Every week we look through the Instagram pages of the menswear brands we follow. This week, two themes stood out.
Brown is everywhere
Brown was the colour of the week. Zegna showed a brown field jacket, and Suitsupply showed a light-brown double-breasted suit. Across many other pages, brown came in every shade, from deep chocolate and tobacco to camel and soft sand.
For a long time, there was an old British rule: “no brown in town”. Brown was for the countryside and the weekend, while the city meant navy and grey. That rule has all but disappeared. Brown now looks warm, relaxed and confident, and it suits autumn perfectly.
Brown is also easier to wear than many people think. A mid-brown suit looks great with a white or pale blue shirt, a cream roll-neck or even a denim shirt. It pairs well with brown suede shoes and with darker brown leather. Separates work too: a brown jacket with grey flannel trousers is a classic that never looks wrong.
Jackets that wear like a shirt
The second big theme was soft jackets. Many brands showed jackets with very little structure, no heavy padding in the shoulders and a light lining or none at all. The look is less like a stiff suit jacket and more like a shirt or a cardigan: easy, comfortable and quick to throw on.
This kind of jacket has deep roots in Italian tailoring, especially in Naples, where the hot climate led tailors to strip out as much weight as they could. Today it fits the way many of us dress for work: smart enough for a meeting, relaxed enough for dinner.
How to try both trends
If you want to try both ideas at once, a soft, unstructured jacket in a brown cloth is the perfect place to start. Think brown flannel, a brushed wool or even a corduroy, made with a natural shoulder and patch pockets. Wear it with open-necked shirts and knitwear, and you have a jacket for most of the year.
Book an appointment and we can talk you through cloths and shapes.
