For Keeps

    I am not sure I could put a hard percentage to it, but there is little doubt: much of my interest in men’s clothing originates in the names.  Some are obvious portmanteaus; thornproof achieves what it claims because, as tweeds go, it is exceptionally densely woven.  There’s the vaguely French: covert cloth, where the “t” is silent, began life as riding and hunting cloth, but, with its marled two-tone effect, proved too handsome not to be fashioned into polished topcoats.  What about cavalry twill, which suggest mounted charges and smoke-filled officer’s quarters, or whipcord, which sounds as durable as it proves to be.  In among these I have long admired a cloth with a more complex suggestion: keeper’s tweed.  

    This is the original working tweed—the heavy and muted cloth reserved for a country estate’s gamekeeper and his staff.  There is no regulated weight range, although I would argue anything under seventeen ounces a yard, while durable and heavier than much of the ready-to-wear market, is just tweed.  Twenty ounces is a good starting point; twenty-four, better.  But weight alone does not make a keeper’s tweed.  The patterns tend to be far less elaborate as well, and the colors, while remarkably rich up close, resolve almost universally to either lovat, dark green or olive.  The lack of exuberance of a classic keeper’s tweed is a matter of camouflage.  But is blending into the fields and fens just as important as standing out from the shooting party itself?  Put another way, lilac overchecks and royal blue plaids might look dashing on the backs of those wielding the guns, but the serious business of managing land has only ever called for subtly and performance.  

    Of course few today seriously require either.  But the spirit of this historical cloth remains in books like W. Bill’s Keeper’s Collection.  I do not have a driven hunt in my future (as either a beater or a shooter).  I do, however, have dogs to walk and outdoor sports events to attend.  I also have a beloved pea coat that, after fifteen years of hard wear, has packed it in.  I suspect that with a few tweaks in design—perhaps a throat latch, slightly longer skirt and an action back—a sports jacket made of keeper’s tweed would be a sensible replacement.  This is a critical point; many fear heavy tweed for its heft and warmth.  But we do not similarly condemn our ordinary outerwear, and what is keeper’s tweed other than cloth for wearing outdoors?

Gray Area

Three lengths of cloth: two versatile and one downright irresponsible.  

    As far as I know, no one has seriously tried to document the various sub-species of clothing enthusiast.  And yet familiar categories exist—the sneaker obsessive, for instance, or the hard-boiled bespoke client.  Some groups are organized by things—those that collect and wear vintage clothing—whereas others more loosely gather  around a concept, like minimalism or, a crowd favorite, that which is deemed classic.  Lurking somewhere between all the limited-run tweed and fabled design is a small faction whose raison d’être is versatility.  I number myself in this curious group.  

    Oh to be a sneaker-head!  How satisfying it must be to chase the tangible!  Instead I snatch at an idea whose manifestations might seem harmless—a do-all blazer, the perfect flannel trouser—but require endless revision and numerous reissues.  How utterly self defeating; the repeated indulgence of versatility is admission that the premise is no more than a fable.  But ideas with compelling narratives can be dangerous things.   This is how the J. Peterman Catalogues found a following.  Who wouldn’t be drawn by the promise of a perfect travel jacket?

    My latest attempt at versatility was born in response to the success of an excellent brown herringbone tweed jacket.  Success is the slipperiest slope; if a thing is good, another, slightly different version must be better, no?  The brown tweed seems, indeed, versatile, and its limitations are purely theoretical.  Are the patch pockets too casual?  Or, is brown not a tad too brown for a night on the town?  And so a vision, foggy at first, appears.  Soon it focuses, and then hardens: a gray tweed odd jacket would be awfully versatile…

    For those less versed in the machinations that lead to this sort of an idea, permit me a brief explication of time, place, color, material and configuration.  An odd jacket (commonly sport coat) is a traditionally casual garment in that it is not a suit.  Of course any jacket these days is considered an attempt at dress.  Tweed is a casual, sports cloth that literally repels the elements but also figuratively repels associations with the worsted cloths of business or city clothing.  Gray, however, is what might be termed a business or city color.  Gray tweed, then, is somewhat of a chimera; a casual cloth in a downtown sort of palette.  The way in which a coat is styled also sends messages.  Patch pockets are rather casual, so on this coat, in an attempt to fine-tune that great unknown quantity, versatility, I’ve asked for standard flap pockets.  

    Versatility is less frightening an organizing principle when its faithful concede that everything, no matter how well conceived, has limitations.  Even the unicorns—the garments that perennially seem perfect—have one fatal flaw: a need to rest.  Rotation is the great slayer of versatility.  Perhaps this is why those of us who chase the notion can sleep at night; applied to a whole, say a wardrobe, versatility is a noble goal.

Light of Heart

    Porter & Harding's "Glorious Twelfth" is a book of 11 ounce worsted cloth made to suggest tweed.  I say suggest because non-woolen cloth at that weight will only ever be an imitation of the real ambling-through-the-gorse stuff.  The patterns and colors, however, are largely those of the country.  For some purists this is an uncomfortable compromise; Glorious Twelfth is neither fish-nor-fowl--and would certainly be helpless if confronted by either.

    The other way to view this collection: as ordinary worsted suiting with an array of unusual patterns and colors.  The trick here is to discern and ignore those with obvious country-lineage (the checks-on-light-grounds, for instance) focusing instead on the muted twills with tonal overchecks.  These would work for those occasions where navy and charcoal are too stiff, but a suit still feels right (school and informal religious functions come to mind).  

    If hearts are set on sport coats, the handful of busy little gun clubs seem to be a best bet.  I would think styling important here; skip-buttoning sleeves and patch pockets might emphasize the sporty nature of the cloth, but throat latches and belted backs might betray its light-weight, worsted heart.

An Odd Business

More patterns than sense.  

    I was sad to discover that I can no longer find an old photograph of my senior year English teacher--Dr. Bird, no less--who sits beaming from a rickety chair in our school’s cafeteria.  He wore a mustache and longish, albeit receding, hair better suited to a man half his age.  But his clothes always outshone his tonsorial habits.  Despite the years that have passed, I can recall the elements from that missing photo: a blue and white bengal striped shirt; a navy foulard bow tie, tied without precision; a burgundy sweater with a deep V; a pecan and cream checked odd jacket with rust overcheck; medium gray flannels; shoes of snuff suede with crepe soles.  This was dressing in odd elements at its finest, possessed of an elusive tension between propriety and indifference.

     I find myself dressed in casual separates more often than not too.  My odd jackets and odd trousers are made of the usual suspects: flannels and tweeds in cooler months; linen and cotton for our precious window of warmth.  I like to wear a jacket to casual dinners out, but wouldn’t hesitate to appear in flannel trousers and a lightweight sweater over an open-necked shirt to a family gathering, even on the holidays.  I suppose ease and practicality are the guiding principles, but it happens not without difficulty.

    There is a latent complexity when dressing in odd elements, the most obvious example of which might be pattern (or its absence).  Striped tailored garments do not work as separates because they shout business--a condition which defeats the premise of casual dress.  Checks do, although often awkwardly in combination, and solid worsteds are right out as their smooth and even surface belies their formality.  Eh... except for worsted trousers, but only those executed in mottled gray, and possibly olive; blue worsted trousers look orphaned from a suit (but can look dashing in cotton or linen).  And this is well before we broach the crucial matter of Fairisle.  

    Confounding--and enough to drive one to dress exclusively in the practical navy suit (and is likely why smart public figures, like politicians, usually do).  I admire the navy suit, but what a drab place it would be if there were no flannel, or, worse, tweed.  It becomes obvious that just as we require sombre hues and solids when we wish to convey seriousness, so too are patterns, color and texture necessary when leisure is the goal.  So how do we navigate more casual clothes?

    Questions like this leave the door open for rules and it is at this crossroads that we arrive at the counterintuitiveness of casual dress: it is far, far more challenging to do successfully than more formal correctness.  The options are many more than those proscribed by greater formality, but the line between dégagé and indignity remains terribly thin.  Put simply, the choices are infinite, the guidelines few, and error lurks freely.

    To my mind, masters of casual dress (like the inimitable Dr. Bird) operate by basic principles that, when applied in concert, create that covetable impression that survives long after photographs are lost.  My suspicion is these broad strokes concern texture, scale and color, but I would be flattered to hear what my knowledgeable readers have to say.  If there is interest, I’ll compile the results into a snappy post.

Flannel, tweed and a paisley pattern so large it would do equally well as drapes.

A Bone of Intention

   Despite the possibly limitless choice in checks, there are two types of men who might hope for something else.  The first is the man with two dozen checked odd jackets in varying scales from the demure to the frightening.  The world is his oyster, but he longs for still greater variety.  One can hardly commiserate.  The second and perhaps more interesting fellow has a tighter purse.  He has a modest collection of checked odd jackets--say three--in differing scales and colors.  He wears them often, and is confident only the pedant would take note of his rotation.  He is considering a fourth odd jacket, and while both louder and more subtle checks exist that would not go unworn, he resists in favor of versatility.  His choice?  The dark brown herringbone.

    The navy blazer of course is the classic useful jacket, and our fictitious gentleman may or may not already possess one, (although I’m not in the business of supplying the order in which someone ought to acquire what).  I have found though that the blazer, for all its famous utility, perches awkwardly between genres.  It’s often too formal for casual social activities, but usually when I wear mine to something where it would seem a sensible choice, I come away wishing I had worn a suit.  I suspect this has something to do with its collegiate and club associations, a sort of sub-genre where funny things happen to the rules of the masculine universe.

    By contrast, an odd jacket made of a dark brown herringbone seems capable of consistently striking the correct note.  It dresses up wonderfully with flannels and a woven tie, say in a deep burgundy, works more casually with corduroys and a knobbly navy knit tie, and, if you are into this sort of thing, will always seem at peace with little more than denim and a pale shirt.  The magic, I think, is that herringbone is one of those unique self-patterns that appears in both suiting and more casual cloth, seeming at once sporting and restrained.  

Brown with plenty of black, tan , grey, and possibly navy, olive, lavender…  

    Of course the key to this jacket must be the cloth.  If we assume a four-season climate, eliminating summer as an outlier, I find 12-14 ounce comfortable.  Texture is important too; it ought to have some, otherwise risk looking too suit-like.  Last, and perhaps most importantly, I think it should be quite dark.  Mine, pictured on a dummy below, is made from 14 ounce cheviot tweed.  It has a mottled, almost donegal effect, achieved by alternating flecked brown chevrons with black ones.  I’ll sidestep the classic debate as to whether black and brown can coexist by pointing to the resulting loveliness of the cloth.  The overall cast may be brown, but the black introduces a moody richness--the very quality that permits the jacket to be worn from day into the evening.  That’s important if practicality is the aim.  

    Finally, a word on just that.  Many would suggest the very premise of practicality is unsexy.  The line of thought might be that expensive clothing should be far removed from the ordinary, made from extravagant materials and in daring designs.  Practicality--that is, the idea that something is useful beyond its beauty--introduces a pedestrian quality at odds with glamour.   By contrast, I am suggesting practicality as the height of glamour.  Is the man who must check his bags for a three-day trip glamorous?  Indecisive, perhaps.  To return to our fictitious hero for a moment: a mid gray suit, three shirts, two ties, a pair of brown casual shoes, dark denim jeans and his new practical herringbone, makes three distinct outfits and fits easily into a carry-on.  There is swagger in packing light, and authority in confidently deploying items from that well-edited collection.

The brown herringbone jacket in question, photographed at the basted fitting stage.  The dummy nicely displays the jacket's shape.  The other dummy wishes he had a proper camera with him.  

Tweed Teaser

I find it helpful to look at cloth swatches during the appropriate season.  It's certainly too late to have anything made up for immediate wear, but what looks smashing in July might be frightening in the stark winter light.  The same holds true of viewing lightweight cloths during the height of summer.  Here is an abbreviated gallery of Porter & Harding's refined Glenroyal book (14 Oz.) and John G. Hardy's brutish Alsport ((16-22 Oz).