Nigel Cabourn Cricket Vest

The pocket is on the inside. That is worth sitting with for a moment, because a large patch pocket set at the inside waist is not a decorative decision and it is not a common one. An outside pocket on a vest sits where a jacket's pocket also sits, so the two compete and the outer one wins. An inside pocket does not compete with anything, it does not distort the front panel when it is loaded, and it puts whatever is in it against the body rather than swinging away from it. The cloth is one hundred percent linen, which is the right fiber for a sleeveless layer: it holds a shape without weight, it moves air rather than trapping it, and it has enough body that a vest cut from it does not collapse against a shirt. Made in Japan, in off-white.

The linen vest is a genuinely useful summer layer and it is almost never made properly, because it is a small garment that has to hold its own structure. This one does, and the inside pocket is the detail that told us somebody had thought about it.

Cabourn works in linen more than the military framing of the house would suggest, and the vest is where a light cloth has to do structural work.

One hundred percent linen. One large patch pocket at the inside waist. Made in Japan. The color is off-white.

Sizing runs 50 and 52 on the house's jacket scale, so it is cut to go over a shirt rather than against the skin. Linen has no recovery: it will crease where you fold it and stay creased until it is pressed, and across a day a linen vest softens rather than sagging.

Over the Open Collar Shirt or the French Pull-On Shirt, both of which are pale enough to sit under it without a hard line. With the Field Pant in army green, which is the other pure linen in the house's work and makes the pairing a cloth decision rather than a color one.

Cool wash or hand wash, dry flat or on a line, and press while damp. Linen is strong wet and tolerates washing better than its reputation suggests. Our care guidance covers linen and hemp in more detail.

The British Officer's Shirt is cotton woven as an oxford, and the Farmer Pant is a hemp herringbone twill. Everything we carry from Nigel Cabourn is listed together.