April — August 2016

The cardigan is fully fashioned — made intricately, and pieced together like a tailored garment — and hand-framed — it is made on a small, hand-operated machine rather than a vast knitting automaton. (And a word on the shirt: a crisp, dry blend of cotton and linen, and imbued throughout with speck and slub.)
The SB2 jacket — that's SB as in single-breasted, and 2 as in two-buttons — is, for spring this year, made in an earthy linen from the north-west of Northern Ireland. It’s a pleasing sort of weight, and has a beguiling worn-in and world-weary quality. There’s a warm-grey version here, worn with standard trousers cut from the same cloth, and a super-soft (that’s a semi-technical term rather than a superlative) cotton crewneck in charcoal grey marle.
This is the dark navy edition of the same jacket — this time worn with a navy jumbo oxford shirt, and a dark navy cardigan (more of that super-soft cotton, this time knitted into a slightly heavier tuck-stitch). The SB2 jacket is very much your "casual jacket with a very soft lapel" jacket, rather than your all-out formal suit-type jacket.
The work jacket is a new arrival for the season, and is made in fittingly hard-working linen-cotton (or, since they're in equal proportion, cotton-linen) from Lancashire. It's a five-button number, with a stand collar, and vast seam-to-seam pockets sweeping across its front. It is here worn with a flyweight cotton crewneck.
To many people, a shirt is a shirt is a shirt. But here: no. This is SEHK-SH-09 and is the outcome of thinking about shirts in an unhealthy sort of manner since at least the time the first shirt was introduced here, back in 2009. It makes its debut here in a navy linen from a small, family-run mill that resides on the south coast of Ireland.
More of the hopsack cotton-linen introduced above — this time in a colour called "wheat", and cut into the shape of an overshirt. It is a happy combination: the clean drape of the one-piece raglan sleeve overshirt could be somewhat flimsy in the hands of the wrong cloth, but the hefty rigidity of the cotton-linen keeps it in line.
The raglan shirt worn here — with just a pair of spectacles on the left, and with a malt-colour hopsack worn jacket above and below — is made with a wide-herringbone linen from a mill on the south coast of Ireland. The sand-colour cloth brings character and a certain billowiness to a garment otherwise stark and simple.
Jackets don't come much more carefully conceived than the SB1. It has one button, which sits square in the middle of two oversized patch pockets, a chest pocket — which is aligned with both main button and aforementioned patch pockets — and a lapel which is dropped, peaked, and curved all in finely calibrated measure.

Worn erstwhile

    • March — September 2021
      The debuts of the duster, the smock, the DB, and the knitted t-shirt make a mockery of the notion that less (clothing) is more in the warmer weeks of the year.
    • October 2020 — February 2021
      Many old-stagers from autumns and winters past — the duffle coat, the balmacaan, the peacoat, and the donkey jacket — made returns in refined form.
    • April — September 2020
      From the poolside (the popover) to the coast (the boatneck) via the railroad (the engineer) — the only way to travel (literally) during a pandemic lockdown.
    • September 2019 — March 2020
      The tielocken and peacoat found their feet in new heavy woollens from the south and north respectively, while the balaclava, gansey and cooks jacket made their debut.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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.