What I wore to Buckingham Palace (and what everyone else wore, too)
Plus, the last word on boat shoes, suede jackets and zhuzhy little cardigans...
Last week, King Charles III hosted the first ever garden party to celebrate the creative industries within the grounds of Buckingham Palace. I was fortunate enough to be invited, alongside at least 3,999 other people from the worlds of film, TV, theatre, radio and fashion.
There were many interesting things to note about the event - the clothes, most of all - but before I get to those, a quick run of show.
We arrived to a military band playing bouncy songs. We milled about for a bit whilst we ate cakes (most notably, a delicious coffee eclair). The King and Queen arrived at the steps of the palace and looked at us whilst we looked back at them, when finally Charles entered the crowd he did so surrounded by a battalion of Beefeaters to shake hands.
We weren’t allowed inside the Palace, being of the common persuasion, but we were permitted a free run of the gardens beyond the main lawn where the action took place. Fecund with rose, hydrangea and buddleia bushes, it felt surreal to imagine Victoria station with its buskers and Big Issue sellers beyond the boundary wall.
The question of what to wear weighed on my mind for a few days before the event. I knew I wanted to do a suit, but the weather looked changeable and the dress code was both specific and vague. It read “morning coat, lounge suit or uniform (no medals)”.
I didn’t want to wear a fully formal morning suit for fear of looking like a jockey-done-good, and my old school uniform might’ve looked strange, so I landed on “lounge suit”, despite the fact that I still, after 15 years of working in menswear, have no idea what the term actually means.
I tried on my beige silk double breasted number from Brunello Cucinelli, but somehow it felt too tight in the thigh (my tailoring persuasion these days leans more toward the roomy). I tried on my second hand Canali suit with eighties shoulders and a subtle scent of masculine must, but ultimately it looked too agro.
In the end, I alighted on a heavy blue twill single breasted suit with billowing trousers from Studio Nicholson which, despite the relative weight of the fabric, made me feel at ease (an increasingly essential quality of my clothes, the older I become) and looked sufficiently loungey.
I wore the suit with a vintage brown viscose shirt and a maroon silk tie from Turnbull & Asser. On my feet, a pair of stocking-like navy blue Mazarin socks with my favourite brown suede, splayed-toed loafers from Loewe. Across my eyes, a pair of large rectangular sunglasses from Cutler & Gross. I felt like an elongated Hobbit on his way to a wedding in Mordor and felt excellent for it. The roominess of the suit was smart without looking too eager or, indeed, deferential.
It was really my fellow guests who provided the most sartorial intrigue. The fashion people didn’t disappoint, of course - Jack Guinness wore a lovely tweed double breasted suit with a club tie, Laura Weir sported a beautiful ivory suit from Jil Sander, Katie Grand wore a floral embellished Prada dress with blazer, and Catherine Hayward wore a pistachio Versace two piece.
Henry Holland went for textured Labrum, Campbell Addy wore Issey Miyake and Margiela, whilst Conner Ives went the full hog in a morning suit from Hornets in Kensington. But the broad span of the creative industries included on the guest list meant that it wasn’t just fashion people dotting the lawn like designer-branded baubles.
The King and his courtiers looked fabulous, of course, in tails and silk top hats (I particularly enjoyed Charles’s baby pink waistcoat), and I was surprised by how great everyone else looked, too.
Sure, there were a few dodgy outfits (a wayward diarrhoea-hued winklepicker shoe here, a Birkenstock-sandal-with-a-suit there. Really), but generally people made an effort, whether they wore classic two-pieces or more complicated formal looks. It made me feel proud to be a part of the creative industry.
My favourite thing about the day was the fact that even the most too-cool-for-school fashion people really pulled the stops out for the royals, dressing to the nines and taking unashamed selfies with the Palace as a backdrop. The sheer untouchability of our hosts rendered all 4,000 invitees in the role of subject, which - perhaps conversley - created a warm, unexpectedly egalitarian mood.
What a stylish bunch of serfs we were.
Boat shoes make a bold return
I’ve been searching everywhere for man-sized versions of Miu Miu’s new boat shoes. Cut from burnished brown leather, finished with low slung soles and emblazoned with the brand’s now cultishly desirable logo, the shoes are everything I currently want from my summer footwear. Zhuzhy, elegant, preppy, but also strangely edgy - there’s literally nothing I wouldn’t wear them with.
In my (entirely unsuccessful) hunt for a size 46 take on a shoe which Miuccia Prada seems determined to reserve for women and dainty-hooved men only; I’ve discovered a host of different, ultra desirable boat shoes which feel less yacht-appropriate, and more correct for shuffling through the pages of a Tom Wolfe novel.
The original boat or deck shoes were designed by American designer Paul A. Sperry, who slashed into the soles of his moccasin loafers to enable him to walk on the surface of New England’s icey ponds. The shoes quickly became an Ivy League mainstay, worn by the WASPish likes of JFK and Paul Newman on their yachts or otherwise.
Today, deck shoes tend less to be worn on the decks of Sunseekers (not least because so few people own Sunseekers) and more with more casual outfits during longs hot summers in the Hamptons. For me, the best deck shoes right now are crafted from moody suedes and textured leathers and finished with tonal, dark soles (a massive no-no on actual yachts).
From the ultra-pliant suede styles at Swedish brand Samen Amel, to the low slung deck shoes-cum-socks at The Row and the ultra-pared back boat-ish styles at Miu Miu’s big brother brand Prada (which, alas, are not even a patch on the former brand’s originals), there’s something to suit most wardrobes.
Personally, I’m wearing my new Samen Amels with high-waisted, full-length, straight leg raw denim jeans from Bottega Veneta, plus a tailored blazer and roomy shirt from Studio Nicholson, Giorgio Armani, Our Legacy (obvs) or the like. There’s something both easy and overstated about the look, comfortable yet showy - like an aristocrat who chooses to drive a 20-year-old Volvo estate with rust around the wheel arches, despite the fact he owns half of Scotland.
The window for suede is open. Jump through!
In addition to a broad collection of glama-mules and oversized vintage blazers, I also have a wide array of suede jackets in varying shades of tan, sequestered away in my wardrobe.
There’s a corded deerskin piece from one of Kim Jones’s earlier collections for Louis Vuitton, there’s a studded Bottega Veneta one I picked up from the brand’s sample sale (when they still did sample sales) and there’s a button-front, seventies-style Dunhill one which is ever-so-slightly too small for me, but I can’t bring myself to part with.
There’s a double breasted Brunello Cucinelli one, and a slightly darker one -lined with sheepskin - from the same brand.
The truth is that despite the number of suede jackets I own, I often go entire years without wearing them, a) for fear of ruining them in the rain, b) for fear of getting too hot and sweating through them in an unsightly, creepy uncle-ish way which is the antithesis of the style’s low key summer chi-chi-ness, and c) for fear of getting too cold if the weather isn’t quite warm enough.
This year, however, I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and wear my suede jackets in this, the brief spring-into-summer window. It’s raining less, it’s not warm enough yet to induce sweat, and it’s cool enough in the mornings and evenings to warrant the wearing an outer layer made from the pelt of another animal.
If you fancy getting in on the suede train, too, above are a few of the best light suede jackets, from affordable to less so.
Oh, and if you’re looking for a spot of suede jacket styling inspiration, you could do worse then see Hugh Jackman in Logan, Brad Pitt in Allied or, of course, Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy (below).
(More) on Nana Cardigans
I was sent a question by a reader recently which I didn’t have space to answer in the most recent instalment of The Closet Questions.
“How do I wear a very sleek cashmere and merino ‘church lady’ style cardigan without looking like a little old woman?” Asked @deninathens.
For me, the key to wearing a nana cardigan (and, importantly, looking cool whilst doing so), is to team said knit with traditionally masculine garments - ideally those crafted from sharp-edged fabrics which keep their shape, such as denims, gabardines, twills, leathers and suedes.
A pastel nana knit teamed with an oversized blazer in a moody shade and a pair of jeans will look intentional and edgy, in a cottagecore kind of way. Likewise, a darker nanna knit worn with a closely tailored pinstripe suit will feel grungey and subversive (a pair of chisel-toed black boots will finish the look perfectly).
At the weekend, a nana knit worn with a white vest, some baggy jeans and a pair of caramel desert boots will give you Harry Styles vibes, and if you’re feeling brave, a nana knit worn with some crisp cotton boxer-style shorts and some fisherman sandals will be perfect in a Matt-Damon’s-Tom-Ripley-does-a-Miu-Miu-campaign, kind of way.
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