Studio Nicholson Minos Pant

Linen is chosen for what it lets through, so coating it is a contradiction, and the reason to do it is the leg. A high-waisted, wide, pleated trouser lives or dies on whether the cloth can carry a line from the pleat to the floor. Untreated linen cannot. It softens through the day, the pleat becomes a suggestion, and by evening the trouser is describing the wearer rather than a shape. A coated linen keeps its edge. The surface takes a faint dry sheen instead of a matte one, the hand goes papery rather than soft, and the cloth stands very slightly away from the leg instead of falling onto it.

Everything else is drawn to suit that. The waist sits high, so the pleats open at the natural waist and have the whole leg to travel down. The pleats mean the volume is a decision rather than a size up. The front pockets are deep, which sounds like a small thing and is not: a shallow pocket on a wide trouser distorts the front panel every single time it is used, and the pleat is the first casualty. Soft bone is the color, warmer than white and a great deal easier to live with.

Why we selected it

A wide linen trouser usually looks its best in the first hour of the day. This one is built so that it does not, and the coating is the entire reason.

Wide, high-waisted trousers are the garment Studio Nicholson is best known for, and the Minos is that idea worked in a summer cloth.

Materials and construction

One hundred percent linen, coated. High waist, wide leg, pleated front, and deep front pockets. Color: Soft Bone.

Fit notes

It sits at the natural waist rather than on the hip, so take your usual waist size and let the leg do the rest. Coated cloth relaxes far less across a day than raw linen does, which is the point, and it means the trouser will feel the same at six as it did at nine. It still creases, but it creases in fewer, sharper folds than an untreated linen and it does not go limp.

Styling

With the Votan top, where spearmint against soft bone is the whole idea. Under the Dash jacket. With the Doublet bag in clay suede, which is close enough in tone to read as one decision rather than two. Flat shoes: a wide high-waisted trouser is already doing the work a heel would do.

Care

Treat the coating as the garment, because it is. Keep it away from a hot iron and a hot dryer, and tell a cleaner what it is before you leave it, since a finish is the part that can be lost and it does not come back. Our general care guidance has a section on coated cloth.

Related pieces

The Sonny Pant is the same width in an uncoated cotton and linen blend, and the Achille Dress is the dense cotton at floor length. Everything we carry from Studio Nicholson is listed together.