Shopping for duty free tailoring

Flickr: Hakan Dahlstrom

OK, here's an idea. I've done some business travelling recently and as such been in a few airports. One thing that occurred to me whilst doing all this was that it would have been good to know where the best Duty Free shops are so I could plan a bit before leaving. So, here's a brief summary of my recent notes - anyone wanting to add their own destinations and comments would be more than welcome. I'm excluding spirits and tobacco because that's not what this blog is about - of course all the usual duty free stuff is available.

London City Airport: Tiny as you'd expect from a small airport but a good selection of Boss shirts (not to my taste), Mont Blanc pens and accessories for the rich and I bought a nice Dunhill tie for my meeting (at which nobody wore ties so it's unworn). This was £62 as I was travelling just outside the EU.

Gatwick North Terminal: Under modernisation, sports gear, Harrods, Kurt Geiger shoes, no doubt there will be more as works progress.

Gatwick South Terminal: Fat Face, Boss, Kurt Geiger, several others - remember to check the retail prices outside the airport as many people have a perpetual sale on.

Heathrow T5: Vast shopping experience if you have the time, dominated by Harrods which has most of the designer brands you'd want - Hilfiger, Polo, just about everything. Also several designer shops opposite.

Copenhagen: Actually bigger than Heathrow T5. We're talking Boss, Polo Ralph Lauren, Burberry and Hermes with their own shops and a couple of menswear shops with a selection including LaCoste and others.

Luxembourg: Small but perfectly formed - as long as you like Boss and Lacoste in the menswear department. I was thinking about Polo Ralph Lauren shorts, the shape of which seems to sit OK on my body - and there were none.

Istanbul: Less of the clothing, just one or two shops, but an extensive selection of scent (as most of them have) and a Mont Blanc shop to go and drool over (I do like Mont Blanc pens, why the hell I can't develop cheaper tastes I don't know).

Milan Lenate: Are you kidding, it's Milan! Superb shirt shop caught my eye, if only I'd needed some shirts. Sadly I didn't. Also good shoes and suits - does anyone really buy suits duty free, though? Not easy to return goods I'd have thought.

Newcastle: Believe it or not you can buy duty free in internal flights, look, don't stare, I didn't know. Mostly sports gear and the usual drinks and stuff, but some nice watches at a better price than average.

Zurich: Curiously little in the tailoring department unless I walked straight past it whilst looking for my wife's cosmetics, which is entirely possible.

Please note this is not intended as a definitive guide - I wasn't specifically looking to write this entry when visiting most of these over the last 12 months or so, and may well have overlooked items. I'll welcome corrections and of course additions as comments and will add to and update this entry - leaving a note and link to say it's updated as and when.

So, what have you found recently on any business or pleasure travels whilst in the duty free shop?

Discounted tailoring for LifeOver35 readers

OK, back from holiday and I'm in a position to offer a 25% discount on tailoring. It's from Clements and Church and it's easy for you - just enter the promotional code CC76937235 during the checkout process online and they'll lop off twenty five pee in the pound for your first order.

Suits, jackets, ties, cufflinks, less formal stuff like denim and even umbrellas - they've offered this to LifeOver35 readers to celebrate (or market) the launch of their new e-commerce site.

I'm grateful for the offer and would be interested to hear how any readers get on. The offer is open until 14 May.

Declaration: just for clarity - LifeOver35 isn't getting a cut of this, there's literally nothing in this offer for us bar goodwill, we're highlighting it only because readers may be interested.

Body confidence: clothes that help

I’ve just been attending a conference at London’s Olympia, all about making communications work on technology. I know, it’s an exciting life. I sat through presentation after presentation and concluded, very quickly, that the shallow stuff matters. The worst presenters were the ones in the least well-fitted clothes.

OK, I’ll amend that. The worst was the guy who wore the ill fitting clothes then didn’t notice he was standing in front of his presentation so the audience couldn’t see it. But you get the idea. The more awkward the fit, the more awkward the manner. This is true of both sexes and it’s interesting to see how attitudes to what sort of body type ‘works’ in different historical contexts.

For the rest of this post please click this link for the Wizard Jeans blog where it appears.

Discounts on Smithfield Case

Yesterday I wrote about the success of the Smithfield Case personal shopping service. There was nothing to be gained for me in doing this, I was genuinely pleased to be recommending a service I found useful.

They took payment from my card as agreed - this really is an easy process - and sent me a discount code for anyone else who wants to try it. Feel free to order a case of clothes and add the code "CLAPPERTON-30" at the checkout and they'll give you £15 off your first selection.

This offer will expire on 7 April, and in the interests of full declaration I should say they'll give me a fiver for everyone who orders, up to a maximum of fifty quid. Once again I had no knowledge of this before the two previous blogs on the subject, which weren't written with any gain in mind - but I'd be daft not to mention this discount to you now.

If anyone else orders with them I'd be delighted to hear how you got on in the comments section below.

Genius or idiocy? The Smithfield Case

Just over a week ago I wrote about the Smithfield Box, this idea of ordering clothes from someone who'd choose them for you based on a few sizes and hints on your taste. Was it a good idea or plain crazy? Here's the blog entry and here's the service. As promised I tried it, and here's what I found.

I opted for smart casual clothes, set a budget, put my sizes and a few colour preferences in but deliberately left out the photo. Let's see what they send, I thought.

Signing up was painless. It took them a couple of days to get back to me but then they had to choose the clothes. There were, to be fair, a couple of stinkers - a Boss jacket that was too young on me as well as being too small (they'll replace mis-sized items of course; given that size varies from brand to brand it's no surprise that they allow a bit of leeway and occasionally send something that's large rather than XL as I asked, or XXL just in case). Loads of detailing on the pockets, not my taste at all. A Paul Smith floral shirt was marked XL but also had that appalling slogan "slim fit", and a pair of Paul Smith plimsols - I don't call those trainers - just didn't do anything for me.

Most of the clothes, though, were pretty damned good. I've kept a Polo Ralph Lauren cotton ribbed V-neck and would happily have helped myself to a zip top one as well if I hadn't found it cheaper on the House of Fraser website (Smithfield claims to be convenient, not the cheapest); a pair of brown chinos were not my usual colour but my wife assured me they looked great so they've gone into the wardrobe rather than the returns box, and a paid of Pied a Terre tan Chelsea boots were excellent - no way were they going back, until the tag on the back snapped. Smithfield is of course happy to replace them.

I'm sending a couple of Polo Ralph Lauren shirts back because they were in L rather than XL - it was worth checking - but also because I'm not short of shirts. Had I been in that market then the pink/red stripe shirt and the blue linen they sent would have done very well.

So on balance I'd have to quantify this as a resounding success. Friendly staff - I have a personal shopper called Beatrice on hand anytime I want to order again - no obligation and above all convenience. They delivered free on Saturday morning and collected yesterday evening at no extra charge - they'll simply debit my card with the value of the items I've kept.

I'm going on holiday in a few months' time and depending on what I find needs replacing in my summer wardrobe I'll certainly be in touch with these guys again. Aside from not getting the same discount I found elsewhere - which is absolutely not something they claim to offer - I can't think of a single drawback.

This is idiotic or brilliant...

I'm going to try a new service. It's called the Smithfield Case. In spite of its name it is nothing to do with a meat market in London. The idea is simple; you decide it's time you had some new clothes, the wardrobe's due for a refresh, so you order a case of them.

You can make specific requests of course but mostly the system seems geared towards blokes who can't be bothered signing up and hitting the "I'd like some decent clothes please" button. They deliver them, you try them on, decide what you like and what you don't. They pick the rest up and then charge you for the stuff you've kept. It sounds very simple, and of course you can specify stuff you like and stuff you don't - I've asked for "no jeans" for reasons that will become apparent very quickly to regular readers (he says, mysteriously).

They take your sizes, your preferences - I opted for "casual/weekend", ignored "edgy" for example - you say which colours you like and what styles you like wearing. You also set a budget and they're quite frank that the cheaper stuff isn't their market; anyone wanting trousers for under £75 will need to shop elsewhere.

So I'm just waiting for my first box to turn up. It might contain stuff from APC, Bertie, Diesel, Gant, Paul Smith, Reiss, many such designer brands.

Reasons I think it might work: I rarely have the time to go out and look at shops. And when I do I often find my wife has a better eye for what's going to suit me than I do. The convenience and the ability to ask her what she thinks at leisure could get me some very nice pieces.

Reasons I think it might not work: The idea of just getting "some clothes" bothers me a little. Many people will be a little more specific than that in their needs. Or a lot.

I'll let you know how I get on.

A shorts question

Flickr: Lululemon athletics

So I'm just considering buying a new pair or two of shorts for the summer - the waistband on the others has obviously shrunk in my drawer over the winter - and I see this Tweet from @iainmartin1, who says: "Gets worse every summer. The spread of the awful 3/4 length casual trouser for men continues."

I kind of know what he means. We rarely look terrific in shorts unless we're actually playing sport, in which case the redness of my face makes a welcome distraction from the leg area. Put on a few pounds and the tapering off into your ankle makes you look like a Weeble.

But I'm still going to get some, partly because I work from home so don't care, they don't bother the dog, and partly because of my sense of equality and natural justice. It's the summer, it's getting hot and I'm going to be sensible. This means it's that time of year when women are apparently around to trot around the place half naked and we men are expected to swelter, particularly in formal situations - in spite of the blog entry I did a while ago on suits for hot weather, there really isn't a way of looking smart without sweltering when the temperature goes up.

So I'm having cargo shorts and the hell with the fashionistas. Yes, they'd look better if they were on a younger man or someone slimmer (a lot of things would) and no, I won't wear them to meetings, I'll still be in suits for those. But at least - hopefully - I won't pass out in the heat or something ludicrous.

It could be worse. Those of us who grew up in the seventies will remember the old-style shorts as worn by footballers and tennis players - basically underpants with slight flaps. Given my current physique I can only think...yicch.