Nicholas Daley 3 Pocket Collared Cardigan

A cardigan cut in woven linen rather than knitted is not really a cardigan at all. It is a shirt jacket that has adopted the cardigan’s manners: buttoned the whole way down, soft in the shoulder, unstructured through the body, and pocketed for use rather than for line. Three patch pockets sit on the front, which is one more than a shirt carries and one fewer than a chore coat, and that is roughly where the garment sits between the two.

Linen is what makes it work. It is a stiff fibre that softens with wear instead of wearing out, it moves air better than anything else you can put on a body in July, and it creases in a way you either accept at the outset or you should not be buying linen. Made in England and worn open, this is a summer layer for people who do not want to give up having a jacket on.

Why we selected it

We took this in two cloths because it solves a real problem, which is what to put over a shirt in a Santa Fe summer when a jacket is too much and nothing at all is not enough. The tartan version and the plain blue one are the same garment making two quite different arguments.

Daley’s own tartans are designed rather than inherited, and the summer palette is where he takes the pattern furthest from its Highland origins.

The cloth

A tartan is a structure before it is a colour: bands of dyed yarn crossed at right angles so that the overlaps make a third shade at every intersection. Read in a summer palette and woven in linen rather than in wool, the same structure stops looking like heritage and starts looking like something closer to a madras or a picnic check. That is the trick here. The grid is unmistakably Scottish and the temperature of it is not.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent linen, made in England. Button-through front, three patch pockets, soft collar. Colour: Summer Tartan.

Fit notes

Cut to be worn open over a shirt or a tee rather than buttoned close, so it carries ease through the chest and shoulder. Linen has almost no recovery, which means it will relax across a day and return when it is washed and pressed. Take your usual size for wearing open. Size up only if you intend to layer a knit underneath.

Styling

Open over the Waffle Crew Neck in early summer, or over a plain shirt with the Wide Beach Short. The one thing to avoid is putting it with another pattern, because the tartan is already the loudest thing in any outfit it joins. Against plain oatmeal, navy, or black it is very good indeed.

Care

Wash linen cool and gently or have it cleaned, and dry it flat or on a line rather than in heat. Linen creases and is supposed to; pressing it flat every time defeats the fibre. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Three-Pocket Cardigan in blue is this garment in a plain linen. The Cargo Pant is cut from the same summer tartan, and the Wide Beach Short is the linen short underneath it. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.