Editorial: The Casino Dress Code

When I shot The New Formal in Milan, the idea was to take the suit out of the office and give it back its glamour. The obvious next question was where that glamour still lives. The answer, as far as I can tell, is in about six rooms in the world, and most of them have a roulette wheel in them.

A casino is the last public place with a dress code anyone bothers to enforce, and the last place where being properly dressed is noticed rather than remarked upon. So I went back to the looks from the Milan shoot and asked myself which of them would get through the door of the Salle Blanche at the Casino de Monte-Carlo at eleven at night, which would be at home at a baccarat table in Macau, and which belong in a Las Vegas poker room where the dress code is "shoes".

Monte Carlo: the white double-breasted

The Berluti suit from Look 2 is the one. Off-white, double-breasted, worn with a white shirt open at the neck and no tie. Monte Carlo in summer forgives a lot, but it does not forgive black tie at the wrong hour, and the jacket-required rule in the private rooms is the only one that matters. A white suit says you have been here before. Add the Saint Laurent sunglasses only on the terrace, never inside, and leave the portfolio in the room. A man at a table with a briefcase looks like he is paying for something.

Macau: navy, sharp, nothing shiny

Macau is the opposite problem. The rooms are enormous, the lighting is unforgiving and the tables are serious. The Armani suit from Look 6, navy, single-breasted, with the Zegna shirt buttoned to the top and no pocket square, is what the high-stakes baccarat players actually wear, and they are the best-dressed men in the building. Shoes matter more than you think, because you will stand for hours. Fratelli Rossetti, polished, and nothing with a rubber sole.

Las Vegas: the jacket is optional, the attitude is not

Nobody will stop you in Las Vegas, which is exactly why you should dress. The DAKS jacket from Look 5 over the Prada shirt, trousers that fit, and the Gucci scarf left at home. A poker room is cold, the sessions are long and the people watching you are watching your hands, not your lapels. Dress for comfort first, but dress. The tourist in the hoodie is the one giving away his chips.

The rules, wherever you are

• Jacket in the private rooms, always. Even where it is not required, it is noticed.
• No sunglasses indoors unless you are at a poker table and you know exactly why you are wearing them.
• One watch, no bracelets. The hands are on show all night.
• Cash in a money clip, not a wallet. Nothing in the jacket pockets that ruins the line.
• Know your limit before you dress. The best-dressed man in the room is the one who leaves when he said he would.