It's easy to re-interpret traditional tweeds to look city-slick through skilful cutting and styling. The natural shades of browns, greens and greys, in all their rich tones, can exude sophistication when worn as well-cut tailoring. Matching heritage cloth with craftsmanship and modern shapes can give you an anytime,anywhere look that is both timeless and contemporary.
So, there is good reason to be wearing tweed this spring. Having evolved from something for country pursuits due to its weather-resistant qualities, tweed is now a good choice for mid-season round-town dressing too. Start by having your bespoke tweed jacket or suit cut in a sharp and slim line silhouette (incidentally, properly sized clothes can literally help you shed weight visually) using a lightweight softer tweed spun with wool flannel or cashmere. 25% lighter and spun from finer yarns, the new tweeds are smoother to touch than the classics.
For spring select soft shades of light greys and light browns or tan in plaids or herringbones. Typically a Harris Tweed yarn can contain seven or eight different colours blended together that create a unique richness. Breanish Tweed, hand woven in the Outer Hebrides is the finest of lightweight tweeds and offer a 50/50 blend shetland/cashmere or perhaps look at Teviot tweed from another stand-out Scottish mill, Lovat Mill in Roxburghshire.
Breanish Tweed is a fourth generation family run business based on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. The talented Mr. Iain Finlay Macleod heads up the operation and comes from a family with a long weaving tradition, in fact both his parents are still involved in making Breanish Tweed. Iain popped in to see us at our Edinburgh showrooms just recently to deliver some new cloth bunches in between his visits to other customers as far and wide as New York, Vienna and Tokyo and his other job as an award winning creative writer for television and theatre.
Oscar Wilde once said "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative." but its still pretty cold so you'll forgive us for acknowledging that in the UK (particularly here in Scotland where snow fell on the Lothians on May 11th last year!) the first few months of the year are a changeover and it won't be balmy for a while yet. If you don't want to resort to a coat in spring, tweed can be a perfect solution and especially for those who prefer to dress up a bit rather than down.
Understated, versatile and easy-to-wear (so says Peter, and he's usually spot-on), tweed is equally fitting for odd jackets and suits. Team your tweed jacket with casual-bespoke chinos or flannel trousers and both are good paired with a shirt which is shades lighter or darker to keep things coordinated, or simple white to look fresh and stylish.
Our choice - a muted plaid three-piece suit worn with a simple plain white shirt and brogues or boots such as Crockett & Jones Clifford or Chukka.
