Nigel Cabourn Field Pant

Almost everything on this trouser exists to solve a problem, and reading the list backwards tells you what the problems were. Elongated pockets are cut deep because a shallow pocket on a working trouser empties itself when the wearer bends. Reinforced back pockets carry the load a back pocket actually receives, which is the reason back pockets are the first thing to fail on any trouser ever made. A double-belted fastening holds a waist under weight without a single point of strain. Double pleats put ease into the hip and thigh so the leg can move without the trouser having to be cut wide everywhere. What makes it interesting is that all of this is executed in one hundred percent linen. A construction this heavy usually arrives in a cotton drill or a canvas, and linen is a fiber that most makers reserve for the opposite kind of garment. The combination gives you something genuinely uncommon: the pocket architecture of workwear in a cloth that moves air and weighs nothing. Made in Japan, in army green.

We are always looking for warm-weather trousers that are not compromises, and a linen with real workwear construction in it is the closest thing to a solution we have found. The reinforced back pockets are the detail that tells you it was designed by somebody who has worn out a pair.

Field and military kit is the largest strand in Cabourn's archive, and this trouser is that source translated into a summer cloth.

One hundred percent linen. Elongated pockets, reinforced back pockets, double-belted fastening, straight leg, double pleats. Made in Japan. The color is army green.

Double pleats put the ease at the hip rather than at the knee, so the leg reads straighter than the volume suggests. The double-belted waist gives real adjustment, which is useful because linen has no elasticity and will not accommodate you on its own. Sizing runs 30, 32, and 36 on a waist scale. Linen creases at the hip and behind the knee within an hour and it always will.

With the Cricket Vest, which is the same cloth in a different garment and makes the pairing a fabric decision. Under the Jeep Coat. With the French Pull-On Shirt in white for the plainest version.

Cool wash or hand wash, dry flat or on a line, and press while damp, which is when linen takes a crease and holds it. It is strong wet and tolerates washing well. Our care guidance covers linen and hemp in more detail.

The British Army Pant is cotton cut as a military trouser, and the Army Cargo Pants are cotton in a nano-pigment herringbone twill. Everything we carry from Nigel Cabourn is listed together.