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Wool Suiting

Seeing the Light


Whether for a wedding, garden party or Royal Ascot, Chester Barrie’s designs for spring/summer 2017, presented at London Collections Men, will ensure its customers are impeccably dressed. 

According to Savile Row tailoring house Chester Barrie, the tailor’s art is to take a piece of cloth and create a three-dimensional form, bringing it to life so that it sculpts and flatters the wearer. For spring/summer 2017, that cloth is both lightweight and lightly coloured, with the house employing wool blends in a dandyish colour palette of ecru, mid blues, warm greys and pastel highlights. Given the warm season for which they’re designed, many of the jackets are half-lined, ensuring they not only maximise comfort but can be worn casually with fine knitwear or more formally with a shirt and tie.

At the more formal end of the spectrum, black tie options abound, but in innovative new forms. A bright blue dinner suit with an ottoman facing lapel is key to the new collection, providing a counterpoint to the tradition of black. Elsewhere, a double-breasted blazer is cut in an unabashedly British style, the six-button piece crafted from French navy wool in a nod to tradition 

Mitchell Oakley Smith is The Woolmark Company’s Global Content & Creative Manager. His writing has appeared in Architectural Digest, Belle, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview, The Australian and Vogue, and he is the author of five books on art, fashion and design.