October 2017 — July 2018

Home — Worn — October 2017 — July 2018

The flight jacket is a beefy little number, packing into its diminutive form a couple of kilos of densely woven melton from Somerset and cotton sail-cloth from Scotland. It is perhaps most unique because of its saddle shoulder: something seen ordinarily in knitwear, bringing together the trusty lines of an inset sleeve with the over-shoulder drape of a raglan.

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 indisputable 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 heavy crewneck and scarf here are both with geelong lambswool, and are fairly bristling examples of the tuck-stitch. Multiple ends of thick lambswool and kneaded in and over each other, producing a dense, vaguely chainmail-like defence against the world outside. They're also expertly hand-framed and hand-linked.

The topcoat is made with tweed woven in the Mourne Mountains of Northern Ireland. It is a basketweave, and since the yarn is (a) smattered with all manner of monochrome nepps and burrs, (b) hand-twisted (c) woven on a loom assembled by the local coffin-maker, is quite unlike anything else woven in the British Isles.

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.