The English suit is famous for contributing a great deal to the world of tailoring and perhaps one of its greatest contributions has been the chalk stripe suit. It should not be confused with the classic pinstripe which remains the popular choice amongst stock brokers in London, with its finer lines.

The chalk stripe suit was popularised by Edward VIII and looks as striking today, as it did nearly one hundred years ago. It is often used for double breasted suits, but looks equally striking in a well-cut sharp single breasted suit. Henry Herbert Tailors make a variety of chalk stripe suits. We take  this traditional English pattern to create a striking suit – striking because of the cloths we use and the cut of the suit. The cloths come from the most exclusive mills from around the world and can be used to create some truly fabulous suits.

The silhouette of a suit is its outline. Tailored balance created from a canvas fitting allows a balanced silhouette so a jacket need not be buttoned and a garment is not too tight or too loose. A proper garment is shaped from the neck to the chest and shoulders to drape without wrinkles from tension. Shape is the essential part of tailoring that often takes hand work from the start. The two main cuts are 1) double breatsed suits, a conservative design with two vertical rows of buttons, spanned by a large overlap of the left and right sides; and 2) single-breasted suits, in which the sides just meet at the front down a single row of buttons.

Henry Herbert Tailors take the fabric to enhance the look of the suit by cutting a very fine looking shape and adding either a single-breasted or double-breasted finish to the jacket, complemented by a fancy coloured linings made by an English mill in Huddersfield, with pleated trousers and side button supports.

The chalk stripe suit is becoming ever more popular and is always a good cloth to think of to add variety to your wardrobe.