July — September 2017
The two-ply worsted of the new SB jacket and trouser is woven by an old mill in Somerset, using the most finely spun worsted yarn. It has all the attributes of linen with none of the drawbacks. It is also, charmingly, a replica of the same cloth the mill once wove back in the 1920s. They evidently had things good back then.

Truth be told, much of the time between, say, April and July — just when the release of new spring-time garments hits full stride — is often too warm to think about knitwear. But someone has to. Besides — this is only a three-ply cotton tuck-stitch. It's barely there. Ahem. More plausible is the quality of the crewneck. It is hand-framed in the south-west of the British Isles, by a troupe of knitters who have been doing so for more than a century.

A Sunday best, this, of corduroy and more corduroy. The slate-grey SB3 and standard trousers are made with middleweight cord from Lancashire. Below, meanwhile, can be seen one a granddad shirt — a pleasing shade called "pebble" — and pin-dot proper trousers, both made with linen woven near Belfast in Northern Ireland.


Introducing, here, new Ventile Flyweight. It is very much like good old Ventile cotton — which is to say, a miraculous rainproof — only so light its weight is on the back barely perceptible. Here it is in the form of the balmacaan: all one-piece sleeve, welted through-pockets, and collar so full it's really a wonder you can see any neck at all.
The overshirt, here, whose collar is very much like that of a shirt, but whose shape, proportion, and raglan sleeve steer it into “mid-weight jacket” territory. Here it is beaming with year-round readiness, in slate-grey cotton cord from Lancashire.
Nothing better than knowing all your checks line up — the checks of a fine glen-check linen from Northern Ireland at that. Apart from on the sleeves, of course. That can’t be helped, seeing as the shirt here has an easygoing raglan construction, with those sleeve-pieces cut “on the bias”, and so on trigonometric grounds precluding all and every effort at full check-alignment.


Made with much the same linen as the above-mentioned shirt are the trousers. Same mill, same yarn, but a different pattern — this one, a fine plain-weave, comprised of middling and dark blue. The cut of the trousers is the proper, with its side-tabs, tall back waistband, and durable French seams on both sides of both legs.

The work jacket is here in what's called working linen. It's a linen of middling weight from Northern Ireland, which even new has a slightly faded, worn-in way about it. It is worn here with a three-ply crewneck, over the top of a shirt, with a Kelly collar made with another Northern Ireland linen — a crisp grey, this time.


This crewneck has a saddle shoulder, which is in many ways the best of both worlds — the soft shoulder of a raglan, and the smart angles of an in-set. It has a three-ply body, a tuck-stitch, and a two-ply plain-stitch body. And the cuffs, as can be seen here, are longer than usual: they're intended to be turned back by the wearer.

They don't come much sturdier than the balmacaan in Ventile canvas. It is worn here with a rollneck — made from geelong lambswool and hand-framed in the south-west of the British Isles — and boasts a large Prussian collar complete with collar-latch, deep two-way welt pockets, and a clean and clinical one-piece raglan sleeve.

This here peacoat is a new development, with a clever "split-sleeve", postbox pockets, half cuffs, and a whopping great Ulster collar. It is made with triple-milled worsted overcoating from a mill in Somerset founded some 200 years ago. Its length is a little longer than the norm; you might also dub it a bridge or admiral coat.

The peccary leather gloves are entirely hand-stitched: an undertaking which takes about eight hours — what with all those fingers and thumbs to navigate. Best thought of as the Rolls-Royce of gloving, peccary, but that such venerable stuff — a symbol of true, olden-days luxury — comes from the hide of a small hairy forest hog is an irony not lost, even on the hog.

Worn erstwhile
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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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.