Glen Urquhart Check Suit

Frank Sinatra

I'm reading along in Berlin Game and Giles Trent walks into the Kar Club wearing a Glen Urquhart check suit. 'Oh really',  I sneer with my little finger held in the air. Not really, I know beans about suits, had one once, wore it twice, but if you are going to be dropping names like that I'm going to look it up. My first impression was that it was from a particular tailor and was identifiable by the way it was cut, or fit, or something only someone who was in tune with that kind of crap would be able to identify. Turns out it's a name for particular style of fabric. I found a couple of web sites that go into stupefying detail about what it is and how it came to be, but it wasn't until I saw the photo of Frank (above) I snapped to what they were talking about. My dad wore suits that looked like that. Huh.