be inappropriate about the outfit for the occasion. It’s not an *actual* Royal Navy event that might call for uniform.
Kamal, it’s this particular shade of blue that I think didn’t mix well with black shoes. Nothing wrong with darker blues paired with black shoes though. If the King keeps brown shoes for his country suits and jackets, then burgundy would be much better here. Of course a lounge suit was perfectly appropriate for the occasion, but I thought this one wasn’t particularly flattering. I think the two examples I mentioned earlier are much better looking bespoke single breasted suits than this. They gave the King a much better, balanced silhouette. Any of his double breasted would probably have worked as well. This particular suit has rather narrow shoulders, combined with a full fit in chest and a rather large waistline, it almost gives a pear shaped look to its owner. He fortunately never looked like this in his double breasted suits, whatever the tailor was, or the single breasted suits I mentioned.
Le Chiffre, I agree about the cut of this particular coat, which probably comes down to the pattern system A&S was using at the time as opposed to his DB pattern which was by Colin Harvey.
However I disagree all the same that the black shoes are inappropriate. In fact I have a particular loathing at this point for mid-blue suits with brown shoes because that has become the default nowadays for young men who want to wear a suit, when the default should be navy/charcoal suit with black shoes.
I’m with Kamal on this. I’ve never seen a shade of blue that won’t go with black shoes, just as almost any shade of grey. There’s a reason why women’s dress shoes are often just plain black!
What does HRH mean?
His Royal Highness
Much like Edward VIII, King Charles is a great dresser but not much of a great person. Abolish the monarchy, I say.
I’d have to agree. The dress sense hasn’t been inherited; prince William always looks rather scruffy, I think
The brogues with a dinner jacket were pretty unfortunate.
We already tried that 150 years before your lot and decided after a while that the alternative was worse!
But it is wrong he is king so he is his majesty.
Royal highness is used for dukes or princes when their family are a ruling house
You are correct.
I used HRH in the past tense when referring to the commissions and uniforms he ordered while Prince of Wales.
Thanks Matt, very nice article and very informative discussion of HM’s suit, which I thoroughly enjoyed. If you ever run out of Bond clothing examples, I’d love to read similar well-researched articles on HM’s iconic attire – I’m thinking in particular of the light-colored, linen summer suit, which I’d love to read about from you. BR