An invitation carries more than a date. Black tie at eight in a ballroom and a four o'clock ceremony in a garden are two different garments, and the difference starts at the fabric.
A wedding
If you are the groom, decide the room before you decide the color. A church at noon, a rooftop at sunset and a hotel ballroom light a fabric three different ways, and the photographs last longer than the day does. Outdoors in Miami between May and October, weight matters more than shade.
If you are a guest, two conventions cover most of it. A tuxedo belongs after six, and nothing you wear should compete with the couple. Past that, a jacket is always correct.
The office
Miami has not dressed like New York for years. One navy, one grey, and a jacket that holds its shape without a tie will carry a week of meetings here. The jacket that gets worn is the one that works open collared at lunch and closed at four.
Black tie
A dinner jacket is not a dark suit with a bow tie. The lapel is faced in silk, the buttons are covered, the trouser carries a braid down the outside seam and has no belt loops. If the card says black tie, that is what it is asking for, and it is asking after six.
Cocktail
Cocktail is the invitation asking for a jacket without asking for a tuxedo. A dark suit, a silk pocket square, a tie if the room is formal. Overdressed is the easier mistake to correct here, because the tie comes off at the door.
Travel
A jacket for travel is chosen for how it looks after four hours in a bag. A high twist fabric recovers from creasing on its own, and less lining means less to crush.
And the heat
Most of what we cut here sits between 230 and 280 grams, and Miami is the reason: below that a fabric loses its shape, above it you feel the jacket in June. Where the fabrics come from covers the mills and what each one changes. Linen creases. That is what linen does, and a linen jacket that has never creased has never been worn.
All of it, for her
Women's tailoring is the same diary and the same address. The wardrobe here runs well past black tie: shirts, polos, denim, shoes and travel blazers, all cut to the same measurements, kept on file.
Tell us the date and the room. That is enough to start, and the first fitting is where we take the measurements.