Nicholas Daley Fonte Tailored Jacket

Wide lapels and patch pockets are the two details that place a jacket in time, and Daley has used both here deliberately. A narrow lapel reads as contemporary and slightly corporate. A wide one reads as the 1970s and, further back, as the 1930s, which are the two periods when tailoring was most confident about being generous. Patch pockets are the least formal pocket in tailoring, applied to the outside of the cloth rather than cut into it, and they are what keeps a jacket from turning into a suit coat that has lost its trousers.

Together with the linen they produce a jacket with no ceremony in it at all. Linen is a bast fibre from the flax stalk: strong, cool, almost entirely without stretch, and utterly committed to creasing. A linen jacket that has been worn looks worn, and there is no version of this garment that stays crisp through a day in July. That is the arrangement you accept when you buy linen tailoring, and the reward is that it is the only tailoring that is genuinely comfortable in heat, and that it improves in appearance as it loses its press rather than deteriorating.

Oatmeal and beige is the right colour for it, because the shade a linen jacket wants is the one that does not show what the fibre is doing.

Why we selected it

A summer jacket is the hardest thing in menswear to buy well, and most of what exists is either a suit coat in a lighter weight or a shapeless linen thing with no jacket in it at all. This is neither. It is properly cut, unstructured enough to wear in real heat, and it has the lapel to carry an evening. In Santa Fe that is a nine-month jacket, which is not true of linen tailoring in most places.

Nicholas Daley’s summer tailoring is the quiet end of a line better known for its checks and its outerwear, and it is where the cut can be judged without the cloth arguing.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent linen with a one hundred percent cotton trim. Made in England. Wide lapels, front patch pockets. Colour: Oatmeal and Beige.

Fit notes

Cut soft and easy, meant to hang from the shoulder rather than to hold the body. Linen has almost no recovery, so the jacket will relax through a day of wearing and return with pressing rather than by itself. It takes a shirt or a tee underneath comfortably. Do not size up expecting linen to shrink to fit; it will not.

We do not hold measurements and would rather you tried it on, or called us and let us measure the one in the store.

Styling

Over the Aloha Shirt with the 70’s Trouser in navy linen is the most complete summer outfit he makes. Over a plain tee with the Wide Beach Short for something considerably less formal. It carries the Wave Scarf well in the evening.

Care

Have it cleaned rather than washed, and press it while slightly damp on the reverse. Linen creases and is meant to; pressing it flat after every wearing works against the fibre and eventually against the jacket. Hang it on a shaped hanger and let it recover between outings. Our fabric care guidance covers the rest.

Related pieces

The Fonte Jacket is the same jacket in black wool. The 3 Pocket Collared Cardigan is the linen cardigan, the Wide Beach Short the short in the same oatmeal and beige, and the Aloha Shirt the shirt under it. Everything we carry from Nicholas Daley is listed together.