Dear Mary | 11 October 2008

Q. Next week I will visit London where I have been invited to an exhibition in Cork Street by the artist Richard Foster. Since I understand he is one of the so-called Pinstripe Painters, I wonder if you can advise me whether it will be de rigueur to wear a pinstripe suit myself? I worry this may be thought bad taste in consideration of the current kerfuffle in the banking world.

A. Pinstripe suits have long been controversial items but the reality is that they are worn, not by bankers, but almost exclusively by estate agents and theatricals. Neither, misleadingly, are they worn by the ‘so-called Pinstripe Painters’ (who also include country house painters Julian Barrow and Edmund Fairfax-Lucy). Instead these men are known for their eschewing of paint-spattered smocks and jeans in favour of bespoke tailorings — although never pinstripe suits. Your confusion is understandable but, to give you some guidance; on the night in question Foster himself will be clad in a grey mohair suit with cloth from John Foster & Son of Queensbury, Yorkshire, knocked up for him by Barry Davis of South Kensington in 1987.