The Mayfair private members style guide: evening tailoring from Mount Street to Berkeley Square

Mayfair is small. You can walk from the Connaught on Carlos Place to the top of Berkeley Square in six minutes, and from there to Dover Street in four more. That compactness is the whole point of the district, and it is also the reason an evening here asks more of a wardrobe than almost anywhere else in London. Nobody goes home to change between the bar, the dining room and the club. What you put on at seven has to still be right at one in the morning, on a pavement outside a townhouse on Hertford Street, in a cab, in a lift.

The Le Privé styling desk spends a lot of its autumn in W1, partly because our members do and partly because the Farfetch partner boutiques along Mount Street and South Audley Street make it the easiest place in Europe to build a proper evening wardrobe in an afternoon. What follows is the route we actually walk, and what we wear to walk it.

The geography of a Mayfair night

Start on Mount Street. The row between Carlos Place and South Audley Street holds Céline, Loewe, Marc Jacobs and Balenciaga within a hundred metres of each other, and Scott's sits in the middle of it, which is why the pavement outside is the unofficial meeting point of the district. From there most evenings run east. Bruton Street and Bruton Place take you towards Berkeley Square, where the big houses on the west side have been members' clubs for decades. Annabel's is at number 46. Dover Street and Albemarle Street continue south towards Piccadilly, with the galleries and the Arts Club on the way.

The other axis is Shepherd Market and Hertford Street, the quieter pocket south of Curzon Street. This is where the smaller, newer rooms are, the ones with a brass plate at most. It is also the part of Mayfair where you will stand outside for a while waiting for a car, so the coat matters as much as what is under it.

Private dining: the jacket question

Every members' room in Mayfair has its own view on jackets, and the sensible approach is to assume one is expected. A dinner jacket in a dark wool or a dense black velvet does the work of three pieces: it is formal enough for a private dining room, relaxed enough with an open collar for a bar, and it reads as deliberate rather than corporate. Tom Ford's Shelton cut is the one the desk returns to because the shoulder is sharp without being padded and the lapel is wide enough to hold its own under candlelight.

Under it, keep the shirt simple. A black silk shirt or a fine-gauge knit in charcoal is more Mayfair than a white dress shirt, which can look like you have come from the office on Grosvenor Street. Trousers should be narrow at the hem and long enough to break once over a black leather loafer or a Chelsea boot. No trainers, however expensive. The rooms that allow them are not the rooms you are dressing for.

For women, the equivalent is a column rather than a dress with volume. A long black knit dress, a slim tuxedo trouser with a silk camisole, or a tailored black jumpsuit all move easily from a bar stool at the Connaught to a banquette at Isabel on Albemarle Street. Sheer black hosiery and a pointed pump are the finishing touches that the district still rewards.

Mayfair after dark is not about the newest thing. It is about the darkest, cleanest version of a thing you already own.

The coat is the outfit

Between October and March, your overcoat is seen more than anything else you are wearing. It is what people see when you arrive, when you cross Berkeley Square and when you leave. A single-breasted wool overcoat in black or deepest navy, cut to the knee or just below, is the piece the styling desk recommends first to any member building a London wardrobe. Saint Laurent's version has the long, lean line that suits the proportions of a Georgian doorway, and it layers over a dinner jacket without bunching at the shoulder.

Wear it open indoors if the room is cold, closed with the collar up on the walk down Hertford Street, and never with a scarf that competes with it. A plain cashmere scarf in the same colour as the coat, or no scarf at all.

Bags, jewellery and the things in your pockets

The bag for a Mayfair evening is small, structured and quiet. The Row's Margaux in its 15 size is large enough for a phone, a card case, keys and a lipstick, and small enough to sit on a dining chair without being noticed. It has no logo, which in this part of London is the point. Carry it in the hand, not on the shoulder, when you walk into a room.

Jewellery should follow the same rule. A single fine chain, a watch with a leather strap, one ring. The jewellers on Mount Street and Bond Street are a short walk away if you want to add something, and many of our members do, but the pieces that work in these rooms are the ones you forget you are wearing. Le Privé members tell us the same thing about the whole district: the best Mayfair evenings are the ones where nobody remembers what anyone wore, only that everyone looked right.

Where the evening ends

If you are staying in the district, the walk home is short. Claridge's on Brook Street, the Connaught on Carlos Place and the Beaumont on Balderton Street are all within ten minutes of Berkeley Square on foot, and that last walk is where the overcoat earns its keep again. If you are not, the cab rank outside the Dorchester on Park Lane runs late.

The Le Prive Network keeps a running list of the rooms, tables and boutiques our members rate in W1, and we update it through the season on leprive.net and on Instagram at @leprive.network. Everything on this page is available through our Farfetch partner boutiques, and the London boutique can usually arrange a same-week fitting for members who are in town for a few nights only. Dress for the whole evening, not the first hour of it, and Mayfair will take care of the rest.

These are independent editorial references, not a statement of partnership. No affiliate commission is earned through these links. Products, prices, availability, delivery and returns are confirmed by the retailer. Membership does not include the featured items.