Worn

Sporting a bathrobe in public was once the preserve of the rich, eccentric, or unreasonably confident, but was put within the grasp of everyone else in 2019 with the debut of the tielocken. It has no buttons, but rather a multi-buckled belt making for one of the most intuitive and satisfying fastening systems imaginable.

The field shirt struggles to do anything in an orthodox manner. It has, for instance, a seamless, whole-cut upper body, massive pockets which run right into the front placket, and removable horn buttons. A panoply of alternative solutions rendered here in 27oz melton from West Yorkshire.

There’s no such word as “balmacaan’t”. What there is, though, is balmacaan, which is a coat named after a loch-laden forested region of Scotland. This one is made with tweed from County Donegal in Ireland, which with buttons from the Midlands and manufacturing in London make for a truly isle-trotting walking coat.

The tielocken here is made with woollen corduroy, which is what happens when the two best imaginable galaxies collide (in Somerset). It has an inverted pleat running almost the entirety of its considerable length, which unusually is made simply with a succession of origami-like folds rather than any additional pieces of cloth.

The knit above is the gansey: a new, eight-ply, tuck-stitched bruiser of a pullover, with a neck that’s half rollneck and half not. And the jacket here is the cooks jacket, which is not only double-breasted but also reversible, with one side a tough worsted canvas and the other a cosy moleskin. Reversible buttons, even, too.


The three metres of cloth that go into the peacoat are woven with worsted-spun yarn, and so have a striking lustre about them. No plain old melton, this, then. It is heavily milled, after weaving, too, so those fine strands of yarn are coaxed together to make an already dense proposition denser and denser and, yes, even denser still.

Worn erstwhile
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- March — August 2019
- The return of cotton airweave from east Lancashire, and a cloth from North Yorkshire that really puts the local into locally made two-ply tropical worsted.
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- November 2018 — February 2019
- The tielocken and parka joined the trench in the big-coats-with-belts aisle, while the bal returned in tweed from a mill whose loom was built by the local coffin-maker.
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- August — October 2018
- Weatherproof ripstop and tropical worsted, the debut of the field coat, and a cavalcade of cotton knits were the talk of the workshop in the warmer parts of 2018.
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- October 2017 — July 2018
- Heavyweight outerwear galore — with the old guard of trench coat, peacoat, duffle coat, and balmacaan, joined by the topcoat, donkey jacket, and flight jacket.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.