Twenty-five years. Not one print repeated. And now, a first: Claudio Lugli has never made anything quite like this.
Meet the sleeveless jacket. Part tailored gilet, part extended waistcoat, wholly its own thing. It is the layer the British country wardrobe has been quietly missing, cut without sleeves so your arms stay free to mount a gun or take the reins, and made in pure printed cotton rather than the predictable tweed. The season opened on the first of October. This is what you wear for it.
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A new kind of country dress
For a hundred years the field uniform has been a settled thing: tweed, more tweed, a flash of tattersall if you were feeling bold. We looked at that and saw an opening. The sleeveless jacket keeps everything the country loves about a gilet, the warmth through the core, the freedom at the shoulder, the pockets where you want them, and hands it a print worth talking about. Worn open over a shirt at the peg, buttoned over a fine roll neck at the pub, it carries from the first drive to the last pint.
Prints drawn by hand, carried by no one else
This is the part no high-street country brand can touch. Every print in the collection is drawn in-house before a single panel is cut: a hunting-scene toile in the grand old manner, a tonal field paisley, a bold gun-club check, pheasants rising in full flight, a houndstooth scattered with game, a tonal study of gundogs at work, and a sharp plain jacket that hides a pheasant-print lining. Originality is the whole point. It always has been.
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The collection
Ten pieces. No two the same.
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How to wear it
Over a crisp white or tattersall shirt with cords, moleskins and brogues for a day in the field. Over a fine roll neck with dark denim for the drive home and the table after. The plain Estate jacket slips under a dinner jacket and behaves; Pheasants in Flight asks for nothing but a plain shirt and an audience. Keep the trousers quiet and let the jacket do the talking.
A word on the fit
These are cut close. The sleeveless jacket is made to hug the body, with a tailored line through the chest and midsection, for the man who likes a fitted finish. There is an element of stretch for comfort, but it stays deliberately fitted, so if you prefer a little more room, size up. The 40 and 42 in particular run very fitted.
The season is open
The sleeveless jacket collection is here now, in nine sizes from S to 6XL, drawn in London and made for the field, the racecourse, the long lunch and everything in between.
