Lavenham Blackwatch Mickfield Gilet

Black Watch is a government sett rather than a clan one. It was worn by the independent companies raised in the 1720s to police the Highlands, and then by the regiment that came to be called by the same name, and it is built almost entirely out of dark blue, dark green, and black. That darkness is why it still works on an outer garment three hundred years later: it reads as a color at ten feet and as a check at two, which is the whole difference between a tartan you can wear into a town and a tartan that wears you.

Wool over a quilted body is the traditional answer to a wet winter, and it still works because the two materials solve different halves of one problem. The wool takes the weather at the surface; the wadding behind it does the temperature. The Italian wool on this one is blended with polyester, which is the compromise that makes a tartan practical on an outer face rather than confined to a lining. The binding is organic cotton corduroy, and it decides how the whole thing reads, because cord at the edges is a country-clothing signal rather than a sporting one. Behind it, a two-inch quilted diamond, a lightweight wadding, two patch pockets, and a lining of recycled Lavenster. Made in Suffolk.

Why we selected it

A gilet is the layer that gets worn most and thought about least. We wanted one that was not made of nylon and did not look like it was on its way to a shoot, and a wool Blackwatch over a Suffolk quilt is the version of that we had been waiting for.

The quilted gilet is the garment Lavenham has made since it stopped making horse rugs, and this is that garment in somebody else’s cloth.

Materials and construction

Exterior: sixty-five percent Italian wool and thirty-five percent polyester, in Blackwatch. Wadding: one hundred percent polyester, lightweight. Lining: one hundred percent recycled Lavenster polyester. A two-inch quilted diamond pattern, two patch pockets, and organic cotton corduroy binding. Made in Suffolk. We do not hold a fastening type, a collar description, a measurement, or a weight for this piece, and we describe none of them. Note that “Italian” describes the wool and “Suffolk” describes the garment; those are two separate facts, and this piece answers them differently.

Fit notes

Sized on a numeric chest run rather than on small, medium, and large. The house describes the Mickfield as its outer gilet, meant to be worn in place of a jacket rather than beneath one, so size it over the heaviest thing you would actually wear underneath it. A gilet is the one garment where fit is entirely a question about what goes under it: too close and it cannot take a knit, too generous and it stops holding warmth against the body at all. Wool on the outer face has a little give across the back that a synthetic shell would not, and the quilted body has none.

Styling

Over a plain crewneck or a chambray shirt, where the tartan is the only pattern in play. Blackwatch is dark enough to sit against navy and against black, which is not true of every tartan and is a large part of why this one has never gone out of use. With cord or moleskin trousers, since the binding has already made that argument for you.

Care

Wool decides how this is cleaned even though it is not the only thing in it, so keep it out of a machine, out of a tumble dryer, and away from a hot iron, and have it cleaned rather than washed. Brush it rather than sponging it, and hang it somewhere with air around it after a wet day. Wool is also what moths want, and a quilted garment gives them somewhere to live, so store it clean and store it enclosed. Our care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Denham Jacket is the same two-inch diamond quilt in the house’s own Lavenster polyester, with sleeves, patch pockets, and press studs down the front. Everything we carry from Lavenham is listed together.