Pitti is a beautifully set-out trade fair full of brands I love, exhibiting on often lovely stands. But it is still a trade fair.

This is a place for sales and negotiation. Friends such as Mats at Trunk Clothiers, Will at A Suitable Wardrobe or Kirby at The Hanger Project are here to discuss stock for the coming season, and perhaps discover something new. This is not a place for journalists. There are more photographers taking ‘street shots’ than there are journalists covering what the brands are promoting for Autumn/Winter.

That is one of the reasons it is not easy to make new discoveries. The first question people ask is ‘how many stores do you have?’; tell them you’re a journalist and there is a frantic search for the PR. Most of the most pleasing aspects of being in Florence therefore were spending time with local producers (Stefano Bemer, Lorenzo Villoresi, Liverano & Liverano) and meeting people at Pitti that I had previously only talked to by phone or e-mail. Examples of these were Irish knitter Inis Meain, Italian knitter Fedeli and Italian trouser maker Rota.

Zanone’s knitwear in the Slowear building

Nigel Cabourne’s super-soft double-brushed tweed

Kiton continues its retro look, exhibiting only CIPA products

There is broader coverage of these brands and others on The Rake website. As of this month I am taking over editorship of the site, so expect some more regular coverage on bespoke experiences there as well as contributions from other Rake writers. And look out for the launch of the digital version of The Rake, for iPads, iPhones etc.

As for Pitti, my abiding memories will be of litres of free espresso in the press room, men preening themselves in the sun and the very odd experience of being tired and slightly bored surrounded by beautiful luxury menswear. A trade show is a trade show in the end, whether you’re selling cashmere or crankshafts.

Oh, and there was a very large pair of trousers.

Rake pieces here. Photography: Luke Carby.

When you approach the town of Wellington over a rolling Somerset hill, you are greeted by a row of chimneys silhouetted against the horizon. This is the outline of the old Fox Brothers facilities, which at its peak employed over 5000 people and pretty much was Wellington. Today most of the buildings lie empty or have been knocked down for modern flats. And Fox employs 24 people.

There is good news though. Last week the planning application went in for Fox to move its weaving operations, office and administration to the old, long weaving shed on the opposite side of the road. That’s gone unused for a while, but was only recently released by a developer who had wanted to build a series of bungalows. He didn’t realise he would have to divert a river to do so – the very river Fox used to dump indigo and all sorts of other horrible things into.

The weaving will now be next door to the old Counting House, which currently houses the Fox archive and The Merchant Fox operations. The latter was launched recently to promote other local crafts such as tanning and basket weaving – see post.

Most old manufacturers have a small, well-preserved archive that is primarily for visitors. Fox has more wool samples than it knows what to do with. When Douglas Cordeaux and Deborah Meaden took over Fox a couple of years ago, they found archive books and boards being stored in a skip. It is now slightly better off, piled in the attic above the Counting House. There are thousands of seasonal cloth collections here, some of them in paper packaging unopened for 100 years.

It is the oldest and most comprehensive cloth archive in the country. Brown gun-club checks with a bright green overcheck; olive and purple combinations that look as fresh as if they were woven yesterday.

In the archive room itself are customer ledgers for every period of the 20th Century, showing how tastes changed each decade and how little the weights did between seasons. Fox wove the first khaki cloth; it had the largest army contract of any textile manufacturer during WWI; it has been supplying Gieves & Hawkes, or Hawkes, constantly for over 100 years.

I’m sure I’ll write more about the actual weaving and finishing of Fox Flannel some other time. It’s an interesting story of trying to get the best out of both very old and very new machinery. In the meantime, I keep thinking what a field day menswear designers would have with the incredible range of cloth and pattern here. They’d have to work in the attic though.

I’ve had my first proper hat – the brown Voyager from Lock & Co written about here – for over a two years now and it’s been worn pretty intensively. Indeed, it could probably do with a re-blocking at some point. That will be a separate post in the future.

For the moment, I’m focused on what to do to expand the hat collection and so take some weight off the Voyager. It was bought deliberately because its soft construction and dark brown colour made it very versatile – good with both suits (if worn with brown shoes) and more casual clothes. Now it’s time to find two more hats, one more casual and one more formal.

Here I’m going to concentrate on the latter. Several things make a hat more formal. It tends to be made with a thicker felt, and therefore be harder. It tends to be lined, giving it structure internally. It tends to have a thicker ribbon. And it will tend to a broader brim.

Linings are pretty impractical as they are the first thing to wear through, but they certainly make for a smarter hat. A broader brim isn’t necessarily more formal but there is an association there – the original English trilby was the racing felt, and in these circumstances a horserace is not a formal event.

The Voyager is a thin, unlined felt with a thin ribbon and a relatively narrow brim. All these things make it easy to roll and travel with, as well as being more casual. I’m talking here only about trilbys and fedoras by the way – what most men would think of as a proper hat – and nothing more extravagant like a Homburg or a bowler.

With these things in mind, I went down to Lock & Co last week to browse through the options. The Chelsea is a lovely shape with quite a narrow brim (probably the closest thing here to an original racing felt) but quite square in the crown. The Madison is slightly broader in the brim but had too high a crown for me.

(You can tell how arbitrary the trilby/fedora distinction is by the fact that Lock classifies the Madison as a trilby and the Chelsea as a fedora, despite the latter’s brim being narrower.)

In the end, I chose the Borsalino. It has a noticeably broader brim than the Voyager and so is a departure for me, but I loved the shape elsewhere and the softness of the felt. Borsalino says it makes all its felt with wild rabbits rather than farmed ones.

I also considered a grey Voyager because I love the style so much, but with the addition of a broader ribbon – something Lock’s does cheaply and quickly.

A dark grey or black should be the default formal choice, rather than navy. Hats are more like shoes than suits in that way.

Just a short note on the Dalmore single malt whisky that inspired the latest Lodger shoe of the month - the Dalmore brogue. This is made in a lovely soft but remarkably durable deerskin - the antlers of the red deer being Dalmore’s logo. This in turn commemorates the quick thinking of a certain Mackenzie who, in 1263, saved King Alexander who was being attacked by a stag. Later, the Mackenzie family owned the distillery so adopted the antlers to acknowledge their celebrated ancestor.

All pretty tenuous one must admit but it makes for a pretty story, an attractive bottle and some very fine footwear so let’s not hear any complaints. And what about the whisky, I hear you cry.

Well, it’s a single malt, but with a difference. To make this Dalmore King Alexander III, Master Distiller Richard Paterson has selected a number of differently aged French wine casks, Madeira drums, Sherry butts, Marsala barrels, Port pipes and Bourbon barrels from Kentucky. A remarkable feat of blending.

It’s rewarding, complex and very much in the rich, sherried style we’ve come to associate with Dalmore. It’s smooth, well mannered and a good demonstration that while age matters it’s not everything in great whisky. Look for plums and chocolate on the nose and spice, coffee and Christmas cake on the palate. You could reasonably expect to pay around £125-£150 a bottle for this.

So sip it slowly, probably after dinner, while you put your feet up and admire your new shoes!