S.E.H Kelly

Nothing if not enveloping, the parka major. It has a big old hood, a very high neck, and a double-layered front — all of which serves to encase its wearer within the confines of several pounds of thick, heavy, and not even slightly pliant weatherproof cotton. More

It's a donkey jacket — but not as we know it. Respectful of the age-old workwear classic rather than deferent, this is a winter jacket with a whole-cut upper body, more pockets than one might expect, and a complementary combination of cloths warm and rainproof. More

It's a good 20 miles from the workshop to the sea, so while the gansey here can't proclaim to be rooted in nautical lore and legend, it does carry on a proud tradition here of hand-framed knits made with merino lambswool and expressly suited to landlubbin' livelihoods. More

The smock is an all-purpose pullover, with one foot in salty wind-battered maritime tradition, and the other in landlubbin' everyday life. It has an easy, relaxed shape — happily worn by itself, or like a protective workwear overall, over your shirt or sweater, say. More

The watch cap this year is brought to you by the letters T, E, X, another T, U, R, and then another E. It is knitted in the south-west of the Isles with geelong lambswool, which is a particularly fine and fluffy breed of merino, as is likewise this here gansey pullover. More

The peacoat and its preposterous collar are back once again, and once again in heavy woollen melton from the Heavy Woollen District of West Yorkshire. A reproduction of old military cloth, this — so faithful it's the very same mill making it, 200-plus years on. More

There is too much talk given to what corduroy means — whether "cloth of the king" or something to do with "roi" or a reference to a man called Curdroy — and not nearly enough to what it means to wear, which is soft and hard-wearing at the very same time. More

The polo shirt is a knitwear lexicographer's wildest dream. It is fully-fashioned, hand-framed, hand-linked, and knitted with super-fine geelong selected for the roundness of its handle. To everyone else, it's a warm, comfortable, many-purpose-serving sweater. More

More predictive of winter than the Gregorian Calendar and twice as wearable — yes, the heavy crewneck is back again in all its fluffy tuck-stitched lambswool glory. It is, as ever, ten-ply: barely a fraction below thermonuclear on the knitwear warmth-o-meter. More

The cloth from which the balmacaan is made is, yes, okay, brown — but it's so much more than that. It's a barleycorn tweed from County Donegal, alive with numberless, numerous, and beyond number little plump nuggets of wool, from chalk to red to chestnut. More

The trucker jacket has more of an American twang than most other things at the workshop because somehow road haulage and vehicular logistics personnel jacket didn't have the same ring to it. In any case, it is a short and casual jacket, made this time in Bedford cord. More

The DB is a double-breasted jacket of the lightly tailored variety, made in true and proper fashion but with an easy-going appearance. It has very little structure, see, so is soft and relaxed, and a world away from the traditional, barrel-chested DB jackets of yore. More

As overcoats go, the car coat is a short one, but true to the spirit of those great and dashing car coats of the mid-20th century, it is still plenty long enough to keep its wearer dry — along with their shirt and jacket — as they bound from car to office and back again. More

Greater than the sum of its parts, the duffle. Eight lengths of rope, four toggles — hand-turned horn ones, naturally — and about three metres of very heavy melton is all that goes into it. But that all-enveloping sense of wearing a blanket — can't measure that. More

This is the parka minor. Its name is relative to its all-enveloping older brother, but is somewhat misleading all the same — what with it being a coat of considerable proportions and packed to the gills with all sorts of old-school technical features and functions. More

Mid-layers — they don't come any more onomatopoeic than the popover. One second you're there, your top half a little exposed, and the next — a pop! an over! — you're ensconced within a meter and a half of the very best linen in all the Belfast Metropolitan Area. More

Go on — try to think of the last time you encountered a shirt made with linen heftier than what's known in these parts as linen pinpoint. Not easy. And its weight comes in useful — not only in being durable, but in clinging less and so letting air circulate all the more. More

The v-neck is a knitwear lexicographer's wildest dream. It is fully-fashioned, hand-framed, and hand-linked with super-fine geelong lambswool selected for roundness of handle. To normal folks, though, it is a versatile sweater made to the very highest of standards. More

The three-ply cotton tuck-stitch of the new polo shirt, here, is so slinky it can travel down a flight of steps end-over-end, as it stretches and re-forms itself with the aid of gravity and its own momentum. It is hand-framed in a bucolic south-west corner of the British Isles. More

There's no getting around the fact that the pyjama top isn't for bedtime at all, but rather a loose and louche wearable for when the sun comes out to play. No structure at all, see, and with an open collar and semi-raglan sleeve that couldn't be more relaxed if they tried. More

The most obvious thing about the engineer jacket is the one thing it doesn't have: a collar. Rather, it has an open, curved front, like what you might see on old engineer or railroad jackets, and a back-to-front construction like what you see on nothing, really, ever. More

Never mind Cancer and Capricorn — the worsted cloth here is tropical by virtue of its springy high-twist yarn and breathable open weave. That, and the fact it is woven in Somerset, equidistant exactly between the Tropics of Cameley and Cannington. More

Despite specialising in a narrow palette of murky colours for the past decade, the workshop sometimes plays host to what in the trade is referred to as a pop of colour. The field shirt — celestially phosphorescent next to everything else in here — is a new case in point. More

The boatneck has, of all things, a boatneck — which is like a crewneck, but higher at the front and wider at the sides. Rolled edges here and there, too, plus a dropped shoulder, and a bunch of inverted seams. And it is cotton, so pretty good to wear all the year round. More

Nothing heralds the height of summer in this part of east London quite like a knee-length raincoat. It's all very well being an optimist, but even better is an optimist with this: the light, breathable, but all the while nigh-bulletproof car coat in weatherproof ripstop. More

Time to roll up those sleeves and no mistake. For one thing, a spring that's unseasonably warm finds the workshop yard also unseasonably warm. On top of that, though, it's the business end of the season at the factory, with linen shirts aplenty rolling off the line. More

Linen suiting is, almost by definition, and certainly without much strenuous deduction, linen for suits. But you can also use it for shirts. What you get is this sort of thing — a robust, elegant shirt, significantly less crease-prone than linen that's run of the mill. More