While watching the incredibly moving funeral of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at St. George’s Chapel, I recalled the time I had the honour of Serving His Royal Highness at a private function. One particular memory of that day was when he was standing next to his son, HRH the Prince of Wales: both gentlemen looked absolutely immaculate in their Saville Row suits. However, when it came to the pocket square fold, they took a very different direction: the Duke with his customary presidential fold and the Prince with the traditional puff. As to which one has the most merit, a tailor once told me the secret is: the less contrived it looks, the better it is.

Ed: For more information on pocket squares.

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.

For those of us living in the Northern hemisphere, it is the start of Spring, and for those of us in household service, this means one key thing: Deep cleaning and readying our principals’ property for the Summer, generally known as “spring cleaning.”

You may not be aware that this age-old tradition began in Persia (now Iran), signaling the beginning of the Persian New Year and is a custom still followed today. It is referred to as “shaking the house,’’ wherein everything in the dwelling is cleaned, from curtains to carpet.

Later, in Europe and the US, spring cleaning was popularized as the arrival of warmer weather allowed people to open their windows in order to let out the dust and stale air, but before the temperatures rose enough for unwelcome insects of one stripe or another to proliferate and take the open windows as an invitation to invade the residence.

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.