Worn

Garments are made as and when — as and when cloth is available, as and when designs are ready, as and when weather turns. Since this page shows garments being worn, it too is updated as and when, steadily through the year.
The flight jacket is by some distance (an inch and five-eighths, give or take) shorter than any other jacket here at the workshop, but packed into it are at least half a dozen ideas, most of which are best filed under “simple to look at but devilish for all concerned to make”. None more so, indeed, than that there saddle shoulder.

You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but the car coat in Ventile Canvas has a removable liner — or “warmer”, as some have it — which buttons to interior of the coat. It is made with grey melton wool, this liner, and is lightly padded with the wool of (drumroll) British sheep. This plus that, then, makes for a fairly hardy winter coat.

Four metres of the heaviest cloth this side of Christendom, five sand-cast brass buckles, more buttons than anyone’s ever been able to confidently numerate — it’s a hefty thing, the trench. Indeed, there are coats more enveloping, but they tend to come only in white, and have sleeves a nice person ties together for you at the back.

The work jacket is short and casual, with five buttons, and made here in an oatmeal-looking melton wool. It has a stand collar — a Mao collar, sometimes called, or a Delhi collar, depending on your historical or geographical reference points — which starts about an inch high at the front, and rises gently around the back of the neck.

From the furthest reaches of God’s Own Country (as West Yorkshire is sometimes lauded) comes this shirting: a special trinity of cotton, linen, and wool. Miraculous cloth, all told — here in the colour known curiously as alabaster, but also available in an extremely dark blue — and just the ticket for the granddad shirt.

The lives of the wools of the polo shirt and trouser (above) went down very different paths from the second they were sheared. The former is a fluffy geelong lambswool, knitted into a warm tuck-stitch somewhere in the south-west; the latter is a long-staple yarn, woven into a sleek four-season suiting by a mill down in Somerset.

It is an disputable point of geographical fact that Donegal — where this here tweed was woven — and London — where this coat was cut, made, and trimmed — and the forest of Balmacaan — from where the coat gets its name — are all nice places. And here: all three together, in one coat, insouciantly dangling throat-tab and all.

It is an disputable point of geographical fact that Donegal — where this here tweed was woven — and London — where this coat was cut, made, and trimmed — and the forest of Balmacaan — from where the coat gets its name — are all nice places. And here: all three together, in one coat, insouciantly dangling throat-tab and all.

From the furthest reaches of God’s Own Country (as West Yorkshire is sometimes lauded) comes this shirting: a special trinity of cotton, linen, and wool. Miraculous cloth, all told — here in the colour known curiously as alabaster, but also available in an extremely dark blue — and just the ticket for the granddad shirt.

The work jacket is short and casual, with five buttons, and made here in an oatmeal-looking melton wool. It has a stand collar — a Mao collar, sometimes called, or a Delhi collar, depending on your historical or geographical reference points — which starts about an inch high at the front, and rises gently around the back of the neck.

The lives of the wools of the polo shirt and trouser (above) went down very different paths from the second they were sheared. The former is a fluffy geelong lambswool, knitted into a warm tuck-stitch somewhere in the south-west; the latter is a long-staple yarn, woven into a sleek four-season suiting by a mill down in Somerset.

The work jacket is short and casual, with five buttons, and made here in an oatmeal-looking melton wool. It has a stand collar — a Mao collar, sometimes called, or a Delhi collar, depending on your historical or geographical reference points — which starts about an inch high at the front, and rises gently around the back of the neck.

You wouldn’t know it to look at it, but the car coat in Ventile Canvas has a removable liner — or “warmer”, as some have it — which buttons to interior of the coat. It is made with grey melton wool, this liner, and is lightly padded with the wool of (drumroll) British sheep. This plus that, then, makes for a fairly hardy winter coat.

It is an disputable point of geographical fact that Donegal — where this here tweed was woven — and London — where this coat was cut, made, and trimmed — and the forest of Balmacaan — from where the coat gets its name — are all nice places. And here: all three together, in one coat, insouciantly dangling throat-tab and all.

The lives of the wools of the polo shirt and trouser (above) went down very different paths from the second they were sheared. The former is a fluffy geelong lambswool, knitted into a warm tuck-stitch somewhere in the south-west; the latter is a long-staple yarn, woven into a sleek four-season suiting by a mill down in Somerset.

It is an disputable point of geographical fact that Donegal — where this here tweed was woven — and London — where this coat was cut, made, and trimmed — and the forest of Balmacaan — from where the coat gets its name — are all nice places. And here: all three together, in one coat, insouciantly dangling throat-tab and all.

Worn erstwhile

    • July — September 2017
      New textures for what are quaintly called the warmer months of the year — like a two-ply birdseye, replicating cloth of the 1920s, and a Flyweight flavour of Ventile.
    • September 2016 — June 2017
      Angora, peccary leather, melton, cotton and linen with some wool mixed in, even some blanketing — a melting of materials for an unusually warm end to the year.
    • April — August 2016
      Texture, let it be known, is a quality tricky to come by in the warmer months, here in the British Isles. But look — hopsacks, tuck-stitches, and herringbones galore.
    • September 2015 — March 2016
      The heavy Donegal tweed balmacaan made its debut, as did the heavy duffle coat and, indeed, the heavy fur-felt hat. Lots of heavy things, then, for the colder months.
    • March — August 2015
      New linens came to the forefront: linen from the south coast of Ireland; linen hand-woven in the Outer Hebrides; linen knitted into crewnecks and cardigans.
    • September 2014 — February 2015
      Cloth development came thick and fast: yarn-dyed Ventile at the start of the period, and tweed made with organic and heritage fleece in the Inner Hebrides at the close.
    • January — August 2014
      Along came the SB1 jacket in hand-woven indigo cotton, the link-stitch crewneck and cardigan, the porkpie Ventile cotton hat, and a brace of cottons from Lancashire.
    • September — December 2013
      The cotton-twill trench coat rounded the year off, but before that came the peacoat and SB3 in Donegal's finest, as well as lambswool knitwear both heavy and light.
    • January — August 2013
      The first half of the year began with the three-button Tetris tweed blazer and concluded with an assortment of corduroy and cotton numbers — plus some shorts.
    • August — December 2012
      Heavyweight tuck-stitch jumpers, the wool-tweed peacoat made with the one-man-mill, and the debut of both the reversible jacket and the Ventile mac.
    • December 2011 — June 2012
      Early spring was met by the British Millerain dry-wax and cashmere mac, and kept busy with the linen suit, new tour jacket, and two-button neat jacket.
    • August — November 2011
      The last few months of 2011 witnessed the release of the chalkstripe-wool seam overshirt, the hopsack tweed neat jacket, and the birdseye wool-cashmere blazer.
    • February — May 2011
      Spring and early summer saw linen semi-cutaway shirts, the horizontal cord blazer, panama stowaway overshirts, and the cycle-friendly brushed cotton tour jacket.
    • September 2010 — January 2011
      The work jacket made a first appearance in French navy cotton-twill and charcoal wool-cashmere. And, on the knitwear front, Shetland Isle moss-stitch jumpers.
    • May — August 2010
      Five mostly interchangeable garments were made over the middle months of the year: two semi-cutaway shirts, two cotton-drill trousers, and a corduroy overshirt.